TikTok Shop Audit: What I Ask Every Brand Before Starting

Before I touch a brand's TikTok Shop, I want answers to about 20 questions across products, content, creators, store conversion and ads. Then I open the ad account and look for signs of neglect. Last, I check who owns the affiliate data and how commissions actually get paid. Here is the full audit checklist I use.

The discovery questions I ask on the first call

If I'm talking to a brand selling on TikTok Shop and I have zero insights before the call, this is exactly what I ask. I dig deeper based on the vertical and how they answer, but these questions get the real picture on the table fast.

Product and merchandising

• Do you have defined hero products and supporting SKUs?
• How do you manage inventory cycles and restocks for TikTok demand?

Content and brand strategy

• What's your creative strategy and testing process for TikTok content?
• What is the brand account posting strategy and cadence?

Creator performance

• What percentage of creators who receive samples actually post? (Here is why that ratio matters.)
• What percentage of creators post more than once?
• What is the average commission payout per converting creator?
• What incentives exist beyond base commission?

Creator activation and pipeline

• Where are your creators coming from today?
• What happens after a creator accepts your campaign? Think onboarding, briefs and hooks.
• How are you communicating with creators and managing relationships?

Store conversion

• What is the TikTok Shop product conversion rate?
• How are you optimizing the product page?
• Are you proactively collecting or importing reviews?

Traffic and growth

• What is your ads strategy today (Shop, Website, top of funnel, GMV Max) and how do you decide what to scale?

Strategic

• Have you tested live shopping via the brand or creators?
• If we gave you $10K to scale TikTok Shop next month, where would you invest it?

What the answers tell me

Most of these questions are really asking one thing: does anyone own this channel? A brand that knows its sample-to-post rate, its repeat-poster rate and its product page conversion rate is running a system. A brand that has to go look it up is usually running on hope.

The last question is my favorite. How a team would spend an extra $10K shows whether they know where the constraint is. If the answer is "more ads" but only a small share of sampled creators ever post, the money is going to the wrong place.

What a neglected TikTok Shop account looks like

About a year ago I finished an audit where what we uncovered was wild. No one had touched the account in months. The fastest way to know is to check the recent edits in the ad account and in GMV Max. Here's what we found:

• Zero edits or changes in 30+ days
• Just six ad creatives launched all month
• No funnel logic and no exclusions
• Broad targeting across the board
• $40+ CPMs
• Sub-1% CTR
• Only one lonely campaign running generic product ads
• 0.3x ROAS
• 3,000+ unanswered affiliate messages sitting in the inbox

A quick disclaimer. No legit agency can guarantee results, and if one does, run. What they should guarantee is effort and critical thinking, backed by constant testing. If your agency isn't bringing fresh, data-backed ideas when things aren't working, they're not managing. They're just monitoring.

The brand has a job here too. You have to be engaged. Agencies can't fix things you won't greenlight.

What should be happening when performance lags

When the numbers slip, this is the work I expect to see in the account:

• Creative velocity. 5 to 6 new creatives per day, remixing winners and testing new formats.
• A sharper hook. If the ads sell the category instead of your unique product, that's brand erosion.
• Real retargeting. Stacked audiences, user reviews and UGC that hit people based on where they are in the journey.
• GMV Max testing. Different bid types and product groups, plus making sure spend actually lands on specific creatives.
• Daily attention. Watch the data every day, sometimes multiple times a day, and shift fast.
• Keyword Search. Affiliate and brand creative that hits the top monthly search queries in your niche.
• Video Views with shoppable product tags. A fast way to expand top of funnel and find what can work bottom of funnel in GMV Max. Even better now: Video Shopping Ads run through Showcase, which build the Shop activity GMV Max actually optimizes off.
• Affiliate briefs that give real insight. Product USPs, top-performing examples and urgency triggers.
• Every platform advantage. Ask your rep about the new-advertiser coupon, which triggers when you publish your first GMV Max campaign, and about GMV Max ROI protection credits. Don't change your target ROI mid-flight or you lose that protection. Partners also run seasonal ad-credit incentives, so ask what's live this quarter.

Two things to check about your agency setup

This came out of a sales call with a brand that was already working with a TikTok Shop affiliate agency. Ask both of these before you sign with anyone, and ask them again if you already have.

1. Know exactly who gets paid what

Make sure you know what the agency bills you, what it bills creators, and how your commissions truly get paid. In this case the agency charged the brand a retainer, took a percentage of the commissions, and also charged the affiliates a percentage. The brand had no idea.

The brand thought it was paying creators a 25% commission. The agency took 5% from the brand, then told creators the offer was 20% with 5% of that going to the agency. Creators actually received 15%. The agency kept 10%, plus the service fee.

If that structure is transparent from the start, I have no issue with it. The agency is managing the account and the creators and should have an incentive. The problem is when nobody tells you.

2. Own your affiliate CRM and data

If you're using a tool like Cruva, make sure your team creates the account. (I advise Cruva.) Think of it like the pixel on your ad account, but worse: there's no good way to transfer the data if the relationship ends. If you don't own it, you can't take it with you, and you can't check flows and messaging in real time.

Yes, you'll eat the cost of the tool. It's worth it. This usually isn't malicious, but would you ever want an agency to own your Klaviyo account? Probably not. They shouldn't own your TikTok Shop affiliate CRM either.

The short version

1. Run the discovery questions and note which ones nobody can answer.
2. Open the change history in the ad account and GMV Max. Look at creative volume, CPMs, CTR, ROAS and the affiliate inbox.
3. Compare what's happening to the list of what should be happening when performance lags.
4. Map every fee and commission split, from your invoice to the creator's payout.
5. Confirm your team owns the affiliate CRM login and data.

I started my agency by taking everything I hated about working with agencies and making it client-first. This checklist is a big part of that.

If you want a second set of eyes on your TikTok Shop or Meta ads, send me your brand.