Nice to meet you. I specialize in turning content into measurable business outcomes on TikTok. With a primary focus on affiliate marketing, I oversee end-to-end platform operations, from creator discovery and partnerships to content strategy and campaign management.

TikTok Shop is a commerce service that lets you buy products straight from the TikTok app. If something catches your interest while you’re watching content, you can buy it on the spot without leaving the app. My part in this service is affiliate marketing. I connect creators with brands so that when creators introduce products in their own content, it leads to actual purchases.

It starts with finding creators and pitching a collaboration. From there, I decide which brand’s product to introduce to which audience, and keep working with the creator to make the content effective. I also work on promotions and sales strategy, setting up the conditions for content to turn into purchases. In short, my job covers everything that goes into growing sales on TikTok Shop.

I used to handle CRM marketing at a retailer, where I analyzed customer behavioral data, identified key patterns, and offered more suitable benefits and experiences. What mattered wasn’t just checking the numbers but understanding the customer behavior behind them and the reasons for it, and turning that into the next step. By understanding customers through data and planning experiences to match them, I naturally developed data-driven thinking.

It may seem like a completely different field of marketing, but if you think of creators as important partners and customers, the two have a lot in common. In CRM marketing you don’t approach every customer the same way, and creators are all different too. Content style, the products they mainly sell, and what matters to them differ from one creator to the next, so it’s important to understand each one and tailor your approach.

For example, one creator may care about getting to try new products first, while another may value the chance to build a direct relationship with the brand. So I look at a creator’s content together with how the market responds, and think about which products and messages would work with that creator, and how they should be delivered. In the end, I think the basic CRM view, ‘moving away from a one-size-fits-all approach,’ applies to TikTok Shop marketing today as well.

While a passion for content is essential, I believe having a holistic understanding of the broader commerce landscape is what matters most. That’s because on TikTok Shop, it isn’t enough to make good content; you have to design the whole structure so that the content leads to actual purchases. In practice, too, I look not only at content but at a range of factors, from sales, ad efficiency, and commissions to inventory and logistics, and make decisions from a broad perspective.

The appeal of working on TikTok Shop is that I get to see how a reaction that starts with content carries through to actual purchases and business results. On TikTok in particular, a single piece of content can draw an unexpectedly strong response, and it’s fascinating to be able to track in real time how that response turns into actual purchases. As I watch where one small reaction leads and carry that experience into the next attempt, I feel that I keep growing along with TikTok Shop.

Curiosity, without a doubt. TikTok is a channel with almost no set formulas and almost nothing you can take for granted, so rather than accepting results at face value, you always have to ask first, “Why did we get this result?”
I keep asking why a certain video has gone viral, what about it won consumers over, and beyond that, which content actually leads to purchases, and I keep looking for the answers. I apply the insights I find to the next piece of content, creator collaboration, or ad strategy, and check the market’s response again. I think being good at this job starts with staying curious, asking questions, and constantly looking for new paths.

When I get to work, I first check the previous day’s TikTok Shop sales and monitor newly uploaded creator content. If any content has generated meaningful sales, I analyze which wording or selling points mattered. Depending on the situation, I sometimes plan offline creator events or live shows, too. Some of the work is routine, but new, unplanned tasks keep coming up, so I stay flexible and quickly work out what takes priority each time.

What stays with me most is when we first opened TikTok Shop. Back then, TikTok Shop was an early-stage service even inside TikTok, so there weren’t enough established guidelines. So I talked directly with the people at TikTok and built our way of operating piece by piece. At the same time, I went through every step myself, from setting up the shop and selecting a local logistics partner in the US to managing products and getting to understand the affiliate creator ecosystem.

Thanks to the know-how we built up that way, our brands’ US TikTok Shop is now delivering results. ILLIYOON and Mise-en-Scène are the leading examples, with cumulative sales of 340,000 units. Notably, Mise-en-Scène grew so fast that it reached a key growth stage on the platform within five months of opening. It was the most rewarding and memorable project because I got to see something that started from almost zero turn into real results.

The hardest part was having to keep facing new problems with no right answer. But rather than just waiting for someone to hand me the answer, I did the legwork to find the information I needed, asked our partners about what I didn’t know, and worked out solutions one at a time. Solving one problem did raise another question, but as I kept following those questions, a path opened up. Work that felt overwhelming at first began, little by little, to feel like my own.

I especially remember when the first sale came in. I looked at what kind of content those buyers usually watched, and compared how first-time buyers differed from brand to brand. I didn’t stop at noting the fact that ‘sales came in’; I dug deep into which content led to the purchase and tracked down the reasons. Even now, I really enjoy the whole process of tackling things head-on, learning them one by one, and finding the answer in the end.

When I first started TikTok Shop, it was hard to imagine it would grow into a business like this. But I learned a great deal on the front line, watching up close as a small attempt grew into a business. I think I’ve grown a lot personally, too. So I want to keep taking on the role of finding possibilities in uncharted territory no one has been to, such as new channels or business models, and turning them into a real business.

For me, MY CODE is ‘Paving the Way,’ which means forging a path. Looking back, the work I’ve done has always involved taking on something new and finding a better way of doing it. In CRM marketing, I learned how to understand customer behavior, and now on TikTok Shop I’m seeing firsthand where content and business meet. What has always mattered is working out the answer that fits the situation at hand, rather than doing things the way they’ve already been laid out. When faced with unfamiliar work, I want to keep giving it a try first, without fear, and set my own direction within it.

Having many brands and channels gives it a broad customer base, and I think running its own membership service is a real strength. That provides a foundation for trying all kinds of CRM marketing. Getting to experience not only the Korean market but global markets is appealing, too. You can apply the understanding of data you’ve built up to yet another area and broaden both the scope of your work and your capabilities.

If you’re an experienced hire, rather than listing the projects you did at your previous company, it’s important to show what you learned from them and what results you achieved. For marketing roles especially, it’s better to go beyond ‘what I did’ and describe concretely what problem you saw, what strategy you set, and what change you brought about as a result. Even better if you can express the results in numbers.

Also, rather than preparing a perfect answer to every question, it’s important to quickly grasp the intent behind the question in the moment — that is, what the interviewer wants to know — and talk about the experience that fits. Above all, if you confidently show the experience and perspective you’ve built up, I think good results will surely follow.