The complete guide to TikTok influencer marketing

There are over 100,000 TikTok influencers in the United States across every industry and niche. No matter what your business promotes, you’ll find creators ready to amplify your brand message to engaged, targeted audiences.

Influencer marketing on TikTok drives measurable business results. It increases brand awareness, builds authentic trust and generates direct sales through the platform’s unique algorithm and engaged user base.

Throughout this article, we’ll discuss how to incorporate the TikTok platform into your influencer marketing strategy.

This article discusses how to incorporate the TikTok platform into your influencer marketing strategy.

What is TikTok influencer marketing?

TikTok influencer marketing means forming a strategic partnership between a brand and a content creator where the influencer produces authentic, engaging videos that promote products or services to their followers on TikTok. Unlike traditional advertising, these partnerships leverage the creator’s established audience trust and platform expertise to drive brand awareness, engagement and conversions through native content that feels genuine rather than promotional.

With TikTok influencer marketing, your influencer partners are the ones creating and sharing the content. This differs widely from traditional TikTok marketing strategies as those revolve around your brand and social media team creating and sharing its own content on your brand account.

While many brands do share the influencer videos on their own accounts as well, the goal of influencer marketing on TikTok is to spread the word about your brand by introducing it to your influencer partners’ audiences.

Why use TikTok influencer marketing?

TikTok influencer marketing delivers measurable influencer marketing ROI that justifies the investment. Here are three compelling reasons to integrate influencer partnerships into your TikTok strategy:

• Higher engagement rates: Influencer content generates authentic interactions that convert to brand followers and customers
• Direct sales impact: TikTok Shop integration creates seamless paths from discovery to purchase
• Enhanced brand authenticity: Creator partnerships build trust through genuine product endorsements

Improve brand engagement on TikTok

Influencers tend to have a much more engaged audience than brands do. This happens because people feel like they’re engaging with a person instead of a logo.

When an influencer talks about your product, their followers start talking about your product in the comments. This leads to them finding your brand on TikTok, interacting with your content and making a purchase.

Increase sales

Influencer marketing increases sales through social proof, showing potential customers that other people use and enjoy your product. This increases the likelihood that people will be interested in your product.

TikTok and TikTok Shop make it easy for influencers to lead customers to purchase your products. With #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt being such a popular meme, TikTok users expect to be influenced. Their wallets are already partially open every time they scroll.

Increase your brand’s authenticity on TikTok

Brand authenticity refers to how genuine or authentic customers believe your brand is. The influencers you partner with and the content they create surrounding your product or service increase your brand’s own authenticity.

Brand authenticity helps potential customers feel closer to a brand, fueling loyalty and retention. Keep this in mind when choosing your influencer partners so that you work with people whose messaging aligns with your brand mission.

TikTok influencer campaign types and strategies

Your TikTok influencer strategy must align with your business goals. You don’t just partner with creators; you build campaigns that drive specific outcomes.

Start by defining your objective. Are you trying to increase brand awareness, drive engagement or generate direct sales? Your goal dictates the campaign type you choose.

Campaign Type	Primary Goal	Content Formats	Key Metrics	Best For
Brand Awareness	Reach new audiences	Hashtag challenges, viral trends, brand introductions	Reach, impressions, video views	New product launches, brand introductions
Engagement	Build community	Duets, stitches, Q&As, giveaways	Likes, comments, shares, saves	Building brand loyalty, audience interaction
Conversion	Drive sales	Product reviews, tutorials, GRWM videos	Click-through rate, conversions, revenue	Direct sales, lead generation

Creator-made content consistently outperforms brand-created content on TikTok. TikTok sees 83% higher engagement rates with creator-made branded content compared to brand-made content, making influencer partnerships essential for brands serious about platform success.

How to find the right TikTok influencers for your brand

Finding the right influencers matters for more than brand authenticity. You need to work with influencers whose audience matches yours and who make sense to promote your brand.

Here are a few ways to help you discover the right TikTok influencers for your brand.

Determine your niche

What niche or industry is your business in? Determining your niche will be a major factor in finding the right influencers.

Fashion brand expanding into the UK? UK fashion influencers could be the answer. But on TikTok, it comes down to more than that—you also need to determine your subculture.

Subcultures are a major TikTok trend and help users find content they’re interested in. Subcultures tend to have their own hashtag and niche content, like #BookTok (for book lovers), #FoodTok (for recipe creators), #FitTok (for fitness enthusiasts), #FinTok (for finance content) or #MomsofTikTok (for parents).

Search for specific topics using keywords

For Gen Z, TikTok doubles as a search engine. In fact, 51% of Gen Z women head to TikTok over Google to make a search.

TikTok’s search feature is sophisticated. Input keywords or topics into TikTok’s search to find videos, users, sounds, TikTok Shops, live videos, places and hashtags related to those keywords.

Review trending hashtags

TikTok hashtags are a great way to discover trends. Discover popular hashtags to find influencers hopping on those trends.

First, keep an eye on your For You page. This is the best place to discover new content. Take a look at the hashtags being used and pay attention to recurring tags.

You can also tap the Search icon in your TikTok app. Find it at the top right corner of your screen. This is where you can search for your keywords and see trending topics.

 

Click on different topics under the “You may like” heading to see what types of videos are posted, the hashtags they’re using and if any influencers related to your business are talking about those topics.

Another option is to check out the TikTok Ads Creative Center. Here, you can head to Trends > Hashtags to see the top trending hashtags in your area, or globally.

Get info like the number of posts that have been made using that hashtag, the number of views the hashtag has gotten and a simple line chart showing how the hashtag is trending.

Use an influencer marketing tool

Influencer marketing tools can be extremely helpful for finding, reaching out to and partnering with influencers.  Many tools offer features that enable companies to reach out to these influencers, pay them and set up campaigns all through their marketplace.

Not to mention, if you want to amplify the success of your influencer marketing strategies, consider how AI influencer marketing is going to help you get there. Many influencer marketing tools have begun to integrate AI into their capabilities for the benefit of automation for influencer marketing workflows.

Speaking of! If you really want to revolutionize your influencer marketing with data-powered social intelligence, check out Sprout Social Influencer Marketing. Sprout Social empowers marketers to drive impactful influencer marketing strategies, enabling you to grow brand presence authentically, engage with new targeted audiences and generate revenue faster.

Check out influencers your competitors are partnering with

Look at the influencers who are working with your competitors. Do this by searching their brand name in the TikTok search feature and checking out the videos that appear in search results.

While you might not want to work with the exact same influencers—unless it’s clear the partnership is over—this gives you a good idea of the type of influencer who would work well for your campaign.

Work with an agency

Finally, consider working with an agency. TikTok influencer marketing agencies fully take over the entire process by finding the best influencers, drawing up contracts, handling creative assets and campaign details and putting together the final report.

Targeting or based in the UK? Discover the UK TikTok influencers who could be just right for your next campaign.

TikTok influencer marketing costs and budgeting

There’s no universal price tag for TikTok influencer marketing. Your investment depends entirely on your goals and the creators you partner with.

Several factors determine an influencer’s rates. These include their follower count, average engagement rate, content complexity and the usage rights you require for the content.

Common pricing structures

Common payment models include a flat fee per video, a payment per campaign or an affiliate structure where influencers earn a commission on sales. For the best ROI, you’ll build long-term partnerships that often come with better rates and produce more authentic content over time.

Maximizing your influencer marketing budget

Long-term relationships are as valuable to influencers as they are to brands. When audiences see consistent partnerships between a creator and your brand, trust deepens and conversions follow.

Consider starting with micro-influencers (10,000-100,000 followers) who often deliver higher engagement rates at lower costs. As you prove ROI, you can scale up to work with larger creators or expand your roster of micro-influencer partners.

Examples of brands using TikTok influencer marketing

Now that you know how to find the right influencers, let’s go over a few real-life TikTok influencer marketing examples. These can show you the type of end video you should expect from working with your influencers.

1. Aerie

Aerie is a clothing brand focusing on undergarments, loungewear and activewear. But their biggest focus is on inclusivity, ensuring people of all shapes and sizes have access to comfortable and well-fitting clothes.

Even clothes that are possible to put on one-handed, as we see in this influencer video below. Influencer Gemma Adby created a video showcasing how easy it is to put on this Aerie-designed bra with just one hand.

This particular video was actually created specifically for Aerie’s TikTok page. And while that’s one way to manage your influencer marketing, you may also want your influencers to share the content on their page to reach their own audiences.

2. Supergoop

Supergoop is an SPF/sunscreen-based skincare brand. This video below shows an influencer using one of their products while she gets ready.

And yes, while this does also live on the Supergoop website (why not turn your influencer content into user-generated content?), it originated on the influencer’s profile.

3. BEHR

Here’s a more traditional example of an influencer post from paint company BEHR. TikTok influencer Laura Whaley creates skits detailing the different people and personalities that work in a corporate office setting. Because that’s the kind of content that her audience expects from her, it makes sense to work an influencer post in with the same type of skit.

Here, we have a conversation between two of the characters in Laura’s skits where one character tells another the details about a BEHR sweepstakes, causing the other character to envision herself painting her house—using BEHR paint, of course.

This video fits seamlessly in with Laura’s regularly scheduled content, making it a great example of influencer content.

4. Lulus

Lulus is an online clothing company that worked with TikTok influencer Madison Humphrey to create a humorous video about going out. Lulus typically sells dresses and other more formal wear for events or nights out, so this piece of content fits perfectly.

Plus, they’ve also turned this video into an ad to reach an even wider audience on the platform.

5. Pair Eyewear

Pair Eyewear is an innovative glasses company that have created a pair of magnetic glasses so customers can easily snap on different glasses designs and change up their look. If you’re on TikTok, you likely have heard of Pair Eyewear, because their influencer marketing and advertising campaigns are extensive.

Here’s an example of a humorous video from one of their influencers, Dad Chats.

Pair Eyewear relies on both entertaining organic content from their influencers as well as promotional videos they can turn into ads through TikTok Promote.

How to measure TikTok influencer marketing ROI

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Proving the ROI of your TikTok influencer campaigns is non-negotiable. It justifies your budget and proves your team’s impact on the business.

Your metrics must match your goals. For awareness, track reach, views and impressions. For engagement, analyze likes, comments, shares and saves. For conversions, measure click-through rates, landing page visits and sales.

Track with precision

Use trackable links with UTM parameters and unique discount codes for each influencer. This gives you a clear line of sight from their content to your revenue.

Set up your tracking infrastructure before your campaign launches. Create unique URLs for each influencer using a link shortener that provides analytics. Pair these with influencer-specific discount codes that make attribution simple and accurate.

Measure beyond vanity metrics

Likes and views matter, but they don’t pay the bills. Focus on metrics that tie directly to business outcomes:

• Engagement rate: Calculate total engagements divided by impressions to measure content effectiveness
• Click-through rate: Track viewer actions after watching content to gauge interest and intent
• Conversion rate: Measure clicks that become customers—your primary success indicator
• Earned media value: Calculate equivalent paid advertising costs to justify influencer spend

Centralize your data

A comprehensive social media management platform centralizes this data, transforming scattered metrics into a clear story of business impact. Instead of juggling spreadsheets and pulling reports from multiple sources, you’ll have a single source of truth that connects influencer performance to business results.

With Sprout Social Influencer Marketing, you can:

• AI-powered discovery: Find the perfect creators using advanced search filters and Brand Fit Scores
• Campaign management: Streamline outreach, contracts and content approval in one platform
• Real-time analytics: Track ROI, engagement and conversions as campaigns unfold
• Executive reporting: Generate presentation-ready reports that prove influencer marketing valueGet started with TikTok influencer marketing

Best practices for TikTok influencer marketing success

A successful TikTok influencer campaign is more than just a transaction. It’s a partnership built on trust and creative alignment.

Follow these best practices to ensure your campaigns deliver results.

Give influencers creative freedom

Successful influencer partnerships balance brand requirements with creator authenticity. Here’s how to achieve that balance:

• Provide clear briefs: Share key messages, goals and must-have elements without dictating creative execution
• Trust their expertise: Influencers understand their audience better than anyone—let them apply that knowledge
• Avoid rigid scripts: Overly controlled content feels inauthentic and reduces engagement
• Review examples: Share successful campaign examples rather than detailed requirements

Prioritize long-term partnerships

One-off posts are fleeting. Long-term partnerships build deeper trust and authenticity.

When an influencer features your brand over time, their endorsement becomes more credible and their audience becomes more familiar with your products. Commit to relationships that extend beyond a single campaign.

Respect the 3-second rule

The 3-second rule means you must capture a viewer’s attention within the first three seconds of a video. On a fast-scrolling platform like TikTok, this is critical.

Your creative briefs should emphasize a strong, immediate hook to stop users from scrolling past. Work with your influencer partners to front-load the most compelling element of the content.

Disclose partnerships clearly

Transparency is mandatory. Ensure your influencer partners always use disclosure tags like #Ad or #Sponsored.

This isn’t just a legal requirement; it’s essential for maintaining the trust of their audience and your customers. Audiences understand that influencer marketing involves compensation. What they won’t tolerate is deception.

Repurpose influencer content

Your influencer content is a valuable asset. Repurpose it across your own social media platforms, in your email newsletters and on your website.

This extends the life of the content and maximizes the ROI of your initial investment. Negotiate usage rights upfront so you have the flexibility to amplify high-performing content across owned channels.

Get started with TikTok influencer marketing.

Want to get more out of your TikTok influencer marketing? Request a demo and learn more about how you can use Sprout Social Influencer Marketing to make your influencer marketing campaigns come to life.

TikTok Influencer Marketing FAQs

How long should TikTok influencer campaigns run?

Campaign length depends on your goals. A product launch might require a short burst of activity over a few weeks, while an always-on brand awareness strategy benefits from long-term partnerships that build credibility over months.

How do I ensure brand safety with TikTok influencers?

Ensure brand safety through rigorous vetting, clear contracts and the right tools. Review a potential partner’s past content for alignment with your brand values and use an influencer marketing platform with brand safety features to automate the detection of risky keywords or content.