TikTok announced Tuesday it is investing in social commerce through a partnership with Canadian e-commerce platform, Shopify.
“Today, we’re announcing a first-of-its-kind commerce partnership with TikTok that brings the world’s leading destination for short form video to Shopify’s more than one million merchants. With the TikTok channel for Shopify, merchants can take advantage of TikTok’s global scale to reach new and engaged audiences,” Shopify said in a statement announcing the partnership.
The partnership will enable Shopify to reach a wider audience of younger people as it pushes for more sales. The e-commerce company has over 1 million merchants looking for customers and TikTok has the audience that fits in. The companies said the partnership will eventually expand to include other in-app shopping features.
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Under the deal, Shopify merchants are allowed to create, run and optimize their TikTok marketing campaigns directly from the Shopify dashboard by installing the new TikTok channel app from the Shopify App Store. Once installed, merchants will have access to the key functions from TikTok For Business Ads Manager at their disposal.
These ad tools allow merchants to create native, shareable content that turns their products into In-Feed video ads that will resonate with the TikTok community.
Merchants will be able to target their audiences across gender, age, user behavior, and video category, and then track the campaign’s performance over time. They select which product they would like to feature, and video ads are automatically generated that drive to their Shopify stores for checkout.
The campaigns’ costs will vary, based on the merchants own business objectives and how much they want to spend.
Shopify merchants are enabled to install or connect their TikTok pixel – a tool that helps them to easily track conversions driven by their TikTok ad campaigns.
Shopify’s Vice President of product, Satish Kanwar said that the new feature was previously made available to a select number of merchants as part of beta test. But as of Tuesday, Oct. 27, the product is being made available to all merchants across the U.S., and will be made available in other select markets throughout North America, Europe and Southeast Asia in early 2021.
Shopify and TikTok will also collaborate to test new commerce features over the coming months that will further empower merchants to expand their paid and organic reach in video and on profiles, according to the partnership statement.
“TikTok is one of the world’s fastest growing entertainment platforms with over 100 million highly engaged users in the U.S. alone. TikTok channel means Shopify merchants- even those without a strong TikTok following of their own yet – can connect with these new audiences using content that feels authentic and genuine to the TikTok experience,” Kanwar said in a statement about the new partnership.
In addition to launching the new TikTok channel, Shopify and TikTok have also partnered to showcase Black-owned businesses with the launch of TikTok’s first co-branded Hashtag Challenge plus – #ShopBlack.
The two partners did not provide the financial details of the deal.
The partnership came while Walmart is contemplating a move to TikTok’s platform to boost its advertising strategy. The retailer was looking at a deal that will draw it close to the short-video app’s young audience, but the political tension between China and the U.S. that TikTok got caught in, restrained Walmart.
Other potential partners are waiting on the outcome of the U.S. appeals court hearing billed for November 4. The hearing is to determine whether the U.S. government has the right to ban TikTok, a development TikTok said it would cripple its use in the United States.