In August 2025, TikTok Shop reached a turning point. Within a matter of weeks, the platform rolled out significantly more regulated API policies. While this change created immediate operational challenges for many partners, it became a defining moment for us. It forced us to rapidly develop deeper technical expertise, more robust processes, and a scalable operational architecture—capabilities that now position us exceptionally well to operate at scale on TikTok Shop.

From Hypergrowth to Operational Discipline

TikTok Shop officially launched in the U.S. in 2024, and its growth was nothing short of extraordinary. The platform generated tens of millions of dollars in sales within its first month and closed the year with sales reaching into the billions. In 2025, that growth accelerated even further, pushing operational volumes to a new level.

As TikTok Shop matured, so did its expectations for partners. During the summer of 2025, the platform introduced a series of new integration rules that fundamentally changed how APIs could be used. Suddenly, API connections were tightly constrained, and several key operational KPIs became subject to strict limits.

One of the most impactful changes was the introduction of a rate limit of 50 requests per second. After months of operating without any such restriction, this limit had an immediate and material impact on our systems. We responded by redesigning how our processes manage API calls—throttling requests, distributing them across broader time windows, and upgrading core architectural components such as our task orchestration and job management systems.

In parallel, TikTok Shop introduced a cap of 10,000 API requests per day per brand across all endpoints. This threshold was well below our typical daily usage, given the depth of automation we had already implemented. As a result, brands were effectively limited to launching around 200 collaborations per day. At that point, it became clear that high-volume brands needed a more deliberate operational strategy—carefully pacing campaign creation and optimizing activity across weekdays.

New API error messages also surfaced, providing finer-grained insight into additional constraints such as outreach limits. While these limits were designed to protect creators from excessive inbound requests, they created new challenges for smaller brands trying to build momentum. We addressed this by designing tier-specific outreach strategies—fully automated—that balance platform compliance with campaign performance.

Scaling Outreach with Precision

Another critical challenge in scaling TikTok Shop operations lies in managing creator invitations. TikTok Shop does not allow a creator to be invited more than once to collaborate on the same product. Violating this rule triggers API errors and disrupts workflows. As a result, maintaining a clean, accurate, and minimal list of invited creators is essential for operational stability.

This is where our AI-powered matching system plays a central role. By identifying the most responsive and high-performing creators, we can keep outreach focused and efficient. In parallel, we run automated processes to detect inactive or unresponsive creators early, ensuring that our systems remain lean and effective as scale increases.

Data, Visibility, and Operational Excellence

Ultimately, running efficient operations on TikTok Shop depends on having accurate, real-time visibility into products, campaigns, creator tiers, and performance KPIs. A reliable and well-designed operations dashboard is not optional—it is foundational.

We have invested heavily in refining two core dashboards:

• Our Operations Dashboard, which allows our teams to monitor system health, API usage, and process execution in real time.
• Our Merchants Dashboard, which provides clients with clear, actionable insights into campaign performance and measurable impact.

Together, these tools reflect our approach to TikTok Shop: disciplined engineering, thoughtful automation, and data-driven operations—built to scale.

With the operational enhancements introduced, we now manage over 20,000 collaborations by client weekly and reduce campaign errors from 26% to less than 0.5%, giving clients unmet execution of their strategies on TikTok Shop.