Driving Popunder Traffic to TikTok Shop: Step-by-Step Guide

If you've been considering TikTok Shop offers, it’s high time to start acting! Social networks are a major source of traffic worldwide, which means there are tons of monetization opportunities. This guide will cover how popunder ads fit into the TikTok Shop marketing funnel, the markets worth your time and attention, and what actually increases ROI and other metrics.

The TikTok Shop Phenomenon in Asia

Southeast Asia's social commerce is growing fast – TikTok Shop alone doubled its regional GMV year-on-year to $45.6 billion in 2025. This trend is facilitated by the growth of purchasing power in Asia, for example, national GMV in Vietnam grew more than 40% YoY, led by beauty, fashion, FMCG, and home goods categories.

What separates TikTok Shop from other marketplaces is the distance between discovery and checkout. A user notices a product tag in a short video or live stream, taps through to it, and completes a purchase without leaving the app. That's a very different mental state for making a purchase than for making a marketplace search. There is no comparison, no opening tabs, no getting sidetracked – simply a clean and efficient conversion for someone who is already interested.

For an advertiser using TikTok Shop for affiliate marketing, this has some important implications. You're not trying to convince someone to buy from scratch, but attracting the customer to the funnel that's already been optimized for impulse buys. Your task is simply to get the right person in front of the right page at the right time.

Where TikTok Shop Works Best

Source: https://momentum.asia/insights/detail/tiktok-shop-in-the-us-h1-2025 

TikTok Shop in Vietnam

Vietnam is probably the best example of a mature TikTok Shop market. Mobile reach is extremely high, the creator economy is centered on product discovery through short-form video and live commerce, and mobile-first buying behavior is common.

The product categories that tend to perform well are:

• beauty and skincare products

• fashion accessories

• FMCG 

Live shopping has also been observed to perform better than static product pages. This could be due to the platform’s inherent user behavior and the way users consume it. 

TikTok Shop purchases happen through the native app. When a popunder opens a product link, the browser automatically redirects the user to the app or prompts them to open it. Chrome on Android accounts for the bulk of traffic, and it supports reliable redirects. Safari on iOS behaves similarly, but with a smaller audience and higher average order values. Social browsers – such as Meta's in-app browser – handle redirects less consistently, resulting in lower conversion rates despite strong engagement.

TikTok Shop in Malaysia

Urban Malaysians are comfortable with online shopping – that's already the default behavior, not something that needs to be built. There is also a large and growing audience coming online through mobile in secondary cities. English is also effective in this market, and the product mix is focused on beauty, lifestyle, and home.

For TikTok Shop ads in Malaysia for affiliate marketing, the commission split is typically 5-20%, depending on the category, with some premium offers having higher payouts. In this market, products with good reviews and clear imagery are rewarded. The reason: consumers here tend to do more thorough comparisons before making a purchase, unlike Vietnamese consumers.

Other Regional Markets Worth Watching

Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines have a similar trend:

• Mobile traffic dominance

• Competitive CPCs

• An audience that actively shops through content they interact with

An offer that converts in Vietnam has a high probability of performing well in these markets with minimal modifications related to language, shipping, and price sensitivity.

If you're developing TikTok Shop marketing strategies for this region, Southeast Asia can be considered a group of micro-markets that share a common trend rather than a single territory. Variations appear across zones rather than across countries.

Why External Traffic Helps and Where Popunder Fits

TikTok’s algorithm uses engagement metrics to determine which products to promote – a product page that receives consistent traffic and engagement metrics will be considered relevant and will continue to be pushed by TikTok’s algorithm. A product that doesn’t receive such engagement will be pushed down in ranking, not necessarily penalized but simply deprioritized as the algorithm finds more recent signals.

Organic traffic on TikTok Shop follows cycles: a post goes live, traffic spikes, then drops right back to baseline. In the gaps between those spikes, the listing loses ground. External traffic breaks that cycle. From the algorithm's perspective, users are actively sharing and clicking product links – a signal that the product is worth promoting in organic rankings. A steady flow of external traffic between organic spikes keeps the product listing visible and prevents it from quietly fading out of the feed.

Technically, TikTok Ads can do the same – but at a significantly higher cost and with no guarantee of organic growth. External traffic influences the algorithm in exactly the same way, at a fraction of the price.

Popunder is a powerful ad format that solves this problem. It delivers a high volume of impressions at a low cost, making it one of the most efficient formats for broad reach. A popunder opens the product page in a background tab while the user keeps browsing – they find it naturally once they're done. Less intrusive than a pop-up, but effective at capturing attention at the right moment.

👉 A Detailed Guide on Working with Popunder Format at EVADAV

EVADAV delivers more than 2 bln daily impressions across various global traffic sources, supporting popunder and other ad formats, and all essential targeting options (GEO, OS, browser type, device type, and zone).

For an advertiser looking to build a funnel with TikTok Shop, this level of precision helps easily test and optimize traffic without overspending the budget. The setup for an advertiser is quite straightforward. Simply sign up for an account with EVADAV Ad Network, create a popunder campaign, and start testing offers.

Where to Send the Traffic

The destination also dictates campaign performance, and different objectives call for different landing pages.

Product card

Sending traffic straight to the product card is the most intent-rich method. The user is presented with the product, its pricing, images, and reviews to make a purchasing decision. For certain product types, such as beauty products, accessories, or trendy gadgets, this is likely the best place to target cost per checkout. The product page needs to carry the full weight of the pitch. Unlike the video ad, which primes the user with some context, the popunder traffic is cold. Therefore, images, pricing, reviews, and availability are bare essentials.

Shop page

Using the shop landing page is an alternative when you have a multi-category ad setup, or when you'd like the algorithm to see engagement with your entire store. While this method isn’t as effective at driving direct conversions, your store's overall visibility is likely to increase.

This is best suited for running a brand awareness campaign or for seeing which product category in your store is most engaging in the current GEO.

Creator’s content

Another method is to send traffic to a creator account linked to the TikTok Shop, especially to their content (video). The idea is that the more followers the account has, the higher the reach of the next posts, which, in turn, means conversions from native TikTok traffic will increase.

This method is best suited for building a TikTok presence with longevity, rather than a short-term campaign with immediate returns.

Verticals and Offers That Work in TikTok Shop

Not all product types convert well with popunder traffic. It’s best suited for products that require:

• Quick decision-making

• Little consideration

• Clear, immediate value

• A price point that sells itself

Beauty/skincare is the most reliable category across Southeast Asian markets for TikTok Shop traffic. The demand is high, the affiliate program is well-participated by sellers, and the AOV is low, which is perfect for impulse purchasing.

Fashion and accessories are strong performers in Vietnam and Malaysia, especially when priced under $30-$40. The products need to look good in static images, not just videos.

FMCG/household essentials are good performers as the consumer does not need to be convinced of the category, as they’re already using the category.

Small electronics/gadgets tend to perform well with iOS/Safari traffic, especially with high AOVs. The volume is lower, but the checkout is generally better.

What does NOT perform well:

• High-consideration products that require entering measurements or specs

• Subscription services with unclear terms

• Products whose delivery times don't match the country's logistics capabilities

How to Test EVADAV Traffic: A Step-by-Step Approach

The framework below is built around a principle that consistently produces cleaner data: go wide first, then narrow. Early decisions based on insufficient data create structural blind spots that are hard to recover from.

Step 0: Talk to your personal manager

Before launching, reach out to your personal manager – you'll find their contact in the bottom left corner of your dashboard. Explain that you would like to work with TikTok Shop Affiliate programs. EVADAV’s expert will help you set up a campaign tailored to your target GEO.

Step 1: Set up wider targeting

Do not filter on zones, browser, or device type in the initial phase. It is necessary to have enough data to make decisions on, and cutting too many variables prematurely could result in discarding segments of traffic that convert quietly but consistently.

Mobile-only from day one, including Android and iOS. Desktop traffic in TikTok shop funnels is rarely enough to reach a positive ROI. Include Chrome, Safari, and social browser traffic (Meta) in the initial phase.

Step 2: Run for 7-14 days before making changes

The initial phase is data collection, not optimization. Monitor CTR by zone, conversion rate, CPC, and day-over-day ROI stability. Zones that are highly variable between great and poor days are not as useful as zones that are consistently lower-volume but reliable.

Here are the advertiser’s statistics at his EVADAV account. He achieved a high volume of impressions (2nd column) and optimal costs. Together, we keep testing TokTok Shop popunder strategies to improve campaign efficiency further:

Step 3: Creating whitelists

Now, we filter the zones by the cost per checkout and ROI stability. The zones that pass the test are put into the whitelist. The zones that do not pass the test are eliminated, especially those with high click volumes but low conversion rates, as well as those with high return/refund rates.

Eliminating unprofitable zones may save 20-40% of the ad budget

 In the long run, stabilize daily CPA.

Step 4: Segmenting by GEO, browser, and OS

Once zone-level data stabilizes – usually by week 4-5 – separate Chrome and Safari into distinct campaigns. Android is the dominant OS across Southeast Asia, so Chrome will drive most of your volume. Safari on iOS is a smaller slice of the market, but that audience tends to spend more – worth testing if your offer is on the pricier side. Mixing the two is the key.

Keep social browsers separate – run them on their own with a fixed budget. Conversion rates will be lower, but the engagement signals they generate are still valuable to the algorithm.

Lastly, precise GEO targeting is crucial when creating ads for TikTok Shop campaigns. Vietnam, Malaysia, and Indonesia are just some of the countries with many micro-markets with different income levels and urban distributions. 

A province or city with a high conversion rate is worth creating a dedicated ad with a custom bid. On the other hand, a province or city with high click rates but low conversion rates is wasting ad budget that could have been allocated to a better-performing zone.

Step 5: Expand with additional formats

When your basic popunder funnel is running smoothly, the EVADAV Ad Network also offers in-page and native formats that you can add in using zone-level data from your popunder campaigns as a baseline. Traffic that performs well in the same zones and browsers as your popunder campaigns should be tested in these additional formats as well, as it represents the same variables but in a different way.

General Tips For Advertisers

A few things that hold across markets and categories:

• Adjust campaign timing to in-app behavior. Social commerce in Southeast Asia peaks in the evening hours – the windows of time when people scroll through apps after work.

• The product page sells the product. Popunder traffic comes in cold – video isn’t necessary, just the listing. It needs to sell itself.

• Track refunds by GEOs, as rates differ significantly across regions – even at the district level. Start with products that already have demand. Advice for anyone thinking of getting into a TikTok Shop affiliate program for beginners: the natural impulse is to look for new or trending products, but don't ignore the quality of the shop account. Algorithm signals also depend on the quality of the shop account – response rate of reviews, shipping speed, return policies, etc.

• While the product listing sells the product, the shop account quality puts a ceiling on the campaign's performance if it's not good enough.

Get More Tips on How to Launch a Successful Ad Campaign with Popunder

Putting It All Together

Popunder advertising on EVADAV provides a direct route for funneling traffic to that algorithm without ever needing to worry about video production, working with creators, or even native TikTok advertising accounts. You don’t have to be a TikTok Shop seller, either. 

A few weeks of testing is all it takes to start seeing decent payouts from TikTokShop Affiliate programs. There is a wide approach in the first phase, a whitelisting approach in the second, and a scaling approach in the third. It is a real process, and what comes out of it is a stable, predictable funnel. 

👉 Launch Your First TikTok Popunder Campaign with EVADAV Ad Network

Register as a new advertiser on EVADAV, contact your dedicated manager, and get help in setting up your TikTok campaigns.