The business world is becoming more reliant on digital. First-party data and competitive intelligence data provides for greater insight into the digital world. The following post uses TikTok as an example of using digital intelligence to help inform strategies, understand any competitive market you operate in and confidently make data-driven business decisions.
The TikTok Shop
TikTok shopping is very much starting to make noise across the globe, and I’m sure there are many retailers, digital marketers and eCommerce brands keeping a close eye on what’s happening with TikTok Shopping.
Google shared a statistic saying almost 40% of young people no longer “Google it,” instead, they rely on TikTok and Instagram for search. How will this impact various industries?
Take Australia’s online fashion and apparel industry as an example:
- Search is the most robust channel for customer acquisition in the fashion and apparel industry, with 54% of all traffic to websites within the fashion and apparel industry coming through paid and organic search.
- 55% of the fashion and apparel industry audience is aged between 18 to 34 (I assume the late ’20s to mid-’30s is classed as “young”?).
Based on these stats, combined with what Google shared suggests, customer behaviour will shift over the next while.
To try and get a sense of how soon this will happen, we took a closer look at TikTok, specifically at some exciting things that have been occurring within their app and website over the last 12 months.
Website Analysis
Across the globe, traffic to the shop.tiktok.com domain has been increasing dramatically, peaking in April 2022.
There is also a clear trend that TikTok is focusing its shop efforts on specific countries. The below data shows us the various countries driving traffic to shop.tiktok.com, with Indonesia leading the way. In the past few months, 42% of all traffic to the shop.tiktok.com domain comes from Indonesia; other trending countries include the Philippines & Thailand.
A glance at the digital channels driving traffic to the domain helps paint a clear picture of the strategy.
From January 2022 through to April 2022, TikTok invested in paid search, sending traffic directly to the shop domain, instead of other TikTok domains.
Some of the popular paid search terms sending the traffic were:
Soon after, referral traffic increased and there was a massive uptick in direct traffic around May. This suggests that they have used paid search to build traffic and awareness—most likely testing in a particular market.
Now, the TikTok shop is off to the racers, linking directly to shop.tiktok.com from the TikTok For Business section of their website.
But what about the app you ask? A great question.
TikTok Shop App
On the other side of the digital world, we are seeing various interesting tests being deployed within the app. In the past 60 days, Watchful has picked up on 43 App discoveries. 22 of these have been experiments, testing new features, UX changes and changes to direct the user to specific sections within the app, i.e. the shopping feed.
April 21, 2022, A new ‘Shop’ tab was added to the TikTok app search results page where the user can see all the products and their prices.
When a product is clicked, a product page opens. The user can minimize the product window and see the product video behind it, including a product name tag. The user can click the Seller username and navigate to their profile with a shopping bag icon of their shop.
The product window includes Retailer Policies, Shipping and Promotion offers as well as ‘Store’, ‘Chat’, ‘Add to Cart’, and ‘Buy Now’ buttons.
The user can scroll down to see the product description.
When buying the product, the user chooses the quantity and the shipping location enters their shipping
address information and selects their payment method.
Is TikTok Shop Here To Stay?
There are clearly big plans for the TikTok shop and the TikTok seller functionality. At the speed we see these developments, we expect this to make a significant dent in the holiday shopping period this year.
- Have you got a TikTok eCommerce strategy yet?
- Will you set up a TikTok shop?
- How will the TikTok shop convert into actual sales? Or, will we all just #TikTokWindowShop?
Digital intelligence such as this, albeit still high-level, can not be dismissed. Armed with these kinds of insights and more detailed analysis, your business can now confidently move forward.
Digital intelligence such as this, albeit still high-level, can not be dismissed. Armed with these kinds of insights and more detailed analysis, your business can now confidently move forward.
Boardroom conversations switch from “we think” to “we know.” Product and project teams can now ready themselves for the next sprint of work. The marketing department can confidently begin testing new creative and building assets to leverage a new and exciting channel: TikTok Shopping.
The above is an example of where digital and product intelligence fits into your business. Often digital intelligence is tangible, you can measure the direct impact of implementing competitive intelligence data. Sometimes it’s not directly accountable for an outcome, but it does play a major part in any business—informing strategy, saving time and helping to maximize budgets.
Why not get in touch to learn how digital inteligence can help grow your business.
