TikTok shop or Contester? Choose the right platform for your affiliate channel
April 7, 2025TikTok shop or Contester? Choose the right platform for your affiliate channel
A deep dive into the reality of live commerce for affiliate marketers
Live shopping and shoppable videos have proven to be highly engaging and high-performing, with global sales through this medium nearing $1 trillion annually, an opportunity brand marketers cannot afford to overlook. However, it is important to get this right as there are many ways to use Live commerce and only a few ways to use it within the affiliate channels.
When it comes to using Liveshopping in the affiliate channel, we should see this as a multi-stakeholder process: 1- Brands, 2- Influencers, 3- live streaming technology 4-affiliate network
A Brand collaborates with its preferred influencer publisher, using live streaming technology, and the sales are tracked and commissioned via the affiliate network
Until a few years ago, it wasn’t possible to properly execute a liveshopping via an affiliate channel. But it has been changed, and now affiliate marketers have two options to choose from:
⚪ TikTok Shop officially launched in September 2023 with e.l.f. Cosmetics.
⚪ Contester officially launched in November 2023 with Nike and Awin.
In this article, you will gain a better understanding of each solution, with a bias toward why Contester may be an obvious choice for your brand.
What Did TikTok Change?
TikTok transformed social media with its short video format and endless scrolling. This time, it combines live shopping tech and an affiliate network to make TikTok Shop happen. Essentially, TikTok developed its affiliate network and fulfillment process to make TikTok posts shoppable with a seamless experience and payouts to the TikTok creators.
TikTok Shop, combining live shopping and Affiliate Network
What Did Contester Change?
Contester plugs into existing affiliate networks to make live shopping and shoppable videos happen within the affiliate channel. Encrypting a video campaign to an affiliate tracking link, video shopping journeys are displayed for the Influencers' followers, essentially bridging between social media and the brand's website.
Contester enabling live commerce on the major of affiliate networks
Can you use both? Yes. But there are a few things to know before you proceed:
1- Data reconciliation
TikTok Shop operates as a separate affiliate network
TikTok Shop operates as a separate affiliate network
As a separate network, the data coming from TikTok Shop wouldn’t reconcile with the data you have on your main affiliate network, tracking discrepancies may arise, and the customer touchpoints are limited to the TikTok data.
With Contester, all sales and customer journeys remain visible within your existing affiliate network, keeping all data consolidated in one place. Additionally, Contester provides first-party data on user behavior from your website, enhancing transparency in partnerships.
2- Advanced affiliate tools and features
TikTok Shop affiliate is optimized for social media
TikTok Shop affiliate is optimized for social media
While TikTok Shop functions as an affiliate network, it lacks the necessary tools found in dedicated affiliate platforms. When you have a program on a legitimate affiliate network, such as Awin, impact.com, Partnerize, Rakuten, Webgains, CJ or Tradedoubler, you have access to many features that have been built over decades to ensure you see the clear customer journeys and touchpoints, tiered commissioning, product level tracking, and many more tools and technologies that are essential for a longterm successful affiliate program.
Using Contester, you continue using all the available tools and technologies on your legitimate affiliate network, while we leverage our relationship with your networks to ensure the best practices and most innovative tools in the affiliate marketing.
3- Price and ROAS
TikTok Shop CPA is high and unpredictable
TikTok Shop CPA is high and unpredictable
TikTok Shop cost is relatively high and more importantly, unpredictable. Initially set at 5%, the CPA changed to 7%, and now fluctuates between 5% and 12%, depending on the product category, regardless of the CPA you agree with TikTok creators. This variability might stem from TikTok’s ad-driven business model.
With Contester, you pay your affiliate network and influencer partners as usual, with a fixed 3% CPA for technology, services, and strategy. The difference is significant to achieve a 2-4x higher ROAS. For many affiliate marketers and brands, every $ counts, the return on investment, and whether that could become an incremental channel where they pay less over time as a reliable sales channel.
4- Strategy
TikTok Shop enforces a single-channel strategy
TikTok Shop enforces a single-channel strategy
TikTok Shop is exclusive to TikTok, meaning it isn’t available on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch. That pushes you to follow a single channel strategy, while brand marketers learned over the years to go the opposite way and diversify the audience with an omnichannel approach. It simply means your efforts should pay off across channels with minimum risks. The same influencer might have buyers on her Instagram audience or their YouTube channel. This is about losing a huge potential and putting your longterm in the risk.
Contester omnichannel shopping journeys amplify your strategy to diverse channels and audiences to maximize the reach and performance, with promotional posts and livestream multicast across influencers' social channels, including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitch.
5- Brand match
TikTok shop is suitable for some brands, but not all
TikTok shop is suitable for some brands, but not all
TikTok Shop experience is well-suited for flash sales and certain products. You open up the affiliate for a channel where influencers sell all sorts of products with minimum accountability or an approval process. So if you are a brand or retailer that approves every single bit of your influencer marketing, or if you have high-value products that a one-click sale is not adding value to your customer journey, TikTok Shop might bring more harm to your brand than benefit.
Contester allows brands to tap into the power of social selling, including on TikTok, while maintaining full control over brand messaging. Contester shopping journeys are designed to bring a better narrative to your influencer marketing while bringing robust results and maximum transparency, suitable for a wide range of high-growth brands and retailers.
6- Shopping experience
Is TikTok Shop’s one-click purchase an ideal experience?
Is TikTok Shop’s one-click purchase an ideal experience?
E-commerce brands need to work on the buyers’ lifetime value LTV, knowing who the first-time buyer is, who the frequent buyer is, when your customer's birthday is, and all sorts of data that reduces the cost of acquisition over time and brings a sustainable and incremental growth. While TikTok Shop facilitates instant purchases, it may not contribute to a long-term customer journey. Purchases occur without interaction on your website, commissions are paid without distinguishing between first-time or repeat buyers, and the rapid buying process can lead to higher return rates.
When using Contester via your legitimate affiliate network, you stay aligned with your customers' data and lifetime value, while you provide a seamless experience that enhances your shopper’s journey with fewer returned items. The strategy with Contester is not to convert all the shoppers during the 40-minute live event, but the journey is designed as a campaign to maximize the reach, traceability, and sales over the campaign period as well as filtering out qualified buyers with an automated subscription model to work on their LTV in the long term.
For example, many brands offer a 10% discount for first-time shoppers. With Contester, influencers can redirect live viewers to a sign-up page before shopping, or guide them to read product details and return policies before purchasing, creating a more thoughtful and informed buyer journey. A modern and sustainable e-commerce is about education, accountability, and facilitating better purchase decisions. Elements that Contester enables but TikTok Shop does not.
Learn more on April 23rd Contester interactive webinar
Contester
Events
TikTok Shop VS Contester
interactive webinar
April 23rd, 2 pm UK time
Start Contester live commerce with a $30k transaction credit line
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