I ran the same sum on the TikTok Shops we work with (data straight from TikTok Shop).
6 shops. 30 days. $493K in sales.
Four had enough data to read. Three of them were leaking at the same spot……
(Want me to run it on yours? Hit reply.)
Your sales are a sum
Four numbers. That's all it is.
Every TikTok Shop's sales come out of one sum:
Impressions × Click rate × Conversion rate × Order value
Seller Center puts the first three on one card: Traffic analysis:
TikTok calls conversion rate "CTOR". Same thing. The share of people who clicked, then bought.
On Amazon you'd call these impressions, click-through rate, unit session percentage and average order value. Same maths. New labels.
When sales move, one of the four moved first. Here's which one, shop by shop……
💡 Find the number that moved before you spend a cent fixing it.
Shop B sells food
Clicks up. Orders down.
One product takes 72% of this shop's impressions.
Last month it got 63K clicks and 603 orders.
This month: 82K clicks. 466 orders.
Its conversion rate fell from 0.96% to 0.57%. At last month's rate, those clicks were worth about 790 orders. That's roughly $9K of sales that walked off the page.
And if GMV Max is paying for those clicks? You're buying traffic that doesn't buy.
Meanwhile three of its smaller products convert at 4.7% to 6.5%. None of them gets more than 25K impressions.
💡 Clicks up, orders down? Fix the product page before you buy one more click.
A tiny dip. A big hole.
Shop C sells gifts
The opposite problem. This shop converts at a healthy 3.7%. People who click, buy.
Not enough people click.
The hero product's click rate slid from 0.84% to 0.67%. Its impressions fell 21% at the same time.
Orders on it went from 214 to 124.
Click rate lives on the card. The main image, the price, the first two seconds of the video.
💡 0.17 of a point sounds like nothing. It's 1 in 5 clicks gone.
Even the $469K shop leaks
Shop A, from the P&L issue
Impressions up 30%. Sales up 14%.
But its conversion rate slipped from 1.63% to 1.48%.
One product took 689K impressions and converted at 0.55%. Last month it did 0.88%.
And one "product" had 264 orders at 11 cents each. A free gift. Strip it out and the real conversion rate is 1.40%.
💡 Growth hides leaks. Run the sum on your good months too.
Four shops. Nothing alike.
Same sum. Different leak.
Put them side by side and they've got nothing in common.
Shapewear, food, gifts, home goods.
Order value runs from $28 to $95. Click rate runs from under 1% to almost 6%. One shop did $469K. Another did $293.
And none of it sits still. Last month's healthy number is this month's leak…… A new video takes off, a price changes, GMV Max moves budget, and the sum shifts under you.
That's TikTok Shop. Everything changes.
Except the sum. Same four numbers. Every shop. Every month.
💡 Don't guess. Run the sum, find the number that moved, fix that one.
It opens an email straight to me. Send me your last 30 days.
Go open Traffic analysis.
- Paul 👊
What did you think of today's newsletter?
PS. Black Friday is a month out. If your conversion rate is broken, every extra click BFCM sends you leaks. Fix the number now.
