TikTok has launched an updated promotion opportunity for TikTok Shop merchants, with its “Smart Promotion” program offering significant amplification of your products, as well as lower fees, in order to attract more retailers to the app.
Though while the benefits sound pretty enticing, you will have to maintain solid sales activity within the app to qualify.
As per TikTok:
“The Smart Promotion Program, launching Jan 20, 2026, replaces Co-funded Promotion, using TikTok’s algorithms to co-invest in marketing, guaranteeing a 5x ROI and driving GMV growth (+70% during Black Friday). Benefits include simplified 3.5% fees, automatic points rewards, enhanced product exposure, and time savings.”
5x ROI is a heck of a guarantee, though as you might expect, that kind of guarantee can only come with various provisos to back it up.
First off, TikTok’s Smart Promotion program sees both TikTok Shop and sellers contribute marketing funds, which TikTok’s system then “strategically allocates” across various promotional activities, including product coupons and new customer discounts.
“The platform manages all investment in this Program, aiming to maximize sellers’ ROI with the support of advanced algorithms.”
So the program is designed to promote both TikTok Shop and your business, which is why TikTok is contributing to its operation. As such, you need to be selling a decent volume of products to qualify, which TikTok has covered by mandating that all participants need to have a Shop Performance Score (SPS) of at least 3.5.
TikTok’s Shop Performance Score is based on product satisfaction, fulfillment and customer service, with TikTok Shop merchants needing to have fulfilled at least 30 orders within the past 90 days to qualify.
Based on this, you’ll get a score out of 5, and if you can maintain a figure above 3.5, you can qualify for this program.
Maybe that’s a reasonable target for your business, though many SMBs would be struggling to maintain this. But that’s the way that TikTok’s filtering out average products, in order to ensure that it can maximize ROI with the promotion.
But it could be a good opportunity, and if you’re willing to let TikTok take the reigns of your promotions, at least to some degree, it could be worth considering, especially as TikTok looks to boost its in-app sales, and drive more shopping engagement in the app.
Linking into this push could be valuable for your business, and maybe, it’s worth taking a closer look at this promotion type.
You can read more about TikTok’s Smart Promotion program here.
