From Cold Start to Category Contender: How This Pet Brand Hit 478% MoM GMV Growth on US TikTok Shop in Their Third Month
GMV up MoM
New customers up MoM
Orders up MoM
The Story
This case study focuses on a pet wellness brand on a mission to extend the lives of dogs through high-quality nutrition - keeping pets healthy, happy and by their owners' sides for as long as possible.
We partnered with them to launch and scale their presence on US TikTok Shop from a standing start - owning affiliate management and paid strategy end-to-end. This case study reflects performance through April 2026.
The challenge:
They came to us with a clean slate on US TikTok Shop. No listings, no pricing architecture, no affiliate footprint, no paid media foundation. The opportunity was significant: a proven product entering one of the fastest-growing commerce platforms in the world. But entering cold meant building every layer of the engine from scratch.
In the early cold-start phase, the realities of launching in a new market showed up quickly - low organic traffic, limited product awareness on the platform, and a low initial volume of sample requests to seed creator content. To win, we needed to move fast across Shop, Affiliate and Paid simultaneously, building infrastructure and momentum at the same time.
Our Approach:
We built their US TikTok Shop presence from the ground up around a one-time-purchase-led growth strategy, supplemented by subscription as a retention layer. Rather than relying on subscription as the primary acquisition mechanism, we treated it as a value-add for customers who wanted recurring convenience - strengthening LTV without narrowing the funnel.
This was operationalised across three parallel channels:
Shop
We optimised the product-discovery and conversion funnel for one-time buyers, sharpening listing quality, pricing presentation and product-page persuasion. Subscription was made visible and easy to opt into for the customers who preferred it, without dominating the buying experience.
Affiliate
We restructured the creator programme around a cohort-based retainer model to drive sustained, predictable content output. Alongside this, we built a centralised creative knowledge system that captured what was working on the platform - feeding both organic affiliate creators and paid advertising with proven creative direction so that every new piece of content was building on validated insight, not starting from zero.
Paid
We amplified reach using authentic creator-led content rather than seller-made advertising, applying a disciplined ramp-up and tight ROAS management to ensure paid investment scaled profitably alongside the one-time acquisition base.
The integration logic was simple: creative messaging, listing experience and acquisition channels all reinforced a single product-led story - driving repeatable one-time purchase momentum, with subscription capturing the segment of customers who preferred recurring delivery.
What we achieved:
GMV up MoM
New customers up MoM
Orders up MoM
In their first month live, they went from a cold start on US TikTok Shop to one of the strongest launches we've delivered on the platform.
GMV grew 478% month-on-month, with orders up 707% and items sold up over 780% across the same period - proving that the one-time-purchase-led model was unlocking genuine breadth of demand, not just driving up basket sizes from a small base. New customer volume grew 648% MoM and product impressions exceeded 8.74M, validating the creator-led content engine as a scalable awareness driver in a market where they started with zero brand recognition.
This wasn't a result driven by a single viral moment. It was built on tight integration across Shop, Affiliate and Paid, a creator programme structured for sustained output, and a creative system that compounded learnings into every new asset - setting them up to scale aggressively from here.
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