Influencer Advisory™Case study · Ridge
How Ridge Found 88% of the Sales From Its TikTok Ads Landing Off TikTok
Ridge sells wallets, tracker cards and power banks. In July 2026 it was closing in on its first seven-figure month on TikTok Shop, and its CMO, Connor MacDonald, still says the shop’s own profit and loss “looks terrible”.
So Ridge ran a four-week test to see where the sales from its TikTok ads really went. 88% of them landed outside TikTok, on Amazon and on ridge.com, where no TikTok creator commission comes off the sale.
Connor MacDonald of Ridge, left, on Marketing Operators, YouTube
The Ridge Power Bank, the product in the test, Ridge
The Ridge Tracker Card, Ridge
The Ridge Wallet, Ridge
- 88%of the extra sales from TikTok ads landed off TikTok
- 49%landed on Amazon
- 39%landed on ridge.com
- 15%of Ridge’s Meta ad spend ran on creator videos
The test
The power bank, the product in the four-week test, Ridge
- Ridge went in hard on purpose. Around June 2026 it was spending almost $50K in a month on creator retainers and content bonuses before any ad money, and 1,200 creator posts went live in one week. It ran big contests and put heavy spend into GMV Max, TikTok’s ad tool, to learn in 5 months what might have taken a year.
- In June, Connor guessed most of the value would be “the spillover into Amazon and D2C”. So Ridge tested it. For four weeks it ran TikTok ads for its power bank in some parts of the country and held them back in others, then compared power bank sales on Amazon, ridge.com and TikTok Shop.
The tracker card, which earned more per creator video than wallets, Ridge
- It also tested what creators should post about. Wallets got about half of the creator videos but barely 30% of the shop’s revenue, so Ridge told its creators on calls and in its Discord which products earned more per video, like the tracker card.
- Its May contest paid for the number of videos, and too many creators posted wallets that did not sell much. Ridge called it a good lesson and is changing its contests so they reward more than volume.
“That totally requires overpaying at different points in time, but it allows us to learn quicker.”Connor MacDonald, CMO of Ridge, Marketing Operators
Where the sales went
For every $100 of extra power bank sales the TikTok ads brought in during the test, this is where the money landed.
Connor MacDonald on the four-week test, Marketing Operators, July 2026
Only $12 of every $100 showed up where most brands look, inside TikTok Shop.
The creator videos kept paying off after the sale
- 1
The videos became ads. About 15% of Ridge’s Meta ad spend ran on videos its TikTok creators made, at about the same return as its other ads.
Connor MacDonald, read out on Marketing Operators
- 2
They were cheaper to run. On Meta those creator videos cost 15% less per thousand views and got twice the click‑through rate.
Connor MacDonald, read out on Marketing Operators
- 3
They found new buyers. Ridge’s usual Meta ads reach 35 to 44 year olds most. On the creator videos, the share reaching 18 to 24 year olds was almost twice as high.
Connor MacDonald, Marketing Operators
The profit margin
- Ridge is open about it. With its current products, Connor says there is no scenario where the TikTok Shop P&L on its own makes a profit, once seeding, contests, commissions and ads are paid.
- But that P&L only counts the $12 that lands in the shop. The other $88 lands on Amazon and ridge.com, and the same videos keep working as ads on Meta.
- A product that sells well on TikTok gets closer on its own. Connor hears of shops running GMV Max at 3x to 4x return, and thinks a product made for TikTok Shop could make the channel pay by itself.
- Another host of the show runs their brand’s influencer program at a small loss on purpose, because about 15% of the videos become ads and much of the effect never shows up as a click.
- A product people buy again changes the math. A brand can pay creators a big commission on the first order, because the margin comes from the repeat orders that follow.
Other brands call it the overflow
When we’re crushing on TikTok Shop, we see the TikTok Shop sales more than 30% of those going over to Amazon, going over to Target, going over to Walmart.
Greg LaVecchia, co-founder of Bloom, Open Residency, June 2026We have 11% of our audience that buys through Shopify is 18 to 34 years old, but on TikTok Shop, that percent is 32%.
Connor Rolain of HexClad, on why TikTok Shop buyers are new buyers, Marketing Operators, March 2026TikTok is actually pretty unprofitable of a channel for most people, but it’s such a good demand engine that it leads to overflow for DTC sales and Amazon sales and retail sales.
Aaron Nosbisch, founder and CEO of BRĒZ, Limited Supply, September 2025If you have dot com and Amazon, typically more than half of the sales are going to be captured off of TikTok Shop just by itself. And then if you have retail, it’s going to be a higher majority of that.
Common Thread Collective, on its episode with Skullcandy, June 2026
Judge TikTok Shop by what it does for the whole business, never by the shop’s P&L alone.
None of these brands are our clients. Everything here comes from public interviews: Marketing Operators with Ridge and HexClad (July 2026), Marketing Operators after Meta’s summit (June 2026), Open Residency with Bloom (June 2026), Marketing Operators on incrementality (March 2026), Limited Supply with BRĒZ (September 2025) and Common Thread Collective with Skullcandy (June 2026). The four-week test covered one product, and Ridge says it will run more of these tests over time.
We Can Build This Proven Playbook for Your Brand
- Recruit creators at scale, with the goal of thousands posting each month.
- Build and run your private Discord community, with weekly calls and content training.
- Develop long-term ambassadors who keep posting for commissions and community benefits.
Ridge paid to learn fast. With us there is no fee and no retainer: we are paid only from the sales we bring in, so your side of the test is the product and shipping for your samples.
Next steps
If you would like us to run the same playbook for your brand, and measure what your TikTok Shop does for Amazon and your own site too.