Doubling TikTok Affiliate GMV, Without Depending on a Few Creators

The Challenge

Kenvue Indonesia was planning to scale up affiliate contribution in its TikTok Shops across Aveeno, Aveeno Baby, Neutrogena, Listerine, and Clean & Clear. Two problems stood in the way:

• Too little recruitment capacity. There was only one MCN (agency) partner, and its performance at the time was unsatisfactory. We needed more MCNs to recruit affiliates faster.
• Too much concentration risk. Most of the GMV came from just 1–3 creators. The goal was for 80% of GMV to be carried by around 15–20 top creators instead.

How do you scale an affiliate channel when a handful of creators carry the whole result?

Solution & Process

1. Expanding the MCN bench

I sourced candidate MCNs from internal recommendations and from TikTok’s own recommendations, then listed the criteria that mattered most for choosing a partner:

• Affiliate pool characteristics
• Past clients
• Team capability and size
• Commission fees
• Whether their proposed plan was suitable to reach our target

After several rounds of presentations and feedback, we hired 2 additional MCNs, followed by another one a couple of months later.

2. Recruiting top creators, not just more creators

The first objective for the MCNs was affiliate recruitment, and the brief was explicit: we did not want to rely on 1–3 creators, we wanted around 15–20 top creators.

The MCNs scouted and assessed top creators in each category. Many were already promoting competitor brands, which was fine: it validated their expertise and the strength of their audience.

3. Assessing creators on real performance

Each top-affiliate candidate was assessed on measurable metrics rather than follower count:

• GMV
• GPM
• Engagement rate
• Live GMV per hour
• Other key performance metrics