TikTok Influencer Marketing: How To Run a Campaign (2026)

Peace Out Skincare founder Enrico Frezza witnessed the power of TikTok influencer marketing firsthand when his brand gifted products to a creator who subsequently went viral on the platform. 

“We had more than 12 million views, and it was liked more than 2.4 million times and shared over 60,000 times,” says Enrico on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “That resulted in the sale of 15,000 units of the product in one single day, and we sold six months of inventory in three weeks.” 

With the algorithm surfacing content based on user’s preferences and higher engagement rates than other social media networks, it’s no wonder TikTok is a top platform for influencer campaigns. 

Read on to learn how to launch your own TikTok influencer marketing campaign. 

How does TikTok influencer marketing work?

TikTok influencer marketing is a social media marketing strategy in which brands partner with TikTok influencers to promote their products to TikTok users. Here are a few important elements:

Collaboration

Brands tap influencers within their niche on TikTok. They might turn to mega influencers, who have a larger audience and can increase brand awareness, or nano-influencers, who may have smaller but more engaged audiences. 

There are a number of influencer marketing platforms brands use to find influencers for campaigns, including TikTok’s built-in partnership management service TikTok One. 

Budget and terms

Brands and influencers agree on budget and terms, including how many pieces of content the influencer will create to the best time to post on TikTok. Each side negotiates to find the most favorable terms. 

Keep in mind that while influencers want to make money on TikTok, they also need to preserve their personal brand and authenticity. Giving influencers more creative freedom and partnering with creators who already use your product can help you get a better rate.

Impact

Measuring the impact of your campaign can help you determine the success of your influencer marketing. You can look at engagement (shares, comments, and likes) for the content, and you can also look at your sales. 

Leah Marcus and Yasaman Bakhtiar, cofounders of pickle brand Good Girl Snacks, use Shopify Analytics data to see the impact of a campaign. 

“If this influencer posted on this day, and we have an X percent increase that day in sales, it’s probably because of them,” Leah says on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. 

How to get started with TikTok influencer marketing

1. Define your campaign objectives
2. Determine your budget
3. Identify influencers
4. Build a relationship with influencers
5. Approach potential influencer partners
6. Develop your campaign strategy
7. Negotiate and create a contract
8. Launch and monitor the campaign
9. Analyze results and optimize future campaigns

Successful TikTok campaigns pair the right company with the right influencer in pursuit of clearly defined, attainable marketing objectives. Here’s how to get started:

1. Define your campaign objectives

When planning a TikTok influencer campaign, nail down what you’re trying to achieve. Outlining your marketing campaign goals upfront with clear objectives helps you measure success and whether the investment was worthwhile. Use a framework like marketing KPIs, OKRs, or SMART goals. 

Here are a few examples of influencer campaign objectives to consider: 

• Reach 500,000 views on campaign-related content within 30 days
• Generate 500 sales on TikTok shop over a two-week period
• Gain 10,000 new TikTok followers in one month
• Drive 5,000 clicks to your website from TikTok in a week
• Inspire 50 user-created videos using your campaign hashtag in 10 days

2. Determine your budget

Revisit your digital marketing budget and determine how much you can afford to spend on your TikTok influencer campaign. This number is different for every brand and may change throughout the year depending on your priorities.

In a 2025 survey of global marketers and industry leaders, 14.4% said they allocated 10% to 15% of their marketing budgets to influencers. Almost 12% earmarked more than 50% of their budget for influencers. 

When planning your budget, remember influencer pricing varies widely. TikTok influencer costs range from a few hundred dollars to several thousand dollars per video, depending on the size of the influencer’s following and other factors. Jaclyn VanSloten, founder and growth strategist at Femra Consulting, suggests the following numbers as starting points:

• Nano-influencers: $100 to $500
• Micro-influencers: $500 to $2,000
• Macro-influencer: $2,000 to $20,000
• Celebrity influencers: $20,000 and up

3. Identify influencers

The key to a successful campaign is finding creators whose content and audience align with your brand values and the people you’re trying to reach. By focusing on creator-brand fit, you can craft a strategy that drives clicks, conversions, and checkouts. Here are a few things to consider when identifying influencers: 

Target audience

Finding the right influencer starts with pinpointing the ideal customer for your product and related content on TikTok. TikTok hashtags and keywords are a good place to start. 

If you sell beauty products, for example, you might search TikTok for the keyword “beauty” and the hashtag #beautyproducts. TikTok search results will return the top posts for each keyword, giving you a glimpse into the beauty product community on the platform.

If you want to target audiences in specific regions, you can use TikTok’s Creative Center to narrow down influencers by audience region and sort by number of followers or engagement.

Relevance

Australian plant-based superfood and protein company Tropeaka takes a holistic look at influencers’ content to determine if there’s alignment. 

“We carefully select creators based on the quality of their content, storytelling ability, and recent lifestyle updates, such as weight loss achievements, training for marathons, or becoming new parents,” says Christine Chiang, the brand’s marketing consultant. “This recency builds authenticity and relatability through the camera, enhancing our connection with the audience.”

The brand reached out to Nikita J. Crockett, a marketer who shares content about her job and improving her life. Nikita created a video explaining that as a busy professional who is always looking to become the best version of herself, she was intrigued by Tropeaka’s Body Bloom, which can help with gut health and skin. 

Engagement rate

When assessing a TikToker’s influence, look beyond their follower count and focus on engagement rates—the real measure of their impact. Dive into the views, likes, comments, saves, and shares on their videos to get a clearer picture of how their content resonates. 

These metrics offer valuable insights: a high number of saves might suggest viewers find the content worth revisiting, while frequent shares could indicate recommendations or word-of-mouth marketing potential. By focusing on these indicators, you’ll get a truer sense of an influencer’s ability to connect with (and inspire) their audience.

For example, beauty brand Glossier seeded products with fragrance influencer @eliselovessmells, an influencer with nearly 80,000 followers. Elise talks about the perfume’s notes and likens it to other products to give viewers a better understanding of the scent. The video has more than 2,000 likes and 100 saves. 

4. Build a relationship with influencers

Before you reach out to potential partners, try to interact with them to create a relationship. As Mauricio Abascal, managing director of Untitled Social explains, “When we’re talking to our brand partners and giving them advice on how to engage with influencers, we ask, ‘Well, are you also in their DMs and in their comments and engaging with their content in the hopes of working with them in the future?’” 

You can also seed products, or send them to influencers without an obligation to post about them, to build a long-term relationship. 

“They can post about it if they like the product,” says Laura Thompson, cofounder of beauty brand Three Ships, on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “You’re not paying anything. You’re just giving them free product.” 

If they do post about your products, you can solidify the relationship. 

“Once they post, we’ll then set them up with an affiliate code for them to start earning commissions,” Laura adds.

5. Approach potential influencer partners

When you’re ready to collaborate, send a cold or warm email, DM, or message through an influencer platform. In your message, include how your brand aligns with theirs, your goals, and proposed compensation. You might include a sentence about the scope of the work, but this will likely change as you and the influencer work together to develop a strategy. 

Here’s a sample pitch to a potential influencer partner:

Hi TomatoPrincess! I’m writing to inquire about a paid influencer partnership with my company, Heirloom Direct. I’m a big fan of your DIY gardening tips, and I think your followers might be interested in some of our rare heirloom tomato varieties. Our audience is home gardeners with a passion for heritage seeds and sustainable living. Our campaign goal is to increase brand awareness and boost traffic to our website. 

What do you think? I’d love to connect with you about campaign specifics. Are you available for a quick call later this week?

I look forward to connecting with you soon!

6. Develop your campaign strategy 

Once an influencer expresses interest in working with you, collaborate on your campaign strategy. These are the details that will make your TikTok influencer campaign come to life, so it’s a good idea to work with the influencer who understands what will work for their audience. 

If you’ve done your homework your audiences will overlap well, but be open to insights from the influencer. Their front-line visibility and/or interaction may yield new insights into your intended audience.

Here’s what to determine with the influencer:

• Content format. There are many types of formats, including dance challenge, product review, or a day-in-the-life featuring your brand. Choose a format that fits both brands and grabs viewers’ attention as they scroll.
• Campaign duration. You can choose a quick burst of activity or a drawn-out campaign. Who you’re working with and your budget will help determine the duration of your campaign.
• Hashtag strategy. Develop a memorable hashtag that makes sense for your campaign. This can help with going viral and make it easy to track user-generated content from other creators on the app.
• Ad strategy. Consider boosting your influencer content through TikTok ads to extend your reach beyond the influencer’s organic audience.

7. Negotiate and create a contract

After you connect and negotiate the terms of your agreement, it’s time to create a formal contract. Clarifying expectations in writing ensures both you and your influencer partner understand the specifics of your deal. It can also help you strike a balance between providing creative freedom for your partner and ensuring your business requirements are met. 

Include specifics about the expected number of videos, length, timing, subject matter, and compensation. You can also use your contract to outline the content creation process, including whether you’ll require an editorial review of videos prior to publication.

8. Launch and monitor the campaign 

If you’ve approved the influencer’s content and set a go-live date, you’re ready to launch your campaign. This might involve coordinating with multiple creators to post simultaneously or staggering posts for sustained buzz. As videos go live, keep a close eye on their performance. Monitor views, likes, comments, and shares in real time to gauge audience reaction. 

Pay attention to which content resonates most with viewers. This approach allows you to validate content before doubling down on successful pieces with paid ads or continued collaboration. 

Read: Brand Marketing vs. Performance Marketing: Examples + Tips

Decide ahead of time with the influencer how you’ll handle audience engagement. If agreed upon, be active in the comments section of their posts, answering questions from potential customers to provide immediate support and build trust. Don’t forget to repost the content on your TikTok page to maximize exposure and reinforce the partnership.

9. Analyze results and optimize future campaigns

After the campaign ends, return to your goals and measure the results. Determine what worked and what you’d like to improve for your next campaign. This helps you figure out how TikTok influencer marketing fits into your digital marketing strategy going forward.

Follow up with the influencer and thank them for their participation, especially if you’d like to work with them in the future.

How can brands benefit from TikTok influencer marketing?

There are many reasons to integrate influencers into your TikTok marketing campaigns. 

Here’s an overview of the benefits:

Increased trust 

About 47% of users who are on the app regularly trust recommendations from TikTok influencers, compared to 27% of the general public. That trust can translate into sales.

One way to test if your TikTok influencer marketing is converting into sales is to send customers a post-purchase survey, like beauty brand Kopari does. 

“We ask specifically, ‘How did you hear about us?’” says Toral Patel, the brand’s vice president of marketing on an episode of the Shopify Masters podcast. “Very often, someone will note a specific influencer.” 

Built-in tools

TikTok One makes it so that you can collaborate with influencers through its tools. You can find influencers and even pay them through TikTok One, making it easy to build influencer marketing campaigns.

To join TikTok One, creators and brands need to have an account in good standing, be 18 or older, have 10,000 followers (though this might vary by location), and post at least three pieces of content within the last 30 days. 

High engagement rates

One of the goals of influencer marketing is engagement with your brand. TikTok creators get seven times more likes per post, six times more shares, and three times more views than brands, according to Dash Social. Liking a post about your brand can mean that the TikTok algorithm shows that specific user more similar content in the future. 

Best practices for partnering with TikTok influencers

Here are a few tips to follow to work effectively with influencers:

Give influencers creative freedom

Creators know their audiences and what will resonate with them, so giving them creative control can result in more engaging content. To ensure you’re also happy with the content, find creators who understand your niche and can speak to it with confidence. 

Build relationships

Building a relationship with influencers can lead to a stronger collaboration. For example, influencer SophaDopha posted paid partnership videos about Tropeaka to her more than 1.4 million followers. Now, the influencer has collaborated with Tropeaka on products, which she continues to promote on TikTok. 

Be clear

From providing detailed information about the products influencers are promoting to giving thorough instructions on timelines, being clear can make for a smoother process. You can even add a checklist to ensure creators don’t forget anything, like disclosing that it’s a paid partnership. 

Examples of brands using TikTok influencer marketing

To get a sense of what works in TikTok influencer marketing, sometimes the best research is simply scrolling through the app itself. Pay attention to the branded content that catches your eye, makes you laugh, or prompts you to learn more about a product. 

Trends on TikTok move fast. But studying successful campaigns can offer insights into the right approach regardless of specific trends.

Here are a few standout examples of brands that have worked with TikTok influencers to put their products in front of viewers: 

Olaplex 

Olaplex, a popular hair care brand known for its bond-building products, tapped creator Matt Newman (@mattloveshair), who has three million followers. In one video, Matt showed how to gently tap the Olaplex No. 7 to dispense the right amount of product. 

He goes on to explain the benefits of the hair protectant when using heat-styling tools. The video received more than 9,000 likes, 133 comments, and 1,600 saves. 

Tropeaka 

Tropeaka’s influencer marketing strategy involves a thoughtful mix of both high-profile and emerging influencers. This approach allows the brand to borrow the broad reach of established creators while also tapping into the authentic connections that micro-influencers often have with their audiences.

“Our key collaborator is SophaDopha,” Christine says. “The remainder of our strategy is heavily focused on micro-influencers and content creators to drive TikTok Spark ads.”

For example, Paige Ladbrooke is a micro-influencer with 1,300 followers. In one post, Paige shows how she gets ready for the gym with Tropeaka’s protein and collagen mix.

Le Creuset

Le Creuset, a French cookware manufacturer known for its colorful cast-iron pots and pans, sent a Dutch oven to Eloise Taub, a content creator who focuses on Wicked-themed products. The resulting video features Eloise unboxing the PR package she received. Before she even pulls out the products, viewers can see pink and green tissue paper, which represent the main characters in the movie musical. 

As she reads the attached note and shows off the products, she sits in front of a wall of Wicked mementos, showing viewers that Le Creuset sent these products to the right person. The video garnered more than 3,000 likes, 82 comments, and 200 saves.