Should I run TikTok ads for my store?

This is a creative channel before it is a media channel. Ads live and die on whether the video earns the first couple of seconds, and the same video stops working faster than on other platforms because people scroll through a great deal of content quickly.

So the real commitment is a production rhythm. Several new pieces a week, made cheaply, most of which will not work. If you cannot see where those come from, whether that is your own phone, a team member who enjoys it, customers sending clips or creators you pay, then the budget is beside the point.

The honest version of this question is not can I afford the media, it is can I afford the making. A store that spends modestly on media and produces plenty of video will do better than one that spends heavily and reuses three assets.

If the answer is no for now, that is a legitimate decision. Put the effort into channels where existing demand can be captured with the assets you already have, and revisit this when you have a source of video you can rely on.

Products that work well share a few traits. They are visual, so the value is obvious on camera. They have a moment of transformation, a before and after, a satisfying use, an unboxing that means something. They are quick to explain, because you have seconds. And they sit at a price where someone can decide without research.

Categories that tend to fit: beauty and personal care, food and drink, apparel and accessories, homeware, gadgets that do something visible, pet products, novelty and gift items.

Products that struggle share the opposite traits. High price points that need consideration. Purchases that require sizing, fitting or a technical match to something the buyer already owns. Categories where the buyer wants to compare specifications side by side. Anything in a restricted category where the advertising policies limit what can be said or shown, which is worth checking before you build a plan around it.

That does not mean a considered product can never work here. It means the goal has to change. For those categories the channel is better used to create awareness and build an audience you convert elsewhere, and the measurement has to account for that rather than expecting a direct sale from the first view.

The single biggest mistake is running a repurposed square product ad with a logo and a price. It is recognised as an advertisement instantly and scrolled past.

What works is vertical, full screen, filmed on a phone, with a person in it. It opens on the thing itself or on the problem, not on branding. It is spoken rather than captioned in a corporate voice, and the sound matters, because a large share of viewing is with sound on.

Useful formats to try: someone demonstrating the product in one continuous take, a customer explaining why they bought it, a maker showing how it is made, a direct comparison between doing it the old way and the new way, and answering a real question customers ask.

Customer footage and creator footage generally outperform studio work here, partly because it is more believable and partly because it is cheaper to make in quantity, and quantity is what the channel needs.

Test ideas, not edits. Five different ideas will teach you far more than five versions of the same idea with different music. Once one idea works, then make variations of it.

Attribution on a discovery channel is harder than on a search channel, because most people who see your product do not buy immediately and many do not click at all. They watch, remember, and search for you later. That order will be credited to search, or to direct, and the video that created it will look like it did nothing.

So set up three measurements before you start. The platform's own reporting, which is useful for comparing creative against creative. Your analytics with consistent tagging, which will under report this channel. And a blended view of total store revenue against total advertising spend, which is the only one that captures the effect on the whole business.

Watch two extra signals that often move before the direct number does: branded search volume and direct traffic. If those rise while you are running video, the channel is doing something even if the last click report is unimpressed.

And give it a fair test window. Judging a discovery channel on a week of last click data will always produce the same answer, which is that it did not work.

Set the test up so that a negative result still teaches you something.

Pick one product, the most visual one you sell, at an entry price point. Do not test the whole catalogue.

Make six pieces of video around six different ideas. Keep them rough. Spending a fortnight on production before you know which idea works is the wrong order.

Set a budget you can run for a full month, concentrated in one campaign rather than spread across several, and leave it alone between weekly reviews.

Send traffic to a page built for a stranger arriving from video: the product visible immediately, price and delivery clear, short answers to the obvious questions, and evidence from other buyers.

Capture the people who do not buy. An email or SMS sign-up and a retargeting audience turn an expensive first visit into a cheaper second one, which matters more here than on channels where people arrive ready.

At the end of the month, ask three questions. Did any idea hold attention. Did the site convert the traffic it got. Did branded search or direct traffic move. Two out of three is enough to keep going.