From Influencers to Affiliates: The Rise of TikTok’s Creator Sellers

TikTok in the UK isn’t just an awareness channel anymore. It has become a fully fledged sales engine, and the people powering it aren’t traditional celebrities but a new group of “creator sellers” – influencers who don’t just inspire, they convert. In 2025 this shift is speeding up because of one thing: TikTok Shop’s affiliate ecosystem.

For UK brands, this is good news. You no longer need a seven-figure brand account to move product. You can plug into hundreds of creators who already know how to talk to their audience, give them your products, give them clear hooks, and let them sell for you on a pure performance basis.

Let’s break down how it works and what to do with it.

Why creator sellers are winning right now

1. TikTok has collapsed the funnel
   On TikTok, discovery, recommendation, social proof and checkout all live in one feed. A creator can talk about a product, tag it, go live, answer questions in real time, and viewers can buy without leaving the app. That’s why so many UK users say they’ve bought something after seeing it on TikTok and why social commerce sales are growing fast in the UK.
2. Creators are more trusted than brands
   Gen Z and younger millennials treat creators like category editors. If someone they watch daily says “this is the one that actually works” it will outperform a polished brand ad. So when TikTok gave creators an easy way to tag products and earn commission, it unlocked a new behaviour: creators selling like QVC presenters, but natively.
3. It’s performance based
   In the affiliate model creators don’t have to wait for flat-fee brand deals. They can pick products already trending on TikTok Shop, make content in their own style and get paid when the audience buys. That makes the whole system self-optimising: the best sellers earn more, so they create more.

How TikTok’s affiliate layer actually works

At the centre is TikTok Shop’s affiliate marketplace. Sellers (you) upload products with commission rates. Creators browse those products and select the ones they want to promote. When they post a video or go live and someone buys via their link/product card, they get the commission.

Key pieces in 2025:

• Product-level commission: you can set higher commissions on hero SKUs you want to push.
• Creator storefronts: creators can build mini shops of “things I actually use” which massively improves conversion because it feels curated, not random.
• Live + affiliate stacking: a creator can run a live show featuring your product, tag it, and earn on every sale in real time.
• Paid amplification on top: if a creator video starts to move units, you can Spark it and run it as an ad to scale it beyond their own audience.

Somerce’s view on this (from their case studies)

A lot of Somerce’s biggest wins come from doing three things together:

1. Seed products to the right creators (not the biggest, the most on-niche).
2. Give them a simple, sales-first creative brief (hook, problem, proof, CTA).
3. Back the winners with lives, bundles and ads.

You can see this pattern in several of their TikTok Shop case studies:

• Azio Beauty: hand-picked creators, properly briefed, and they hit around £100k a month on TikTok Shop in about two months – starting from zero. That’s creator sellers doing the heavy lifting, not just the brand page.
• Glow For It: they built a repeatable creator group who kept posting and going live. Result was roughly a 5x uplift in affiliate-driven GMV because the brand didn’t rely on one big influencer, it relied on many medium ones.
• Icy Bear and similar beauty brands: one strong showcase Live plus 100+ creator videos in the same week. The Live gives urgency, the affiliates give reach. That’s exactly how to use creator sellers.

What’s changing from “influencer” to “affiliate”

Old model:

• Brand finds influencer
• Pays flat fee
• Gets 1–2 posts
• Hard to prove ROI

New TikTok model:

• Brand uploads offer to TikTok Shop
• Dozens/hundreds of creators pull the offer
• Creators make native content in their own styles
• Brand only pays on sale
• You can see exactly which creator, video and Live actually sold

So instead of “influencer marketing” as awareness, this is “creator commerce” as acquisition.

What UK brands should do now

1. Build a creator tiering system
   Don’t just say “we want influencers.” Map three tiers:

• Tier 1: brand-right faces you want on Lives or big launches
• Tier 2: reliable niche creators who can produce weekly videos
• Tier 3: volume/UGC creators for testing hooks

Then set three commission bands to match. Hero creators get higher % or bundles, Tier 3 gets standard.

2. Write sales-first creative briefs
   Creator sellers do better when you remove friction. Your brief should give:

• 3 hooks: “If your skin is breaking out around your period…”, “UK girlies stop wasting money on…”, “This is why your TikTok cleanser isn’t working”
• 1 product proof: demo, texture, before/after, stitch a review
• 1 CTA: “linked in video”, “tap the basket”, “it’s 20% off today”

Don’t over-script. Let them say it in their own voice.

3. Incentivise Lives
   Live is where creator sellers become proper sales reps. Offer short-time bonuses (“extra 5% on sales made during Live”, “free stock for next month if you hit £2k GMV on Live”). Somerce does this a lot for beauty brands so creators keep coming back and the calendar is never empty.
4. Make your offer creator-friendly
   Creator sellers don’t want to push awkward, high-friction products. So:

• Have at least one easy hero product
• Make the price point “TikTok impulse” (under £30 works very well in the UK, bundles under £50)
• Add a TikTok-only perk (free shipping, free mini, extra shade) so creators have something to shout about
• Keep stock high on the product they’re pushing, or you’ll burn goodwill

5. Track and scale winners fast
   Watch TikTok Shop analytics daily. If a creator video starts moving units, do two things immediately:

• Spark it and run it as an ad
• Invite that creator to do a Live this week

This is how the best agencies (incl. Somerce) turn one good video into a £10k week.

6. Pair affiliates with your own content
   Your brand account should still post daily: education, behind-the-scenes, product routines, customer reviews. Then let affiliates be the loud, salesy layer on top. When viewers jump from a creator’s video to your profile, they need to see a credible brand there.

Why this matters for 2025

• CPMs on Meta and other socials are not going down.
• TikTok Shop is still in growth mode in the UK, so it’s rewarding activity.
• Creator talent supply is huge – there are thousands of small UK creators who would rather earn daily commissions than chase one big brand deal.
• This model creates defensible growth. If 120 different people sell your product this month, a competitor can’t copy that overnight.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Only inviting big creators. Micro and mid creators often sell better because they feel closer to their audience.
• No brief. “Just make something” leads to views but not sales.
• Paying flat fees without tracking GMV. If it doesn’t sell, it’s brand only – treat it that way.
• Ignoring Live. Live is where a lot of the real selling happens.
• Boring products. If it doesn’t demo well on vertical video, it will be hard to get creators excited.

How Somerce would frame it to a brand

• Creators are now your variable salesforce on TikTok.
• Your job is to give them the right products, the right stories and the right incentives.
• Our job (agency side) is to recruit, brief, schedule Lives, moderate, and then boost the content that performs.

If you want to be listed alongside the agencies doing this well, make sure your TikTok Shop is fully set up, your commission structure is live and your creator pipeline is rolling.

Final takeaway

Influencers got you reach.
Creator sellers get you revenue.

TikTok has finally made it easy to pay people based on what they actually sold. In the UK right now that’s the biggest arbitrage in social: brands that can organise 50–200 creators around a hero product, with Live support and brand content in the background, will win. If you’re serious about TikTok, move your influencer budget toward performance affiliates and build the machine.

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