According to a report from Insider, the amount of affiliate content and advertising that one gets exposed to on TikTok is quite similar to the amount one would see on any network TV. Two reporters from the above-mentioned publication took it upon themselves to watch 500 TikToks each, wherein they tracked the number of ads that they came across. The result stated that they had come across around 30% ads for both of them. The majority of the ad-related content was simply traditional ads, with the others being a bunch of affiliate content, self-promotion, sponsored content of a business and product, and reviews of a product.
TikTok Could Be All About Ads Now, Says Insider
Interestingly, the experiment by the reporters was quite unscientific. Yet, even after one takes into account the time and the energy that was spent trying to quantify the experiences, one could say that this experiment was quite revelatory on the app since TikTok is quite secretive regarding the details of its exceedingly good algorithm.
One thing that one needs to know, and does know is that the social media app has been pushing pretty hard for ways through which they would be able to monetize the app– and turn it into an e-commerce platform. Recently, the app debuted its TikTok shop, and the affiliate commission program, which allowed creators to earn a cut from the sales of products that they did promote from this Shop.
While it is wholly unclear if the recent initiatives taken up by TikTok are unrelated or not, users have definitely chanced upon an uptick in the ads, as well as the commerce-related posts. Users have also complained of the FYPs being filled with ads, and have come across ads every few videos- or have also noticed how the algorithm has completely shifted to videos that promote a product that one has watched an ad for.
