FREE RESOURCE: TikTok Shop's new pay to play era with GMV Max

I think GMVAX just killed Tik Tok shop as we know it. And here's everything you need to know to not get left behind in this quarter 4 and 206 and beyond. Let's

get into it. But first things first, I just want to say thank you so much for tuning into this video. It really

humbles me every time I hear about someone actually clicking through to my links, taking the time out of their day to watch my videos and hear what I have to say, and it really means the world.

So, thank you. Uh whether you know who I am or not, uh I really hope this video is of value to you because I have and own one of the top communities on all of

Tik Tok shop, if not the top creators corner, where we have been doing this for years before Tik Tok shop was even around. And my whole goal with

around. And my whole goal with everything I post online is to really share value and lead people in the right direction to help them be more successful. If you win and get out and

successful. If you win and get out and make money and come back, make money with me later, whatever it is, we work together. That's a net positive. But

together. That's a net positive. But

even if not, you go out there and do better for this whole space. Everybody

wins and gets better at the same time.

So let's get into it.

Today these are the topics. We are going to cover the history of Tik Tok shop GMVX explained the pay to pay paytoplay era with GMVAX, the ramifications from

that and how you can get ahead and win through it all. So I'll try not to uh ramble too much here, but I'm definitely want to make sure I cover everything.

And yeah, let's start with the history of Tik Tok shop. So something a lot of people forget, even myself sometimes I forget this really was this recent is

Tik Tok shop is pretty much brand new.

It was launched less than two [ __ ] years ago, which is crazy. Literally

this time last year, I'm sorry, two years ago in 2023, September of 2023.

And it was a new feature on the platform that I honestly at first was pretty wary of. We had been running all of our viral

of. We had been running all of our viral creator campaigns just like this before and you know I had seen plenty of different features get dropped on Tik Tok from the Tik Tok creator marketplace, Tik Tok pulse, Tik Tok one,

all these different things and most of them don't really factor out to much. So

I was definitely wary at first. But when

I looked at that orange cart link that was showing up on videos and I saw that you could one-click check out with Apple Pay, save all your information in there, and then immediately the creator would

get a commission, I knew this [ __ ] was going to be big. I'm telling you, I was like, "Oh my god, they just made the next Amazon." And when they blocked out

next Amazon." And when they blocked out drop shippers and shitty brands from getting on the platform, made it very strict that the products had to be shipped quickly and be of quality um

quality use and you weren't going to get the money otherwise. I knew they were really taking the playbook from Amazon and trying to go at their jugular. Uh,

and if you want to know if someone really knows ball in this game, they will explain to you that and also explain to you the fact that the real revolutionary part of Tik Tok shop is

the tracking to affiliates and brands.

Because as someone who had been doing this for years before, doing billions of views and pushing all this revenue, the biggest problem for creators and brands was the discrepancy between discovery

and conversion. we would get the

and conversion. we would get the millions and millions of views on Tik Tok but then not be able to explain directly how many conversions came from it because there would be spillover in

the link. Not everyone's going to go to

the link. Not everyone's going to go to the link in bio. There's going to be people that don't use the code that you link and you don't know whether it's 50% difference or 20% difference or a 90%

difference and the creator or brand was always getting [ __ ] and it usually ended up being the creator which sucked because I have a creator training program in agency. So what Tik Tok shop

really did was they brought the tracking for discovery and conversion into one place which really hasn't been done well before. You look at Facebook, all they

before. You look at Facebook, all they really do or Facebook and Instagram, all they really do is discovery, right? You

go on there, you can pay to advertise or do some organic marketing even and if people find it, they go buy on your website or Amazon. Then Amazon and your

website does conversion. Rarely does top offunnel uh discovery, right? It's not a short form media platform. It's not a place where people are scrolling all day trying to find new products. They're

going for the products they know they want or niches of products they want and finding what to buy and convert on. Tik

Tok now is doing both. You are not only watching content that can inspire you of something you didn't know you wanted or remind you of something you know you wanted and be the place where you buy

and send the money both ways. So, I knew this had Amazon level competition from day one. And I think it's really shown

day one. And I think it's really shown to be that. And I think that also highlights the fact of these, you know, conglomerates wanting to ban Tik Tok.

And why I'm not bullish on Tik Tok getting banned is too damn big. But

really, I just know it's the people paying off the politicians. Let's be so for real here, you know, because they hate the competition that they're bringing. They're doing it right. And

bringing. They're doing it right. And

what was crazy, too, was that it was historically all organic, right? you'd

have these videos on Tik Tok shop that maybe got boosted a little bit extra by Tik Tok for free. Tik Tok was giving out all these coupons, giving out free uh um products to new customers, all sorts of

[ __ ] right? All organic. They were

subsidizing a lot of this usage and making sure that it was on people's feeds on TikTok for free. For free. And

this is something people have been telling me for a long time in my career is just wait until that organic switches, which is exactly what I'm about to get into because this occurred

all organically up until this July of 2025 when GMVAX came around to take over. So,

if you don't know what GMVAX is, I'm about to explain it right now. GMVAX is

basically Tik Tok's AI solution to getting brands products to sell more by boosting creators videos. That was a mouthful, but let me explain.

Brands that are selling these products and having creators promote these products, paying a commission to these creators every time they sell one, want to keep doing that, right? Businesses

are growing overnight. It's a rare subset of these businesses, by the way.

It's very hard to own a brand, just to be clear here. Um, I'm so grateful for my brand own donors and all that. Um,

but at the same time, you know, making these creators rich and really more creators are making money doing it, but both ways there's a [ __ ] ton of money at stake. But the brands are the ones that

stake. But the brands are the ones that control it. Let's be real here. And as

control it. Let's be real here. And as

long as Tik Tok allows that to happen, it's great. But once they saw, okay,

it's great. But once they saw, okay, there's all this money going back and forth, Tik Tok said, okay, you want to get more of that, you want to boost that up, try this GMVX thing where you pay

our AI, tell us a set budget, tell us your your goal ROI, and we'll handle the rest with our AI team. Crazy. Typically

on ads on Facebook or Instagram, you'd have a lot more control, right? You'd be

able to go in, pick the exact creative you want, uh, how much you want to spend behind it, whether you want to cut it or not, when you want to cut it, how long you want to run it for, and have to get

really good at optimizing that. Tik Tok

gives you no control over that. And

specifically, as of July 2025, gives you no control over that because you used to be able to do shop ads. But Tik Tok doesn't want to leave that in your hands. I think, this is my theory at

hands. I think, this is my theory at least. They want to make it really easy

least. They want to make it really easy and a no-brainer for these brands and businesses to come in and have to pay for GMVAX without any fuss over how good

of a media buyer you are or whether or not you have the option to do otherwise.

And so it has now become the only Tik Tok shop ads platform which makes me think and know with confidence honestly

that the paytoplay era has arrived.

And besides the fact of being able to see this anecdotally, if you are just a creator or brand owner on the platform, brand owners having to pay more to get the same amount of views or same amount

of sales and creators starting to notice that if they don't have ad authorization on, they're not making any money or not getting any views. I'll tell you the obvious reason behind the scenes that makes sense for all this coming

together. And that is the difference in

together. And that is the difference in Tik Tok's ad revenue to other social platforms. In 2024, Meta did $195

billion in ad revenue. It was 95% of their revenue. Because a lot of people

their revenue. Because a lot of people forget ad revenue is 100% margins for the platform that owns it. They don't

have to pay somebody else. This isn't

some other thing. This isn't a little cut of processing that Tik Tok takes off these videos that that sell and get a little of their

own little Tik Tok shop fee. No, this is a 100% margin that goes to Tik Tok and they are dropping the ball massively compared to these other platforms that

aren't that much bigger, only doing 10 to 20 billion in ad revenue in 2024. And

like I said, people were telling me my whole career that, hey, just wait till organic gets pulled on Tik Tok. And I

laughed at them before because I thought that would fundamentally change the platform. But now Tik Tok has segmented

platform. But now Tik Tok has segmented them where you have the regular videos and you have the orange cart videos that are all based on commerce. So they don't

have to pull the regular organic views for creators that are just trying to create content about their life, be influencers, make funny stuff, whatever.

They can just do it on the brands who have the money and the creators who want to make the brands money. It's a no [ __ ] brainer for Tik Tok to increase

GMVAX spend and make it really the only way to survive aka paytoplay and organic what I think you will see in

our scene as we speak is organic will keep on dying and paid will keep on going making it paytoplay.

They said, "Okay, to start, if you want to just boost your videos, spend on this." Now, if you want to make any

this." Now, if you want to make any level of views on your videos, spend on this. No different than how a Facebook

this. No different than how a Facebook or Instagram really is. And I've shown in this image, as you can see here. Now,

what are the ramifications of this past it being paytoplay? This means that the brands, if the brands want to make more, they spend more. And that is Tik Tok's number one focus. How do we get them to

spend more? How do we clear this gap?

spend more? How do we clear this gap?

You have to think like them. They want

to make the brands the most amount of money. Meaning they prioritize the

money. Meaning they prioritize the return on investment for the brands because they pick the videos. Like I

said, you know, it's all AI. They tell

them, "Hey, not only do you just like put in the money, we will and uh to hopefully boost them, we'll find the exact ones to boost you and make you the most money." And it's going to get

most money." And it's going to get better and better over time at doing so.

Uh, so that means they're going to give test budget just like a media buyer would to all the creatives at once or the ones that appear somewhat worthy of

getting a test and then continue to spend behind the ones that turn $1 into5 or $1 into $10 over the ones that turn

$1 into $3 or $1 into $4, right? Trying

to get the brand the most money possible. meaning conversion will become

possible. meaning conversion will become more important than just entertainment on the regular platform where you're making content for people for engagement, right? Trying to get likes,

engagement, right? Trying to get likes, shares, full video watch times, not caring about whether someone can buy because there's nothing to buy off a video that's just funny or about someone's life. Now, Tik Tok wants to

someone's life. Now, Tik Tok wants to see if you can get people to watch and buy, right? But conversion is more

buy, right? But conversion is more important than anything because they could watch it and not buy it and nothing will happen, right? that you

will not get keep you will not keep on getting pushed in this GMV Max paytoplay era which means less creators will be winning because

it's the best converting video that will go to the top and there will be a bigger divide between the top and bottom.

Whatever gets identified as the top performing top converting content will get all the spend and views and the others will die down below making this

massive gap between the poor and rich on Tik Tok shop. And in general, there will be much more volatility for the ones that are dancing on the line and a lot

more stability for the ones who consistently can stay at the top and nothing for the people who can't even get close to the top or the divide at

all. So, how do I win during this era?

all. So, how do I win during this era?

Well, I basically just started to explain it, right? You want to make sure that you are making the best content possible and understand what's really [ __ ] going on here. I've hope I've laid it out clear enough for you and you

can go check it also on websites like Fast Moss Calata or even if you have access to Tik Tok shop backends or whatever. Go just look at how this game

whatever. Go just look at how this game is shaping out. Go talk to brands. Go

see what brands are saying and you will start to see holy [ __ ] this is [ __ ] real. And you need to be studying

real. And you need to be studying everything you know about everything that there is to know about GMVX just like you're doing right now, but more on your own of new policy updates, brands

that are spending, how much they're spending, what they're spending on, and look to focus on making amazing videos that actually sell. The creators that know how to sell and convert and get

people to watch and then convert will be the ones who make the most. That will be the 1% of 1%. So that means more handling objections and making new angles that attack new audiences that

convert for the brand even further with a group of people that isn't already selling for that brand. Right? Because

you don't just have to be the best converting creator. You just have to be

converting creator. You just have to be the best converting creator for a certain audience so that Tik Tok can spread out more of that spend and more of that views to you. So basically let's

say I Jimmy am converting at a 4x return for uh 25 year old uh males. If you are a girl and you're converting at a 3x it

doesn't mean that you won't get spend too as long as you convert in another audience that's 25year-old women that I am not targeting. You just have to make sure that you are different and in your

category converting the best. You can't

be in that category the same as somebody else making the same style of content converting at two when somebody else is converting at three. Why would the why would the AI spend more on you, right?

They're going to spend as much as humanly possible on that until that dies out and you start to beat them. You see

how this starting to go? So really, one of the main things that's gone, by the way, just so you know, is that there's not going to be many more days of these Tik Tok affiliates getting 25 million views and only converting to 5,000 in

sales or almost nothing in sales. That's

something that used to be really common because it was more of that entertainment style, not focused on conversion. Creators used to get away

conversion. Creators used to get away with that and it used to be a common thing. Buy gone. Right? So, you keep you

thing. Buy gone. Right? So, you keep you have to to get to those points, you have to study the brand's ideal customer and their audience. Get really good at

their audience. Get really good at direct response copywriting. Get really

good at selling, handling what buyer psychology is probably going through, optionality, handling, making it really easy for them to convert. So a lot of that content is going to be more of

middle offunnel content or even sadly bottom offunnel content as you might know as an affiliate where before videos would have to not only entertain,

introduce and sell. Now you just have to come in and show the product, highlight the the unique selling points, handle some questions that buyers are probably going through that you've studied and

found, and then handle them, get them to the sale, and move on. Those are the videos that are probably going to convert the best, especially for brands that are already doing well on the platform, spending a lot on the platform

as well. You want to look for those

as well. You want to look for those brands that are spending because they are the ones that will get you to that point and probably already getting sales. Uh, and you also want to find

sales. Uh, and you also want to find gaps on the brand's current top performers. So, you can use platforms

performers. So, you can use platforms like fast moss or calod data to get a sense to get a sense. It's not going to be perfectly accurate. daily virals as

well to get a sense of what the brands and products top performers are getting all the ad spend and you can look through okay if this creator is at six

figures in GMV or high five figures in GMV and this creator is not um and this creator also is at six figures in GMV what are they doing differently uh what audiences are they targeting what kind

of style are they making can I make their video 30 40 50% better notably convert better so I can get ahead of them in the GMVAX spend. Are they

missing something? So now you're going to base a lot of this off anecdotal data, which is why it's going to be hard for beginners to get into this because they're not going to have as much learnings with anecdotal data with

something that's tangent. Um, as well as you're trying to identify gaps where holy [ __ ] they aren't targeting this type of woman or they ain't targeting this type of guy or this demographic or

this age group or this certain objection that I know a lot of people are having with their product, which is why I said it's so important to study their ideal customer, unique selling points, and audience. Hope this all makes sense

audience. Hope this all makes sense because I'm really dropping [ __ ] game right now. Um, so I hope you're

right now. Um, so I hope you're following along. And that is going to be

following along. And that is going to be what separates the 1% to the bottom 99% and makes that massive wealth divide. So

top creators are really going to win out of this uh because they are going to get to those tops as long as long as they can get to the top there. Uh a key thing too is going to be getting connections

to these brands and other creators. The

more you can get data that can't be found anywhere else, part of the reason I know a lot of this stuff is because I work with 40 of the top brands on Tik Tok shop. I'm seeing their brand seller

Tok shop. I'm seeing their brand seller centers and looking at what they're spending on and I'm looking how much my creators are making and double-checking these these numbers and watching the discrepancies, watching the

commonalities and all that. And if you are not around a group or in a group or mentorship or whatever that has access to these things, you are going to be

left behind. So I know in my group, we

left behind. So I know in my group, we luckily are set, but there's very few groups that do this well, right? A lot

of groups don't have direct connections.

They're just getting on Tik Tok shop or you might be a solo affiliate just getting on Tik Tok shop and just basing it off you're a lone wolf seeing what you see. You don't want that. You want

you see. You don't want that. You want

the meta. You want the alpha during these times of massive change because as we know there's massive opportunity as long as you know what it is to capitalize. and also getting retainers

capitalize. and also getting retainers and diversifying off shop will be an increasing will be a bigger uh opportunity than it was before. So, in Creators Corner, we

was before. So, in Creators Corner, we now are doubling down on these retainer plus commission models that we always have that weren't that big when everybody was making money on commissions so that creators now have

more stability because with the GMVAX spend going up and down based on how much you're performing, the volatility at any time will be much more dramatic, right? For some top creators, it might

right? For some top creators, it might be more stable, but when they do get hit, it'll be more dramatic to them going to the bottom, right? instead of a video just kind of dying out and having little runs, it'll go straight to the

bottom. So, we're making sure that our

bottom. So, we're making sure that our creators don't dip down all the way and have consistent income trying to make our creators anywhere from 20 to an extra 100K per year just off retainers getting paid to show up. And if you

don't have that as a creator, I'm telling you, you are leaving money on the table. And no other group offers

the table. And no other group offers these like we do in Creators Corner. You

can also go out and close your own deals as well. That's totally a viable option.

as well. That's totally a viable option.

It's just a whole another thing you got to handle. So keep that in mind. It's a

to handle. So keep that in mind. It's a

whole another part of your business that you got to open as well as finding opportunities off of Shop. We partner

with App Mafia and are now doing stuff to blow up these viral apps with bigger retainers than Shop is really and also great performance deals that maybe don't have as high of a cap as Shop where the

tracking is so [ __ ] good, like I said, but will give you more consistent income. You don't need 5,000 followers

income. You don't need 5,000 followers or to buy an account to keep sticking up with this with violations and all that kind of stuff so that you don't dip down like I said and you can learn how to

make amazing content for when you get to shop and blow up. This genuinely is who's going to win during the air and I can't wait for you to see how well this ages when it comes about. We are all in

on this. Oops.

on this. Oops.

We are all in on this and I hope this was helpful. Uh, and if you have any

was helpful. Uh, and if you have any questions, please drop them in the comments below and we will continue to keep making content. I will continue to keep making free content like this and on my YouTube. And if you want to look

to join us, talk to someone on our team for completely free. Just see if it's a good fit. Uh, or you're ready to go with

good fit. Uh, or you're ready to go with Creators Corner, I have a link in the description as well, um, to some of my socials as well as the straightup call booking link for Creators Corner. Thank

you for tuning in and we'll talk to you soon.