Open vs Target Collaboration on TikTok Shop: Which Should You Use?

Should you open your product to everyone, or pick your people?

It is the first real decision in TikTok Shop Affiliate, and sellers tend to overthink it. The short answer is that you will probably use both. The useful question is which one to start with, and when to bring in the other.

The difference at a glance#

When Open Collaboration is the right call#

Go with Open when you are new, when you want as many people as possible trying a product, or when you simply don't know yet who sells it well.

Setting it up takes four steps:

1. In the Affiliate Center, open Open Collaboration.
2. Go to the Products not added to affiliate tab.
3. Click Add to affiliate on a product, or Batch add to affiliate for all of them.
4. Set the commission rate and switch free samples on or off.

If your shop has hundreds of products, New products Auto-Mode adds each new one automatically at a rate you set once.

TikTok also nudges you here. In the Added tab, a section called Growth Suggestions flags products with potential and lists three things that earn them extra exposure to affiliates: keep at least 20 units in stock, offer at least 3 free samples, and set commission at 10% or more.

When Target Collaboration is the right call#

Go with Target when you already know who you want, when you want to pay your best affiliates more, or when you are running a push with a start and an end date.

Each invitation has four parts: the invitation itself (name, valid-until date, contact details, an optional message), the products and their rates, free samples, and the affiliates you are inviting.

The limits are worth knowing before you plan a big push:

The catch with invitations#

An invitation is an offer, and offers get ignored.

One brand running a campaign with us sent Target invitations to the affiliates it had selected. About 40% accepted. The rest either missed the invitation in their inbox or let it expire. The brand's fix was simple: it kept the campaign open until it had 200 opt-ins to choose from, so that 40% of a bigger number still filled the campaign.

We'd take the same approach. If you need 50 affiliates posting, don't invite 50.

What we'd do#

Start in Open with one product and a fair commission. Watch two columns in Seller Center: how many affiliates added the product, and how many posted. The gap between them tells you more than any follower count.

After a month, take the ones who posted and sold, and move them into a Target Collaboration with a higher rate. Now Open is your recruiting ground and Target is how you keep the good ones. (This is also exactly what TikTok recommends, for once the official advice and the practical advice agree.)

Running both without losing track#

Seller Center shows you who added and who posted, product by product. The brief and the follow-up sit with you from there.

In ShopSlayer, a campaign carries the brief, the number of videos you need, and a running count per affiliate of videos submitted against videos required. You can see at a glance who is done and who has gone quiet.