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What are TikTok Shop recommender systems? • How content is recommended on TikTok Shop • How the recommender system shapes your experience • How you can influence what you see on TikTok Shop
What are TikTok Shop recommender systems?
TikTok's mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. Our goal is to help you discover interesting and relevant content, including products on TikTok Shop. We offer a wide range of TikTok Shop content such as product listings or posts with tagged products, and help categorize products in a way that makes sense for everyone, whether you're a customer, seller, or creator. To personalize your experience, we use recommender systems similar to other feeds within TikTok. These systems suggest and rank content and products based on your preferences as expressed through interactions on TikTok and TikTok Shop, such as purchasing a product or liking a post.
How content is recommended on TikTok Shop
We use three main factors—user interactions, content information, and user information—to predict how relevant and interesting content might be for people on TikTok. These factors can change in importance over time and how they are ranked within different areas of the app, and some factors may play a bigger role than others in what gets recommended.
User interactions
As a customer, seller, or creator, you can engage with TikTok Shop through various feeds and features that we're constantly improving and expanding. Your interactions on TikTok and TikTok Shop act as signals that help the system predict content and products you might find interesting and relevant, and content you're likely to skip. For example, if you like or save a product, it shows you might be interested and the system might suggest similar products to you above others.
Content information
The type of content you interact with, such as the number of likes a post receives or how closely it matches your search query, helps the system predict what content and products may be relevant to you, as well as what you're likely to skip. For example, if you search 'cake,' the system might also recommend a post or product related to desserts like cookies rather than savory food like pasta. This happens because the context of your search suggests you’re more likely to be interested in desserts rather than savory dishes.
User information
The information you provide, such as your language preference and in other settings, helps the system predict content and products you might find relevant and what you're likely to skip. For example, if we determine that you're in Spain, the system might suggest content and products from Spain or that appeal to users from that area instead of products and content from other regions.
A few things to know about ranking:
• Each of these factors can play a larger or smaller role in what's recommended and how content is ranked. The importance—or weighting—of a factor can change over time.
• The factors that have a larger role for customers are used because they best show the types of content and products you might like.
• The factors that have a larger role for sellers and creators are used because they best show the types of products you'd prefer to sell or shops and creators you'd prefer to work with.
• Content that is promoted through paid advertising will be ranked higher.
How the recommender system shapes your experience
For customers
You can browse products and discover new sellers on TikTok Shop based on your interests. Below are some popular features where you might access TikTok Shop content and products.
TikTok feeds
You can view TikTok Shop content and products through your For You, Following, Friends Tab, and LIVE feeds, which are unique to each person and help us tailor recommendations.
These are some examples of information that may influence TikTok Shop content in your feeds:
• User interactions: Products and shops you've browsed; products you've saved, added to your cart, and purchased; posts that you like, share, comment on, watch in full, or skip; hashtags you use; your searches; and accounts you follow.
• Content information: The number of views, likes, comments, and product details on the content, as well as the country in which the post was published.
• User information: Device settings, language preference, location, time zone and day, and device type.
For most customers, user interactions, which may include the time spent watching a video and whether you've purchased a product, are generally weighted more heavily than others.
Shop Tab
Shop Tab is the marketplace area of the TikTok app where you can browse shops and purchase products in one place. If you’re not in a region where Shop Tab is available, you can still view sellers' shops and receive product recommendations on our platform. Learn more about how content and products are ranked when you search within the Shop Tab.
These are some examples of information that may influence TikTok Shop content in your Shop Tab:
• User interactions: Products and shops you've browsed, saved, added to your cart, and purchased, as well as the TikTok Shop content you like, share, or comment on, watch in full, or skip.
• Content information: Product information such as the number of views and reviews a product or shop receives, the level of detail in the product descriptions and photos, and the frequency of products that are purchased or added to a cart.
• User information: Device settings, location, time zone, day of the week, device type, and seller information like shipping speed, return rate, number of complaints, and certifications they might have.
For most customers, user interactions, which may include purchasing a product, are generally weighted more heavily than others.
Search
There are several ways you can search for products on TikTok Shop, including the search tools within feeds like For You, Following, and Shop Tab, if available in your region.
These are some examples of information that may influence TikTok Shop content in your Search:
• User interactions: The products you've ordered, saved, or added to your cart after searching, as well as shops you've browsed and TikTok Shop content you like, share, or comment on, watch in full, or skip.
• Content information: Number of views the product or shop gets, how well the product, brand, or TikTok Shop content matches your search inquiry, the number of reviews and how satisfied customers are with a product, how detailed and clear the product information is, and how often other users buy or add the product to their carts.
• User information: Device settings, language preference, location, time zone, device type, and seller information like shipping speed, return rate, number of complaints, and certifications they might have.
For most customers, content information, which may include how well the product, brand, or TikTok Shop content matches your search, is generally weighted more heavily in search results than less directly related suggested results.
Other factors that influence how TikTok Shop recommends content
• Diversifying recommendations: When you view content in your TikTok feeds, our goal is to find a balance between suggesting content that's relevant to you while still introducing you to new ideas, creators, and perspectives. That's why you may come across content that doesn't appear to be relevant to your expressed interests. We typically don't recommend content you've already seen, and we'll encourage you to explore different categories of content and creators through recommendations. For this reason, you may notice a mix of TikTok and TikTok Shop content in your feeds.
• Safeguarding your experience: Our systems are designed with safety as a key consideration and we remove any content or products identified as violating our Community Guidelines and product policies in accordance with our Terms of Service. Our safety team takes additional precautions by reviewing content as it rises in popularity, reducing the likelihood of recommending content or products that may not be suitable for everyone on TikTok. Products and videos are subject to review before becoming available. If a post or product is still awaiting review from our team, it won't be recommended or ranked against other products.
• Product availability: In order to be recommended, all products featured in TikTok Shop content or LIVE videos must be in stock and available to purchase. To support the relevance of recommended products, videos older than 180 days are not eligible to be recommended.
For sellers
As a seller, you can showcase your products on TikTok Shop, allowing customers to discover and purchase them.
You can also use our Seller Center to get recommendations on improving your shop, including finding creators to partner with.
These are some examples of information that may influence TikTok Shop content in the Seller Center:
• User interactions: Seller interactions such as your sales history, creators you've viewed or contacted, pages you've viewed, and the types of content you've interacted with.
• Content information: Engagement between a creator and customers, including the number of likes, product views, and watch time, as well as the history of promoted products, earnings from promotions, and promotion methods such as videos or live campaigns.
• User information: Seller information such as account information, product category, inventory, total earnings to date, and history of creators you've partnered with.
For most sellers, user information, which may include the shop’s current inventory and sales history, as well as the creator's number of followers, engagement rate, and history of product promotions, are generally weighted more heavily than others.
For creators
You can partner with sellers through the TikTok Shop Creator Center to showcase products you love to your community and track their performance. You may access features in the TikTok Shop Creator Center such as "recommended for you," "best sellers," and others, depending on your region.
These are some examples of information that may influence TikTok Shop content in the Creator Center:
• User interactions: Creator interactions such as your published content, LIVE engagement, search history, products viewed, as well as your past interactions with products, such as those you've requested samples of, products you've promoted, and your total sales.
• Content information: Product information such as the price, its product category, the number of likes, views, and purchases it received, the volume of sales, how much commission received on a promoted product, and shop information such as product value and shop engagement.
• User information: Creator information such as the number of followers and published posts, the number of posts they've created, and their category of content.
For most creators, user interactions with products, which may include products you've requested samples of, decided to promote through channels like your showcase or LIVE videos, and completed sales, are generally weighted more heavily than others.
How you can influence what you see on TikTok Shop
While there are many reasons for how content is recommended to you on TikTok Shop, as outlined in this article, there are several ways you can influence what you see. We provide features and settings to support this, such as the option to like a post, which helps the system suggest similar content in the future. Additional ways you can directly influence your TikTok Shop experience are outlined below.
For customers
For You
In addition to selecting categories of interest when you sign up for TikTok, you can use the following features to help shape your For You feed:
• Not interested: If you don't enjoy a specific piece of content, you can let us know by sharing feedback that you're not interested and we'll show you less content like that.
• Refresh your feed: You can update the content we recommend on your For You feed and interact with popular content, such as liking and commenting, to help reshape your For You feed recommendations.
• Filter keywords: You can use filters to remove content containing specific words and their variations, and hashtags from your feed.
Following
Use the following features to help shape your Following feed:
• Unfollow: Unfollowing a creator can directly remove the creator's posts in the Following feed.
• Filter keywords: You can use filters to remove content containing specific words and their variations, and hashtags from your feed.
Friends
Use the following features to help shape your Friends Tab:
• Unfollow: Unfollowing the creator or friend could remove the posts from that account in the Friends Tab.
• Not interested: If you don't enjoy recommended content from people you may know based on suggested accounts, you can let us know by sharing feedback that you're not interested and we'll show you less content from that creator.
• Filter keywords: You can use filters to remove content containing specific words and their variations, and hashtags from your Friends Tab.
LIVE
In addition to selecting categories of interest when you sign up for TikTok, you can use the following features to help shape your LIVE feed:
• Not interested: If you don't enjoy a specific piece of LIVE content or creator, you can let us know by sharing feedback that you're not interested and we'll show you less content like that or from that creator.
• Filter keywords: You can use filters to remove content containing specific words and their variations, and hashtags from your LIVE feed.
Search
You can use the following features to help shape your search results:
• Filters: You can choose to filter the search results to refine your search. For example, you can filter by price range, rating, color, or size.
• Sort by: You can sort search results by best match, bestsellers, prices low to high or high to low, or newest.
Shop Tab
You can use the following features to help shape your Shop Tab:
• Feedback: If you don't enjoy a specific product, you can let us know. Press and hold a product in your search results or Shop Tab feed to provide feedback that you're not interested in a product or similar products.
For sellers
Seller Center
You can use the following features to help shape the Seller Center:
• Filters: You can choose to filter your search results to refine your search. For example, you can find creators to partner with by category or number of followers.
For creators
Creator Center
You can use the following features to help shape the Creator Center:
• Filters: You can choose to filter your search results to refine your search. For example, you can search for sellers to work with by product category or commission rate.
• Sort by: You can sort search results by recommended, bestsellers, prices low to high or high to low, new releases, and commission rate.