Guest Bio:
Saief Tissaoui is the founder of Volyat, a London-based TikTok Shop agency. He helps large DTC brands get started with TikTok Shop as well as coaching smaller companies on how they can best use the features of TikTok Shop to their advantage. Saief has been working with TikTok Shop since early 2024. He currently lives in Rome, Italy.
Episode Summary:
In this conversation, Moritz Schröder and Saief Tissaoui discuss the intricacies of TikTok Shop and social commerce, exploring its mechanics, user demographics, and the evolution of consumer trust. They delve into the impact of GMV Max on advertising strategies, the importance of content creation, and the comparison between TikTok Shop and Amazon. Saief shares insights on navigating TikTok Shop, the role of AI in content creation, and how brands can choose the right agency for their needs. The discussion concludes with a forward-looking perspective on the future of TikTok Shop and social commerce.
Main Takeaways:
- Social commerce allows brands to sell through trusted creators.
- TikTok Shop simplifies the purchasing process for users.
- The closed loop of TikTok Shop aids in accurate attribution.
- Consumer trust in TikTok Shop is improving over time.
- Brands need to adapt their strategies as TikTok evolves.
- GMV Max changes the way ads are run on TikTok.
- Content quality and volume are crucial for success.
- TikTok Shop and Amazon can complement each other.
- AI tools can enhance content creation and analysis.
- Choosing the right agency is vital for TikTok Shop success.
Full Transcript:
Moritz Schröder (00:01.391)
Saief really awesome that you decided to come on the podcast. I’m excited to speak to you. You run a successful TikTok agency. You’ve generated millions in GMV for your clients, for your customers. So there’s a lot of ground to cover and I love to dig into the details with you. But I also have people listening who are not as familiar with TikTok shop and social commerce as you and I am.
Saief (00:25.32)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (00:27.895)
So maybe you can start by explaining a little bit to how TikTok Shop actually works.
Saief (00:35.95)
Got you. First things first, pleasure to be here. Thanks for an invite. yeah, starting with TikTok Shop, generally speaking, maybe we would talk a little bit about the social commerce and then get it into the TikTok Shop. basically, to make things simple, social commerce is the ability for brands to sell their products through socials, through the creators and affiliates that are in the ecosystem, because people trust people. So that would be always a
a path or a channel for brands to use. And this is like the easiest explanation for social commerce and TikTok shop.
I would say they made it extremely simple and easy. So the way TikTok shop works is that you’re on your TikTok, you are browsing like any other person. And with TikTok shop, you will be able to see creators and affiliates who are talking about a certain product. You will see the ability to actually get into the product page, to purchase it and to get all the updates regarding your purchase all inside the platform. So you’re not even required to get outside of TikTok shop.
and go maybe into a website and have like that type of friction. So TikTok Shop makes it extremely simple, way straightforward to the customer and straightforward to the creators because they’ll be able to generate money from their end and also straightforward to companies, brands and agencies because everything is tracked very much correctly.
Moritz Schröder (02:07.566)
Okay, so that’s how TikTok shop essentially works. You have the possibility to, as a customer, never have to leave the app. You do discovery on the app. You have people that you trust and that you can rely on, make honest recommendations, and then you’re able to check out there. And on the affiliate side, you’re able to actually generate in a very transparent way, some revenue through affiliate.
Saief (02:25.85)
Exactly. Exactly.
Saief (02:34.778)
Exactly.
Moritz Schröder (02:36.587)
What was it that got you first interested in social commerce and later TikTok shop?
Saief (02:42.461)
Yeah, I mean, just for a context or reference before having Voliette and before being in the social commerce arena, I actually used to be a media buyer. So I worked a lot with meta ads, mostly meta ads with DTC companies for more than five years now. And I’ve got to see how there’s always the friction of
the attribution side and how usually it’s always easier for us. Let’s say, for instance, we run ads on Meta, whitelisting through other creators always has a higher conversion rate because you would see it from a creator, not necessarily from the brand directly. And obviously on that side, we used to do it and we see it performing better. And so when I got to hear about TikTok Shop, initially, honestly, I didn’t take much attention to it until I heard that it’s an entire closed loop where everything
is inside the platform. And that’s really what hooked me. I’m like, this is going to help so much because the closed loop is so good for brands for the attribution. Like on a media buying side, the attribution is always kind of a challenge because you wouldn’t really know specifically if the order came from Meta or came from Google or like what was exactly the process on the TikTok shop site. Everything is closed. And then on top of that, you would find that you are actually selling your products from creators.
directly. You don’t need to necessarily go through the tedious process of traditional affiliate marketing, where you would do a lot of work and you’re not even sure that that affiliate is actually bringing you the money on a 100 % attribution or not. This way it’s super simple, super straightforward. Detribution is great. The creators will be taking advantage of it and brands will be taking advantage of it. And eventually customers would
would really like it because TikTok shop is where trends come in. everything is built on something that has the trends. And so I was like, this is so cool. This is really, really cool. And I was like, this is going to be something big. I was not sure to what extent that’s going to be in terms of like speed. I would say I’m very happy with how things are. And I am assuming that TikTok shop is going to get bigger and bigger over these years.
Moritz Schröder (05:08.92)
And what year was that that you first got interested and were you an avid TikTok user before that or was it a purely professional interest in TikTok that you developed?
Saief (05:18.12)
Yeah, that’s a good question. So first, basically, I got to know it on early 2024. as you know, TikTok Shop in the US specifically was in November 2023. So I would say after four months, that is where I got to know more about TikTok Shop and get all in. was, this is it. Like we need to focus our efforts there. We need to put all our energy in that direction. Obviously at that period, we still are not sure if TikTok Shop is going to stay or
not. Thankfully, now everything is settled. As for myself, to be honest with you, I’m a bit older in terms of demographics, so I’m not an avid user myself. My team is, so I tend to get to see the differences even in terms of generations. But then eventually, I would say here, even for brands that are not too avid with the platform,
Maybe the founders are not too much using the shop. Eventually, it’s about system. If you put the right system and you put the people that understand how TikTok Shop works, it would work.
Obviously, the more you know the platform as a user yourself, the better. So it’s always even better to have someone. But then eventually what’s like the foundational element is actually having systems and having structure in place.
Moritz Schröder (06:45.173)
You make me feel really old that I’m on TikTok, even though mostly for professional interests, I’m 37. And I definitely feel like I’m a little bit out of the target demographic there. Just out of curiosity, the people from the brands that then approach you, are those like the typical 22 year old straight out of college marketing manager, or is it also older people now that are catching onto this TikTok shop trend?
Saief (06:52.848)
Yeah.
Saief (07:11.432)
We’re talking here about the brands, right? No, actually not. You would be surprised, honestly. I’m getting to see like most, I would say 80 % of even more, mean, of our clients are…
Moritz Schröder (07:15.496)
Yeah, exactly.
Saief (07:27.632)
I would say in the forties, fifties. So no, definitely like they are more open now to TikTok shop. It’s been like a, an uphill battle for brands to get to open up about this. And I would also get to say that, TikTok shops demographic, we have like this information that TikTok shop is for Gen Z and most of the demographic is there, which has truth in it, but it’s things are really, really, really changing. you would be surprised, but my grandma is using the
Moritz Schröder (07:30.346)
Okay.
Saief (07:57.518)
So my father as well, and he’s in his 60s. So that is to tell you that the platform is really maturing and it’s growing quite well.
I would say for instance, we do have a brand that is like as of this week generating 50K. So around the 200, maybe a little bit more that their demographics in their forties either way. it’s not, it’s not like specifically for the Gen Z as of now, the platform is getting more open to different people.
Moritz Schröder (08:32.499)
I think that’s super interesting because that seems to always be the curve of development, right? You have the very early adopters and especially when comes to things social media related, it tends to be like the young people. But if then you have people in their 30s, 40s, and even above that using the services and not just the TikTok app to scroll through, but then to actually purchase things from there, I think that opens up this.
Saief (08:45.256)
Yeah.
Saief (08:56.104)
Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (08:59.26)
opportunity to such a wider demographic than just the 20 year old.
Saief (09:04.776)
So.
And they would like to add that it’s getting better from like every single day that passes, things will be better. so brands that are positioning themselves now would make it like, would have it even easier compared to other brands that maybe are in the late adopters type of brands, et cetera, because now it’s already opened as you have just said, Maurice, but, but it’s getting better. the sooner you get there, I would say like the best time is yesterday, but then the second best time is today.
Moritz Schröder (09:36.756)
think one of the concerns that I frequently hear from, especially maybe people who are a little bit older, is that they hear TikTok shop can be a scam. They might experience something personally or just hear from other people indirectly that they might’ve bought something and then never received it or it was not like it was advertised. Can you speak a little bit to your experience there? I’m sure it’s none of your clients, but maybe from the industry as a whole.
Saief (10:02.952)
Yeah, that’s a very good point. And I would definitely understand where it’s coming from. There is some truth into it, especially like when TikTok Shop started and it’s normal. Like TikTok Shop is being super successful and the barrier to entry is super easy. So initially, I would say any type of brand and I wouldn’t even name it a brand, maybe dropshipping people getting there and having the bad experience. But actually, no, I would have to argue that things are way better compared to
how TikTok Shop started now. And the reason being first is TikTok Shop is getting tougher and stricter and we get to see always the different types of policies that they add. I would have to tell you, like, if you don’t follow the TikTok Shop rules and make sure that you are a good brand there, they will simply suspend you. And this is by the way, why for any brand that is serious about TikTok Shop, you always need to have someone who understands how things work. And so even though that that type of strictness that
into the market, the fact that many brands, like legitimate brands are actually coming in, it’s moving the tide to the other direction, to the actual better brands in place. That obviously made it a bit harder even like to go to be successful on TikTok shop. Maybe that’s another topic we can discuss. But that’s actually a good type of hard, like the actual legitimate brands will have more chances compared to like these kind of dropshipping things. So long story short here is that
The concerns are fair, especially maybe at first, but not to the point where people are afraid. The majority now of TikTok shop is actually really great. I’ve never in the last, I don’t know, like last three months, saw any, obviously our clients are always good, but like I never also saw a specific negative challenge outside of our clients where it’s scamming or something like that. Definitely not the case now.
Moritz Schröder (12:03.123)
So you would say that as a consumer, can trust TikTok shop and you can trust TikTok as a company to make sure that scammers are not allowed on the platform.
Saief (12:12.2)
1 million percent, 1 million percent is getting way, way, way better. I mean, it’s already great. Don’t get me wrong. Like as of even like all the months before it was already great. I’m saying that it’s getting even better. It’s getting even stricter and being trustworthy with TikTok shop is something good. I wouldn’t worry about that as a customer.
Moritz Schröder (12:34.569)
Do you think that TikTok being owned by ByteDance, at least here in Europe, 100 % in the USA, we will see how that unfolds. But is that an additional concern that customers and consumers have, maybe even brands that you work with, that they don’t really know if they can trust a Chinese company the same way they would trust a typical Western e-com platform?
Saief (12:58.202)
Yeah. So honestly, at least I’ll talk based on my experience with the brands that we work with and with the people I talk with. I don’t really see that much that while the discourse, I understand where it’s coming from, it’s mostly political. On a like a day-to-day thing, first customers, I don’t personally see them focused too much on that element and on the brand side as well.
I would have to say, even if I think about this personally speaking, I would say there are plenty other products that are Chinese and we’re still getting them and there isn’t any issues with that, like electronic products and these kinds of things, that they are also able to get the data, et cetera. But we’re cool with that. on that side, would honestly say it’s mostly political.
Moritz Schröder (13:49.698)
I tend to agree. think people pick and choose what they like from China to receive and what they don’t. And obviously the media also plays a huge role in that. If you buy anything from Amazon, most likely it was produced in China and we’re all cool with that. So I think it’s interesting to see how people have this double standard when it comes to China.
Saief (14:03.6)
Yeah, true, Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (14:13.767)
And it’s going to be interesting how that unfolds in the US now that ByteDance at least partially has to give up ownership.
Saief (14:14.172)
Yeah, I’m dead.
Saief (14:18.556)
Very curious to see. Yeah. it’s, it’s on that part on the U S sides. don’t quote me on that. It’s something very new, but I heard that on the sales side, the TikTok shop side, basically like the U S is going to be focused more on the normal TikTok part where, what are the types of, like the, the part that is sales oriented.
will still be also monitored from the Bydance company. But don’t quote me on that. We’re still in discussions, maybe by next week or something like that things change. So that’s definitely something interesting to see how it’s gonna unfold.
Moritz Schröder (15:02.706)
Say if you have worked with a lot of clients on TikTok Shop by now, if a new client approaches you and they’re very inexperienced with TikTok Shop, can you give like a brief beginner’s guide to the do’s and don’ts of TikTok Shop?
Saief (15:18.696)
So let’s set an example. Let’s say there’s this brand doing seven figures on meta ads and Google ads, they heard about TikTok Shop. They’re not really sure. They just know that it’s an affiliate thing. First, I would explain to them what we already started with in terms of like the definition of TikTok Shop. And then we would go with the do’s and don’ts. So by now, I would assume they know how the platform works. The next step is a mindset thing.
because TikTok Shop is a channel that requires a certain type of mindset. For instance, I would start to say that this is gonna be, at least like for the first 90 days, it’s about building the traction and the momentum. It’s not about being right away profitable. If you really are serious about TikTok Shop, be patient with it.
build the infrastructure, test and see what are the things that are working and keep on stacking that on top of the other. Don’t be too impatient with that. It’s gonna pay off big time, not only inside TikTok Shop, but with the halo effect, which we can discuss also later. And so that is the first thing. It’s a mindset thing. Within the mindset, I would add another point here is that if you…
By then I would assume that this brand would know how TikTok Shop works. So when we talk about here, influencers and affiliates, I would tell them that if you talk with them or communicate with them in a transactional matter.
they’re going to respond in a transactional matter. If you talk with them as if they are part of your team, like they are your salespeople, you’re actually selling your product to them before even talking about the customers. They will just act as salespeople. And that is where things start to get interesting. And so that in terms of mindset will change the way that brand would be building its work. So that is a very, very important thing. And the final thing here in terms of like do’s and don’ts is that
Saief (17:23.029)
TikTok shop is evolving and what worked in 2024 is not what is working now in 2025. And so be careful with what you are hearing online.
because you might have heard of like really awesome case study that you want to kind of imitate here in 2025 and it doesn’t work. So be sure to have someone who is always up to date with TikTok shop, being an agency, being a consultant, any person that you have the trust in and this person or this company has to be always like doing this job. So they tell you exactly what is working as of today. These are like the overall things in terms of do’s and don’ts.
into technical stuff, I’ll leave it to you to lead this.
Moritz Schröder (18:10.828)
Yeah, it definitely seems like a TikTok shop and TikTok as a whole is evolving very quickly, even faster than other social media platforms, which are iterating and changing on a…
almost monthly basis. One of the most recent and maybe one of the largest changes for people who are selling on TikTok shop was the change in how GMV Max as the way of doing advertisement is being utilized. And that’s now the default when you want to do any kind of ads on TikTok. Can you explain a little bit more what the controversy was there? Because I saw a lot of people also being disappointed that that was being forced upon them.
and maybe also how you use GMV Max nowadays.
Saief (18:54.908)
Yeah.
Saief (18:58.342)
Yeah, that’s a very good question. And maybe if I start with a quick context here, so maybe people that didn’t know how things were in the past, we used to be able to run ads, Spark ads, like the way you would run them on meta ads. Like basically you have a lot of control in terms of like the creation of your ad sets, in terms of the targeting that you want to put. You had a lot of things in hand where you can actually control how things are. And a lot of us appreciate
that because at a certain point we have really good media buyers so we would always prefer to have that certain type of control. And TikTok Shop, being that it is thinking on a futuristic level and seeing how things are going, basically came with the idea of making it easier for brands, not necessarily going into the nitty-gritty details of running your own campaign, but rather having a setup that is called GMV Max where you would basically
your sole responsibility with this is that you want to set the budget, you want to set the target of return on investment, maybe small other stuff that you would add there, and then that’s it. What’s really important is the actual path of content. And it lowers a lot the effort from the brand side. Obviously, on professional’s level, would, like many of us initially, were like, we want the control, right? And this is like a normal human behavior. But if you look at it,
All platforms are going in that direction. And I would say just TikTok Shop is taking the lead on that. TikTok Shop’s objective is to make it easier for you. So what I would say to brands is that if the brand is not successful, TikTok Shop is not making money. So it’s in their interest to do something that’s going to help you. And with that thinking, basically,
you need to just shift your way on how to see the GMV Max campaign and how you can take advantage of it. And that shift would be mostly related to the content that you are producing with your creators. And so focus on that. Make sure that you have the good volume. Let’s start with the volume. If you have like few, I don’t know, mean, 40 or 50 videos, it’s not enough. Like you need to have more.
Saief (21:20.944)
And that is basically to help the GMV Max understand what works and what doesn’t. And while you are having the volume, also need to make sure that that is quality volume, right? You need to make sure that you are tapping into what people might be interested to hear and to convert, and then let GMV Max do its job on that end. Obviously, there is still work in there. There are strategies that we put to make sure that it is taking as much value as possible. It’s not like just set it and leave it.
I wish it was like that. It would have been even easier for everyone. But for like an easy first step, advice is you make sure that you have enough volume and variety of videos before you actually start GMV Max. If we add on top of it the idea of mindset, which is your first three weeks, first three months.
is about reinvesting anything that you’d get should be put back into pushing the flywheel. That would make you, for instance, lower your target return on investment because your objective is actually growth. We will get back into the profitability once growth is high enough. And with that mindset, it’s going to further help the GMV Max really optimize in a better way in terms of volume. The more volume you have, the better GMV Max is able to do its job.
And like that is like the high level first step element. We want to keep it as clear to most people who are listening. But again, if you want to go into details, just let me know.
Moritz Schröder (22:56.623)
has your strategy for your agency, but then also with your clients changed in any way since GMV Max became mandatory.
Saief (23:04.995)
Yeah, definitely. initially we used to basically we used to start with normal campaigns and use those normal campaigns as testing cadences. Like we really want to figure out what our type of the videos that are bringing results. And the reason for that is because we want to speed things up. Like we want to right away put investment in place to know what videos work best and double down on that.
until we have enough volume and then push it into GNV Max where things will be more stable and give you the scale that you’re looking for. Now that we are shifting things based on how TikTok Shop works, we started to lean further on what we are producing with affiliates and creators, meaning, for instance, one simple strategy here is…
we would not start GMV Max on day one. And obviously, like every agency, every marketer would make things, do things differently. But the way we do it here is that our actual focus is we have a launch date. We don’t like just start the soonest we have our first affiliate. No, we have people inside that we worked with already, plus more creators that we would bring for that brand. We will have a certain date on a launch where we
coordinate with everyone, and make sure that a big majority of them is doing enough volume in terms of videos. That could be through retainers. So you would pay for a high quality creator that already brought in sales, maybe five or six figures per month. And you would pay them for, for instance, let’s say 20 videos. And that would push so much in terms of volume in one go on that launch.
which makes things much easier later on when we switch into GMV Max because by then we already have a good launch. Obviously there are other stuff in place that needs to be there but strictly speaking on affiliates and on ads we would have a good lunch, we would have a variety of videos, we’d be working with people on Retainer that already brought in money so we know that they are good in terms of quality and in terms of quantity it’s there as well.
Saief (25:24.016)
So GMV Max starts to do his job and we started in a break even. Like we’re not asking too much from GMV Max. We’re just asking it to bring us that sales volume with the break even up until we get into the five figures. And that becomes like easy. it’s, it’s, it’s close to being easy mode, but like the first period is like where you put all the efforts, like all the team is doing all the work from different places. So we can get into that part.
Moritz Schröder (25:52.748)
for all the creators that you work with, as you said, there are some that consistently produce high quality content, but can you actually pretty consistently say that, okay, this creator will create a video that will get hundreds of thousands of views while another one will most likely not? Can you see patterns that keep repeating themselves with successful affiliate content that is being produced or is it still volume necessary to actually
find the outlier videos.
Saief (26:25.842)
I would argue both. So for instance, you might be having the creator that is doing six figures and yet they don’t click with a certain brand. And that could happen. mean, it’s not something that is out of the charts, but most of the cases it’s because other parts of the system that is missing.
Very, very quickly, the parts would be in relation to building trust from the brand. So we’re talking reviews, we’re talking how the product page is, the conversion, everything around that, how you are actually supporting and helping that creator with your briefs and what is working right now. Are you giving that to them so they can be inspired? Obviously, they know what they’re doing. we don’t want to tell them what to do. They know what to do. We rather want to kind of support them with these kinds of things.
So getting back to your question, would say, and being very specific to the creator side, I would say your job is to build an infrastructure that nurtures the possibility of having strong videos. Your job is not to get the strong videos right away because you wouldn’t know. You need to have different testing side. And in that case, how can we build that infrastructure so we nurture the possibility to have those videos? And the first thing is obviously having
quality creators that are able to do a GM like have high GMV, high GMV revenue in the last four weeks, making sure that you are following the trend and not like doing something that’s completely outdated that people will not really relate to. And then back again, volume. Volume is still super important. It’s not something that would like you wouldn’t be successful with a couple of videos here and there.
Maybe you’d be lucky, but we don’t rely on luck. We want to rely on systems.
Moritz Schröder (28:20.052)
makes a lot of sense to me. Seems like the right strategy to play a numbers game but then also know how
Saief (28:26.012)
layer number six.
Moritz Schröder (28:30.726)
some of those will be more successful than others and actually starting to see those patterns. If we look at platforms as a whole, obviously TikTok shop is the up and coming e-commerce platform right now, but Amazon is still the by far most important e-commerce platform worldwide. How would you compare the two? Is any of those better than the other right now or?
Saief (28:36.774)
Exactly.
Moritz Schröder (29:00.0)
Do they just have different use cases?
Saief (29:02.596)
Very good question. I hear that a lot and I think it’s helpful to share it here. So the way I advise brands to see it is that it’s not either or it’s rather together. And the reason why is because Amazon is a basically it captures the demand, whereas TikTok generates the demand. And so when you put them together, that’s where the magic happens. And so
If we talk about like.
me as maybe a CMO and I want to have a decision here. I would look at TikTok Shop at this stage as a very, important channel that needs to be there, not at the cost of my efforts on Amazon, rather so I can further help Amazon. And we do have a case with a brand where this brand is basically… They’re not even doing much, would say 60K.
per month and on TikTok shop and at a certain this this happened by the way two or three months ago and We got to have a viral video nine million views And literally get to see their Amazon like they have been they’ve been doing already Amazon
Yeah, it’s, it’s 90 K per month on Amazon and you get to see it goes into 170 K. was like, I’ve never seen something like this. It’s insane. Uh, the brand owner sent me the screenshot and like, can literally see how it’s spiked. high. Uh, and obviously that did not affect the talk shop. Like they’ve shops still kept on growing from that end, but then that virality also helped Amazon. Uh, not to say that it’s going to always happen in that crazy way, um, in this situation, but
Saief (30:54.826)
there’s always, always a spillover effect, very juicy spillover effect where Amazon is going to help. And so I would see them, here is my channel to generate the demand and here is my channel to capture the demand and they’re going to help each other.
Moritz Schröder (31:13.276)
That’s a great example of the halo effect that you mentioned earlier, where you would generate that demand on TikTok, but then it would spill over to a lot of other platforms. A lot of companies obviously have their own Shopify store.
on top of selling on Amazon, selling on TikTok and maybe other places as well. Is that something that all of your clients are aware of before they get into TikTok shop or do they purely look at the numbers at TikTok shop first and then you have to educate them on, hey, this is actually something that will benefit you not only on TikTok but also on all these other places.
Saief (31:27.888)
Yes.
Saief (31:32.796)
Yeah.
Saief (31:47.72)
It’s a smart question. would have to tell you it depends on the maturity of the brand. So I tend to notice that the smaller brands, the six-figure brands, for instance, would look directly on their terms on TikTok Shop without thinking much on the halo effect, which I would understand because eventually they are still at a smaller stage and they want to make sure that their margins are in place and they’re actually profitable. I tend to get to see that the bigger brands are more aware of that.
I would even go to say some of them actually are very cool, just breaking even. They don’t even look to be profitable on TikTok shop, just because they see how amazing the spillover effect and they already know that.
And I would say from our end as an agency, what we always work on doing is that we set all our system in place where TikTok Shop is your growth channel, where it is a very good channel for you to actually, like it’s an acquisition, it’s not just top of the funnel, without even like thinking on the other spillover effect, because we still wanna be successful inside already.
and then also educate the brands on the potential that TikTok Shop has over other products. I would say, for instance, we have seen this happen. mean, we have a brand that has 53 SKUs, 53 products. On TikTok Shop, usually our strategy is to focus on one hero and then create a second and then third, like step by step, not go all in, and get them to be successful that way. But we noticed that
every time we add a new product inside TikTok Shop, even if they’re not running ads on on maybe meta, they see that they are having more sales on that new SKU on their website, even though they’re not putting efforts into it. And then when you trace it back, you just see that TikTok Shop is doing its magic. Obviously that doesn’t happen right away. Again, there is a built-up period where you are pushing the momentum up until you reach that
Saief (33:57.306)
I would say snowball effect. But then once you reach that, it’s juicy as I said earlier.
Moritz Schröder (34:05.278)
think TikTok internally even brands what they do as Discovery Commerce. Is that something where you think they will keep dominating or can you see any other incumbent coming up and actually challenging them on this Discovery Commerce?
Saief (34:23.24)
So the question is, will there be another channel that might, I would say, take down TikTok from its glamorous position now?
Moritz Schröder (34:32.921)
Exactly.
Saief (34:34.766)
If there is, obviously it’s going to be in the social commerce. Social commerce, generally speaking, is getting higher. So we should always expect that. I don’t honestly see that this is going to happen. I do see that the entire markets year over year is shifting into, will be shifting more its efforts into the social commerce.
I honestly don’t see yet that TikTok Shop will be dethroned on its focus. People are focusing so much on it. I see actually the opposite. see that they’re getting started. They’re definitely getting started. We’re still in the infancy phase, maybe bit more at this point, but very far from reaching the top. So we’re still going to get to see a lot from TikTok Shop in the next few years.
Moritz Schröder (35:26.025)
You’re based in Italy. So I mean, that must be very interesting to follow the launch of TikTok Shop in Italy that happened earlier this year. Can you speak a little bit to how successful it’s been so far? I think it’s been about six months now. Do you have any Italian clients or do you mostly work internationally? And where do you think TikTok Shop will expand to next?
Saief (35:27.214)
Thank you.
Saief (35:41.02)
Yeah.
Saief (35:49.298)
So I would first start to say that Voliet focuses the majority of clients on the US, given the fact that the market is bigger there. And even in terms of like maturity is higher there. So the US is the majority of our focus and then comes the UK. That said, they do have contacts here in Italy to see how things are going on. I got to see some of the stats last time. So on the Italian side,
It’s the very typical process of having something that is just starting out. The numbers, three months ago I got to see them were quite low in terms of the number of like, if it leads to creators. When I got to see them back again, I actually saw like, there is a big difference between the first time I saw them and the second time. And so I get to see that it is growing.
which is a nice important thing and the growth is not just like from the brand side but also from the creator side which is the fundamental element.
It’s still not where I personally wished it to be. If I compare it, for instance, with the lunch on TikTok France and TikTok Germany, they are ahead, especially on the Germany side. TikTok may be like the third compared to these three, but it’s wrong. I’m not saying this in a way that I would discourage Italian brands. Definitely not the case. I would just say to these Italian brands that there are right now
very successful. Look at it this way. There are very successful brands on the US and big portion of their success is because they were the first adopters. And now other brands are coming into TikTok Shop, but things like the play had changed and they didn’t have like the initial very, very early stage. And so what I would say to these brands is that have a presence on TikTok Shop either way inside Italy, even if it’s not as big as other markets, because it’s going
Saief (37:52.588)
to be big, like we’re getting there either way. And so having you there in the beginning early is going to give you a massive advantage. TikTok’s shop is not going to go anywhere. It’s going to go up actually. So be there either way. I would hope to see that it’s getting even bigger, more in the Italian market. Honestly, it’s time would tell basically.
Moritz Schröder (38:20.124)
It’s very interesting that you said that you have a huge advantage by being first essentially, especially in a newly launched market like Italy or Germany. But can you explain that a little bit more? Because to me it seems like since the products are not ranked the same way,
that it works for example on Amazon. I’m not sure I see the immediate advantage of being first if you can come in a year later, work with a good agency like yours and then get content created for your brand. Shouldn’t that have the same effect as if you were a bit earlier?
Saief (38:46.109)
Yeah.
Saief (38:55.028)
Usually, look, it’s the human, I wouldn’t say human nature, but this is how things usually work. When you come first, first things first, you would be finding the platform more leaning towards helping you compared to maybe next year, because we get to see, for instance, TikTok shop in the US when it started, it really made it extremely easy.
in its own policy is in its investments and the number of like free vouchers that it gives to, to, brands and the, the ad credits and these kinds of things. And so TikTok shop is in it, in its investment phase where it actually pushes things even more.
That is not to say that if you go next year, that’s a bad thing. I’m rather saying it’s gonna be even better if you actually start now because you are riding the wave as it is growing. So you’ll be in a higher position on that and on TikTok side. Another side here is that the competition, it’s a normal thing. Like when you are starting and you are from the first, you wouldn’t be having too many brands to compete with. So that naturally gives a high potential.
And the third thing, even with the creator slash affiliates expectation. I’ll give you an example. In the case of the US, the idea of flat fees with affiliates inside TikTok shop was not really that much common. And so when you go to really high quality creator and just give them that free product with a nice, obviously a nice commission, they would be in.
But then if you compare it to now, it started to become like the unspoken rule where they got to see a lot of other brands giving them extra and extra stuff. And so it gets to be a little bit more demanding to actually persuade them and convince them. Whereas if you went at first, that same creator would be more cool with like going with simple deal.
Saief (41:00.2)
This is why it’s always, always best to foresee what’s gonna happen and like be three steps ahead, see if the platform is gonna grow or not, to know if you should position yourself there or not. As you already know, like TikTok shop is gonna get bigger.
As I said, it’s not going to go anywhere. We’re just starting. And so being there at first is going to be very helpful. For those, for instance, who are not there, maybe they go to the next year. It’s still always a great decision to do. You just need more and more focus and attention and expert people that further support you, navigate some new hurdles in place.
Moritz Schröder (41:44.406)
Also as an affiliate creator, I could really see that first mover advantage where you’re
just one of the very few people initially in a new market that is willing to create. So you get all the brands reaching out to you. Plus you get the experience and you actually get to make amazing videos before anyone else is even trying and joining the competition. When we talk a little bit more about affiliates and I’m sure you have a lot of contacts in that space, do you see people surviving and…
Saief (42:07.772)
Yeah. Yeah.
Moritz Schröder (42:16.278)
you know, making it okay living with it, or do you see people actually thriving, making hundreds of thousands or maybe even millions of dollars on a given product or year?
Saief (42:24.392)
I saw amazing cases. It’s insane. It’s really insane. It me really happy. I saw, for instance, someone who is… I’m not sure where he was working, like McDonald’s or something like that. I’m not really sure what was that.
And then you see that they are getting paid a high five figures and six figures. It’s insane. It’s really insane. And it’s changing people’s lives. And, and I’ve seen many cases where they actually like stop their day job and they focus on this full time. Very, very beautiful. So for any creator looking at this position yourself, this is, this has the potential in the US side. TikTok shop is not going anywhere. So go ahead. And then the rest of the
the entire social commerce is getting bigger either way like with or without us so better be there and it would be it would be a very good opportunity but it’s gonna acquire work this is something that is not enough discussed and I need to say it is that this is not a get rich quick or because I see also some creators that basically they
they would open like a new creator accounts, they would not show their faces, they would be like doing the exact same video and then publishing 10 times. There isn’t enough like intention into it going extremely quantity like trying to work with as many brands as possible. Thankfully, TikTok Shop is like containing that with new policies coming in, et cetera. But at a certain point it was, and it still is in some cases,
taking it purely on a volume side and not really…
Saief (44:17.212)
taking it too seriously. And so for this case, it might work for you, but it definitely is not something that is sustainable or long-term. Brands are catching up to that. We never accept these creators. We invite them to actually like build the sincerity. People are like getting these products because they trust what you’re saying. And so there needs to be that sincerity and there needs to be that sense of authenticity where you are doing the videos. It’s not like just a factory of
a lot of the same videos are like not showing necessarily your face, which I’m not saying it doesn’t work. I mean, there are many who are doing really a lot of GMV without showing the face, that’s for sure. I would say it’s gonna depend on the product, but if the product is like a makeup and then you’re just showing it without putting it on your face, what are you even doing?
Moritz Schröder (45:05.056)
Right.
Moritz Schröder (45:08.479)
Yeah, it’s an interesting trend that I’m also noticing where AI obviously starts to become increasingly relevant for content creation. They recently launched Zora 2, but then also when it comes to UGC content, it’s more and more AI generated. And I hope that the platform finds ways to at least limit that so that
Honest creators who work very hard to make a decent or even very good living with affiliate content get rewarded for that hard work that it is. And you can’t just build your $20 a month AI avatar and get the same results. Do you see that trend kind of undermining a little bit the current ecosystem?
Saief (45:54.984)
Sure, sure, I’m just…
Saief (46:02.596)
that’s something that I’m keeping an eye on it’s something live right now we’re getting to see I would first start to say that TikTok shop is aware of that there are certain things in place that ensures that
AI is not being leveraged in a wrong way. An example here for the brand side, given that we work with them and we know this. For instance, if you will be sharing shoppable products, shoppable videos on your own TikTok without really flagging it as AI generated, TikTok will realize that, will give you the first warning, second warning, and things will go negatively for your shop. You don’t want to do that. They will eventually close your shop indefinitely. You still are able to
actually toggle on and say that this is AI generated. And the video will actually show that, which is very helpful to keep things authentic. So I would say TikTok as a company is aware and is doing what is necessary. A bit of a challenge here is that, as you said, AI is growing super fast and platforms are keeping on following up. So I would say trust is super important.
sure how things will be after five years from now with how AI is getting super fast. I would have to say that the biggest currency in the future is going to be trust. You need to build that in a way or another within the AI arena. Not in a way to discourage AI. AI is just a tool. Like a knife, it can help you to make your dinner or you can like murder with it. And so it’s about the tool. It’s about how you would use
the tool. so while many people will try to shortcut things to to misuse the tool, be the person that still use it, but in a way that is that does not impact the trust and authenticity, I do actually find yourself in a very, very good position.
Moritz Schröder (48:06.966)
Speaking of AI as a useful tool for creators, but then also for TikTok shop brands, what are some good AI tools that you see that can really help supercharge your TikTok shop?
Saief (48:21.512)
Good question. I would start first with talking about automations and then I’m going to come back to AI because there are things that are really cool with automations. And I’m going to talk from a brand’s perspective and you can also direct us into the creator perspective. So on automation side, I think you already hosted one of the big brands on the affiliate management software’s making things super, super, super
straightforward if you know how to use it. definitely there are basically I’m talking about Yuca, Optic, Reacher. These three are the prominent ones. They’re doing really amazing job. I’m personally with Voliet, we are using Optic as of now and they’re doing really, really amazing job. I love the team and they love how fast they are in terms of like.
making sure that they’re bringing us the right tools. That does not undermine the other two. They are extremely amazing. But there is a lot of awesome stuff there.
If I would go to AI, I would go back into very famous platforms. They are not really AI folks, but they do have AI features. I’m talking here about CaloData and FastMouse. And what I love about their new AI features is that you are able to dissect why a certain video is working. And it’s going to give you with details what is the visual hook, what is the…
the structure and why psychologically that actually impacted. And when you use those tools and see, for instance, like we do that at Voliette, like our first steps basically before even like starting the work, get to see the direct competitors from the brands that we manage.
Saief (50:13.96)
get to see why they are successful the way they are and reverse engineer the psychology behind it. What have they done structure-wise, but then content-wise? so using the AI features there where we dissect that, see exactly the psychology, see exactly the structure would help us understand what is working. And that gets funneled into basically our briefs, into our
our campaigns where we talk with affiliates and explain to them what is actually working as of now. Obviously, we use the typical chat GPT and make it in a like, get things from here, things from there, put it in chat GPT and see how we can further understand some videos or what the structure was for a certain brand. But that is where I see really the potential.
For instance, one final example here is that what I do is that I share a lot of free resources on LinkedIn that would analyze an entire niche.
or maybe analyze the top five brands within a certain niche. And the document would have like 15 or 16 pages with extreme details about the everything from the product page, from the positioning, from the bundles and offers from who are the creators they work with, from the actual videos that they are doing and why they are successful the way they are.
and get the best practices, and I do these very, very helpful resources purely with AI. And that is where we get to see things quite interesting if you leverage them the right way.
Moritz Schröder (52:05.669)
Yeah, it’s definitely wild to see on the one hand, the AI boom, but then also so many tools, fueling social commerce, which is another wave that is just about to build. and a lot of people have not even caught onto. I think when those two come together and, really join forces, can create some truly amazing tools in the future.
On the other hand, it’s very difficult to keep track of everything that is happening because things are changing so quickly and the industry is moving so fast. What are your ways to keep up? Do you have any thought leaders you follow, any resources you consume? What is the best way to stay in the know?
Saief (52:50.212)
Yeah, I’ll answer about myself and I also want to take the opportunity to share this to any brand owner watching this or any CMO. This is more and more reason why
they need to have experts in place and not just in-house team. Because that is, I’m drifting away from the question, but I think this is also important to share. And I’ll get back to the question, promise. But basically like between the in-house and having an agency or an expert or consultant, et cetera, I’m with the camp of actually having someone with you, not having in-house because doing it in-house is possible. It’s just, you’re going to be the tax of ignorance and the tax of actually learning.
while the platform is not waiting for you. Like the platform keeps on always evolving and thus you need to have someone that keeps you updated. And so for…
Asian actually brands, it would be very important to have someone who is really up to date with things. And as for that someone, let’s say for instance, us at Voliet or myself, the way I basically keep myself updated, this is a very simple trick.
that any person can do. It doesn’t require too much thinking, but my LinkedIn is so tailored in a way that any time I would open my feed, I would be bombarded with new things that people are talking about. And it’s insane. It’s very nice. It’s very nice. Another thing, I mean, you have people like me that are publishing on a weekly basis.
Saief (54:31.354)
resources that are like, you know, the ones like where you comment and then you receive resource and we do that so we can reach the reach from our end while also giving something, something of value.
even though I’m doing it, does not mean that I’m not actually leaving comments to other people. And so I do it always. And I literally have like a folder where I am saving all these kinds of lead magnets that are filled with really awesome stuff that people are giving for free, basically. So this is what I would focus on.
Another thing, and we’re still talking outside, there’s another inside thing that we do, but on the outside part, basically, I get to see different types of newsletters from other people in our industry that talk about TikTok Shop. Eventually, if you start with 10 of them, maybe two of them would be the best. what I would say, I would give the tool on how you can reach that, not necessarily the names. Simply speaking,
because I really don’t remember them, not because I don’t want to share them, it’s just that I’m not good with names. But you start with like 10, and eventually with time via email, you see the newsletter, start to see like one or two pop off with really, really nice stuff. So you just unsubscribe from the rest and keep those two. This is on an external side. And on an internal side is we have on the team…
Part of our efforts, especially with the brands that already made it, so high five figures or six figures per month inside TikTok shop, like we know they are bringing them the revenue. at this part, we want to start to innovate. At first, we don’t really start with that. Like we want to get you to be successful, then we will innovate. But at that level, we start to put 20 % of any budget we have or time or effort into testing new things ourselves.
Saief (56:32.874)
So we can see how the actual platform would react and end up sometimes realizing that maybe no, shouldn’t do this or you should do something different, et cetera. And so between internal and external, eventually you find yourself always in the loop and you hopefully wouldn’t miss on the stuff that is coming to take the job.
Moritz Schröder (56:56.901)
Yeah, I find it also super exciting to be part of an industry that is so quickly evolving and changing constantly. I’ve been working in e-commerce for 10 years, but e-commerce slowly but gradually has slowed down in terms of growth, but then also in terms of innovation. You’re changing minuscule things. I worked in payments, for example. And of course you can keep optimizing that and probably you should, but
it’s not the fast moving wild west kind of atmosphere that you have in social commerce right now. So I think it’s, it’s very interesting to be part of this building wave and just see where it takes you.
Saief (57:38.616)
Yes, yes, I definitely agree. And it’s exciting. it’s it also I would argue that it makes it it raises and this is like a contrarian idea. Maybe not many not many people agree with me on that.
But the fact that it is growing fast, meaning that things are changing, meaning that at a certain level, it would seem a bit harder to be successful because there isn’t like one thing that’s gonna make you work because it might work three months ago, it might not work now. And so maybe that would create an extra layer of challenge. But I would argue that is so good. That is actually better because that would put away
any non-serious brands or again dropshippers. I don’t have any issue with dropshippers of course like the issue is not necessarily
With that, it’s rather with how you use it again as a tool. Most of them are not really using it the right way. But for serious brands, you find yourself competing with other serious brands because the rest will not really follow up. They’re going to stay in the outdated versions. And so it makes things even better for them. And so, it’s definitely a really good time to be in this space right now.
Moritz Schröder (59:00.72)
Would you say that TikTok shop is not necessarily a good fit for people who are just beginners within e-commerce?
Saief (59:08.582)
depends on the objective. So I would say that if I would have to start a brand
I would actually focus more on TikTok and Amazon. Again, with what we have discussed earlier between creating the demand and then capturing it and having both of them support each other. Because what are your options? Eventually, you would go with traditional affiliates or you’d go with meta ads, et cetera, and that’s gonna require a lot of investment as well. But on TikTok Shop, there is the potential. It’s just that you need to come with the mindset that you need to put a lot of work. And so for new brands,
that are completely starting out, I would still recommend TikTok Shop. It’s just that in terms of expectation, in terms of timeline, in terms of the actual effort in place, you’re going to do way more. Because for bigger brands, it’s a budget thing. You have the budget, you’ll be able to buy yourself, buy your way through the success. And we see that a lot, which is again why it’s a really good opportunity also for bigger brands. And in the case for small brands, I do consulting for small brands. So my company does
not necessarily work with them, but then there’s the consulting side. And I always tell them that it is still a very big opportunity. And the reason why Moritz is because you have the ability to really figure out what works in the space where, again, trends are being built.
And so you would have an upper advantage in comparison to, for instance, going into meta ads, which still is big. course, we don’t, we don’t have any disagreement there, but on the meta ads, if you want to test things, you need to put money on it. And a lot.
Saief (01:00:56.232)
And so you’re going to be investing a lot just to figure out what works. On TikTok shop side, if you do it correctly in the right way, it’s going to mean a lot more work, but then way more efficient. And then later on, you can take your successes on TikTok shop and create a bridge into meta apps, for instance, to right away have better numbers there.
Moritz Schröder (01:01:19.405)
It seems like with social commerce, also get the chance to ride a trend over and over and over again, because if you miss a trend, too bad, but then the next trend will probably come in two weeks and you can do better that time.
Saief (01:01:32.328)
Exactly. Exactly. As long as you keep on yourself, always updated, then that is where the trick is.
Moritz Schröder (01:01:40.04)
Safe last question. How should clients decide which agency regarding social commerce and TikTok shop is right for them? There’s a booming industry and many agencies are popping up some better some worse some are very experienced and established like your agency and some are up and coming. How would I as a brand go about deciding which agency works best for me?
Saief (01:02:07.366)
The first thing I would start with the actual portfolio. mean, what have you done so far? That speaks way more than any other like proposal. So you would start with that.
On top of it, and this is where maybe some brands kind of miss it and eventually not get the right agency is that even if you see all the portfolios, you need to be clear. What is the methodology that got them to be successful within that type of case study? Because you might have an agency that had a million per month and that is simply because they started completely early and like they blasted a lot of samples per month. And like the algorithm did this job.
and here you go, like you have a case study, but then there isn’t a system in place. And so the second thing that comes after that is the system and the methodology in place, challenge the methodology, why it works the way it works, what is the reasoning behind it and what exactly will the team do. So A is understanding the actual terrain of that agency, like what they have done. B is like figuring out the mechanics behind what got them into that terrain initially.
And see honestly trust your gut. This is something that People don’t talk about but like if you are an entrepreneur
and you’ve built your company the way it is now, it means that you went through a lot of trial and errors. And your gut will tell you some things that sometimes data will not show. And so trust your gut on that. And eventually you will end up with an agency that you feel is right for you. But then there is the data backing it up with the, what systems and processes they do and why they work there, the way they work. And then on top of that, there is the execution side where there is the portfolio and the case studies.
Moritz Schröder (01:03:57.782)
Awesome. I think that’s going to be super helpful for people who are new to the space. Saief you’ve been one of the trailblazers in this industry. It’s really cool to talk to someone who already now, since we’re still so early, has years of experience in it. Really appreciate you coming on. Where do you want people to check out you and your agency?
Saief (01:04:21.156)
I appreciate it as well and mostly they will find me active very much on LinkedIn, Saief Tisary as the name suggests maybe in the video. So I’m there or simply basically go to the website voliad.com and they will also be able to reach out to us.
Moritz Schröder (01:04:43.487)
Awesome, I will link both in the video below. Really appreciate you coming on and hope to talk to you again soon.
Saief (01:04:51.4)
It’s a pleasure. Thank you, Moritz.