There Are No Secrets — Just Better Systems

There’s a misconception that the sellers generating $1M+ on TikTok Shop know something you don’t — like there’s some secret tactic or hidden growth hack behind their success.

But when you really study the top-performing shops, the truth is much simpler (and more boring): they have better systems.

They aren’t guessing. They aren’t chasing trends. They’re running repeatable processes that surface what’s working — and they double down on it.

One of those systems? Affiliate analysis.

And last week, we ran a deep dive affiliate audit on the top 30 GMV-generating videos for one of our accounts. The goal was to better understand:

• Which creators are driving the most revenue

• Which videos actually perform

• Which products are driving success

This is the kind of analysis that turns a $100K shop into a $1M+ one. Below is what we uncovered — and more importantly, how you can run the same playbook.

🎥 Not All Videos Are Equal

Let’s start with the obvious: some content performs wildly better than others. This is the reality you need to be comfortable with.

In this analysis, the #1 video drove $29K in GMV. It had just over 463K views — and featured the brand’s hero product.

Meanwhile, the video in the #10 spot generated just $1.1K in GMV.

That’s more than a 20x difference in sales output — from content that's part of the same affiliate program, promoting the same product, in the same rough timeframe.

This is why doing a surface-level review of your affiliate creators isn’t enough. You can’t just track who posted — you need to track what worked.

If you’re not organizing your top-performing content at the video level, you’ll miss insights that could directly inform future briefs, hooks, and angles.

Then that begs the question: what made the difference? No.1 video was made by a creator who has ~40k followers and averages 3- 4k video views. Her content isn’t necessarily all in the relevant niche but she has good views and engagements. Compared to the creator ranked #10, her average views are lower. Another thing to notice is that all ranked videos are dated before mid-April. This coincided with a change in pushing a new hero product. As I go into the product analysis later, it’ll become obvious that switching to a new hero product hasn’t yielded much success.

🧑‍🎨 Top Creators Do the Heavy Lifting

Here’s the second finding: a small group of creators is responsible for most of the GMV.

This is one of the more extreme cases, but for this shop, the no.1 creator drove 50%+ revenue in 2025.

The next best creator was less than 20% of that.

This is true in roughly every shop we analyze — the top 5% of creators drive the majority of sales.

Yet most sellers spend the same amount of time and effort across all affiliates. They send hundreds of samples, approve everyone, and are doing way less than what’s needed with their top affiliates.

Instead, we recommend tiering your creators based on past GMV performance and video consistency. Giving your tier A creators surprise gifts, giving them early access to new products, and regularly checking in to understand what content formats are converting. Some want retainers? Cool! Some want more exclusive deals? Find a way to do that for them. We have creators who want to talk to the CEO; yes, that’s possible!

📦 Product Focus > Product Variety

Another insight from the data: the vast majority of top-performing videos featured a single product.

Not a discount. Not a bundle. Not an add-on. Just one clear, high-converting hero product.

It’s tempting to send creators your full catalog or try to “promote more SKUs.” But on TikTok Shop, more isn’t better — clarity is.

When you find a product that drives consistent sales, you have three jobs:

1. Create more content volume around that product

2. Test more creators with that same product

3. Explore ways to scale reach (e.g. retargeting ads or boosting best-performing affiliate posts)

This is why we always recommend building your entire creator funnel around 1–2 hero products till it stops working. The biggest takeaway from this analysis was not to chase shiny objects and switch things early.

📊 What This Analysis Actually Helps You Do

Affiliate analysis isn’t just about creating a leaderboard. It should shape your entire strategy.

Here’s how to put it into action:

✅ Step 1: Rank Creators by GMV

Pull your last 30-60 days of affiliate data and sort by total GMV. Not impressions. Not clicks. GMV.

Identify your top 5–10 creators and tag them as Tier A.

✅ Step 2: Map GMV by Video

Look at each video they posted. What were the hooks? What products were shown? When was it posted?

Document the winning formulas so you can reverse-engineer what to brief future creators on.

✅ Step 3: Double Down

Now that you know who’s winning and what works, double down.

That could mean:

• Sending more product to that creator

• Briefing them on a new version of their top video

• Retargeting traffic to that video through Spark Ads

• Giving them a higher commission or bonus incentive

✅ Step 4: Use These Insights to Brief New Creators

When you bring in new affiliates, don’t start from scratch.

Feed them what’s working:

“Top performing creators are using [hook]. This product performs best when shown in [context]. Here’s a video that drove $29 in sales last month."

Final Thoughts

Every seller wants to scale and wants the secret sauce. But most aren’t building the infrastructure that helps them scale.

This type of affiliate analysis doesn’t require a fancy tool. It requires a spreadsheet, 90 minutes of your time, and a willingness to be honest about what’s actually working in your shop.

The difference between $100K GMV and $1M GMV isn’t effort — it’s insight.

And if you’re not running this type of analysis monthly, you’re likely leaving tens (or hundreds) of thousands of dollars on the table.