The TikTok Shop Halo Effect: How Creator Content Lifts Amazon, Retail, and Your Store

Steve Hutt:
Well, hey there. Welcome back to eCommerce Fastlane. I am your host, Steve Hutt. Today’s conversation is all about creator-led commerce and how TikTok Shop is reshaping the way Shopify brands find new customers. If your acquisition costs are creeping up—which, from what I understand, is most people listening to this show—and you’re using influencers but feel like it’s a bit of a gamble and hard to measure, this episode is for you. You’re going to learn a lot. My guest is Myriah Castillo, and she’s the President of a company called Joybyte.

Steve Hutt:
That’s J-O-Y-B-Y-T-E, Joybyte. They are one of the fastest-growing TikTok Shop certified agencies in the country. Her team runs what they call creator programs. I think they have more than 30 or 40 pretty interesting brands they manage—from challenger startups all the way to household names. They’ve driven some real numbers with their process. There’s even one product launch, which I’m sure we’ll bring up a little bit later, where they helped orchestrate things and generated more than 25,000 TikTok Shop orders. It’s pretty impressive. What’s also interesting about her, as she’ll tell you in a few minutes, is that she’s actually an operator herself because she built and sold her own consumer brand.

Steve Hutt:
So she gets it from both sides of the table, which I think is really exciting. My hope today is that we’re going to learn how creators can actually drive sales, how TikTok Shop fits into the mix for a Shopify store, and why it’s important no matter what stage you’re at. The key is we don’t want to light money on fire. We want this to be effective and deliver great ROI. So, hi Myriah.

Steve Hutt:
Welcome to eCommerce Fastlane.

Myriah Castillo:
Hi. Thanks for having me.

Steve Hutt:
Oh, my pleasure. So before Joybyte, as I mentioned at the top of the show, you built and sold a guacamole brand in Arizona, I believe. What did being a founder teach you that still shapes how you work today on the agency side?

Myriah Castillo:
Yeah, I mean, my family background—we’ve always been serial entrepreneurs. My grandfather actually started Ben Franklin’s Arts and Crafts a long time ago, and then he and my dad owned a lot of Party City stores. I always knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur of some kind. When I opened up my own business around 2016, it was a really booming time for new and innovative CPG brands in the health space.

Myriah Castillo:
I wanted to find something people would really enjoy, that was healthy, and that could support some of the diets that were taking off at the time, like keto and things like that. So I had a really strong emotional tie to the business, which I think a lot of founders do. When I got into it, we went through a lot of different changes.

Myriah Castillo:
I chose guacamole, which might have been a mistake because we had to work with avocados and their fluctuating prices. During COVID there was a really big decision point for the business—whether or not I wanted to keep going. All of those experiences helped me understand that every marketing effort needs to have a clear, attributable ROI and it needs to move the needle. When it comes to creator marketing, I really use that insight—understanding where the business is coming from and that there needs to be a one-to-one on every single metric. Brand awareness is great, but creators can really extend across the funnel so nobody’s wasting a dollar. That’s really helped shape how we’ve built Joybyte’s programs.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, it’s amazing. So when a Shopify brand first comes to you, what’s the most common thing you believe they’re getting wrong about creators and TikTok and now this TikTok Shop juggernaut that’s happening with Gen Z buyers? You’re on the front lines and see brands coming to you, but clearly they’re getting some things wrong about how they use creators or how they justify using them.

Myriah Castillo:
Yeah, I think everyone thinks creators have to be very big. We all have that preconceived notion of what an influencer is, and usually it’s the Kylie Jenners of the world. But I think you can use creators as your first entry-level signal for the business. Because they’re so attached to their audiences and have already built this pre-existing following, they can tell you so much. They can actually become the biggest signal layer in your marketing stack.

Myriah Castillo:
That can help inform everything you do, in tandem with generating revenue from those creators and getting ownership of that content to use on other channels. People tend to think about creators in a one-note way because of what they see all the time, but there’s a much deeper system that can lift all ships—especially given how people are discovering brands today, which is interesting.

Steve Hutt:
You know what, I always think a lot of brands use creators just to get more eyeballs on their product. That seems to be the mindset around working with creators. What do you think creators are actually best at? From a brand’s perspective, they want eyeballs, but is that really the reality? I think creators might be better at what you said—having a smaller, more dedicated audience that’s more likely to take the recommendation and buy because there’s trust. I’m curious from your side, because some brands just want eyeballs, but you see something different.

Myriah Castillo:
Yeah. We’ve actually transitioned all of our social strategists—and most of our team—into people who have been influencers or creators themselves. That’s given us a lot of insight. People don’t really understand the life of a creator. They started with zero followers too, and they built their community from the ground up. That comes from a lot of relationship and trust building.

Myriah Castillo:
When you work with a creator, that’s the baseline. They’ve already built a highly engaged, niche audience that you can introduce your brand to and test whether that audience is the right fit. A lot of brands come to me and either don’t know who their target audience is, or they have a preconceived notion of who it is. Creators can actually validate that.

Myriah Castillo:
So yes, it’s about exposure, but it’s also about validation of the direction you’re going in as a whole.

Steve Hutt:
I see. I have a question around AI. I know it might be a slight tangent, but it’s the elephant in the room in almost every conversation now. How do you believe AI fits into this creator-led commerce that’s happening on TikTok?

Myriah Castillo:
A lot of people ask me about it. The algorithms—TikTok specifically—are watching for AI-generated content and discrediting it, and I think that’s really important. More than that, AI doesn’t have a community you can attach to. People can really tell. With our creators, we have a full creative brief system where we want them involved in the creative collaboration process. We want it to feel very authentic because that’s how we’ll get the proper signals and responses we need to learn how to grow.

Myriah Castillo:
With AI, you just don’t have that capability. You might get inexpensive content and fill your feeds, but you’re not helping your customers and you’re not helping the algorithm. It’s a slower effort and one that doesn’t generate the full value of what creators can do.

Steve Hutt:
What’s interesting is I know you also talk about creating a system with creators versus what a lot of people do—a string of one-off campaigns. I think you have a different mindset and process. Can you talk about what that actually looks like day-to-day for some of the brands you work with?

Myriah Castillo:
Yeah. We always start with a strategic brief that we bring our clients in on. We get a baseline of key USPs—unique selling points—and what they want creators to say or not say, but we keep it broad. Then we find target audiences we believe will fit that brief. We find about 100 creators every single week who would fit. We reach out, negotiate rates, and onboard those we think will perform best. Each week we evaluate them and ask: are they doing well in terms of platform metrics and audience sentiment? Should we move forward with them and use them for another post, or remove them from the community?

Myriah Castillo:
It’s an evergreen process that continues to grow. What you get at the end is a group of creators who’ve been trained almost like employees and really understand your business. So when you have a big promotion, a new product launch, or you’re going into retailers, you already have a group of people fully briefed who can create content quickly in a way you know will be good. That just compounds. You usually find that about 20% of your creators drive the majority of your business. We’ve had clients extend those relationships way beyond what you’d expect—some influencers even own a portion of the business now with our clients. It’s all about relationship building and keeping that going. There’s a ton of power in that system.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, it’s amazing. When you take on a new brand, what are you trying to figure out from the first few creator videos before you decide to put money behind them as ads? I’ve always thought rights management and the legal side of the creator economy are interesting—brands working with creators, but also deciding when it’s the right time to boost content or turn it into an ad.

Myriah Castillo:
We actually have a stoplight system for that. Green light is when your platform demographics look good. We always want the content to perform above industry average, which is usually around a 1.5% engagement rate. Then we look at audience signals within the comments. Green means the audience is asking where to buy, leaning in, asking FAQs, or giving substantial feedback. That tells us the audience is engaged and may be potential customers. That’s the kind of content you want to test in paid.

Myriah Castillo:
The yellow range is when content does well from a brand awareness or engagement perspective, but most comments are things like, “Hey, I like your t-shirt,” or “Your hair looks really good today.” They have an engaged audience, but they’re not fixated on the brand yet. That might be someone you test again. A red light is low engagement and comments that aren’t relevant to the brand—that’s a creator we wouldn’t continue working with.

Steve Hutt:
I see. Is there any training that goes along with this? You obviously have a roster of creators who consistently perform well and you lean on them in the verticals they’re strong in. But then there are some in that yellow category who might not be quite polished yet as creators. Is there an education component, or is it more “the cream rises to the top” and that’s it? Or do you nudge people along to get them to that green level with the brands they’re working with?

Myriah Castillo:
There is. If we get strong platform signals—like engagement rate and impressions—and feel it’s worth some coaching, we’ll coach them. We frame it as a business proposition: we want what’s best for you, and we want what’s best for our client. We’ll point out areas of opportunity if they want to keep working with us. The exciting thing about creators is that their resume is public. When we select creators, we can already see that they’re creating content in the way we’d want for the brand.

Myriah Castillo:
So the assumption is there’s minimal coaching needed, and if we don’t see the proper audience response, that’s more of an anomaly. That’s when we’ll get on the phone with their agent or with them directly and say, “If you want to continue working with us, you need to make these changes.”

Steve Hutt:
I see. Okay, that’s very cool. Here’s a true story from my Shopify days: a lot of brands really judge TikTok Shop solely by sales happening within the app, and that’s how they judge performance. Would you say they’re missing something by only looking at in-app revenue?

Myriah Castillo:
Definitely. I was at the TikTok Summit earlier this year, and they’ve almost completely shifted their focus.

Steve Hutt:
Right.

Myriah Castillo:
TikTok’s only been around for about two and a half years in its current form, and they’ve shifted focus quite a bit. Their current focus is the impact TikTok has on other channels. On average, there are about 100 minutes per user per day on TikTok, so it’s where people are discovering brands. We’ve seen it on our side too. We use a platform called Kruva that tracks lift on Amazon. We usually see about a 20–40% lift in Amazon sales when we generate brand awareness from TikTok. We’ve even had clients get into retailers like H-E-B, Target, or Walmart because of how much awareness they’ve gained on TikTok Shop. The same applies to Shopify or website sales.

Myriah Castillo:
We can attribute spikes in sales to an affiliate video going viral or when the shop really starts to take off.

Steve Hutt:
It’s almost like that halo effect. We talk about the Amazon halo effect and how it drives traffic back to the Shopify brand, but clearly there’s a TikTok halo effect driving off-platform demand because of TikTok.

Myriah Castillo:
Yeah. The reporting we’re getting back from TikTok shows a pretty even split in terms of gender and age on the platform, and they’re growing like crazy. Before, you might have thought of TikTok as a Gen Z platform—the dancing, unhinged, silly platform—but now it spans all age groups. Ages 45 and up are actually the fastest-growing age group on the platform. You have so much attention there that it naturally translates elsewhere.

Steve Hutt:
It’s interesting. To me it seems like TikTok Shop is more of a demand generation and discovery layer. That halo effect sounds like it can really lift brands in search, marketplace rankings, on-site conversions—all of these can move as a result of an effective TikTok strategy.

Myriah Castillo:
Yeah, and it’s interesting because on TikTok, to get awareness and conversions, you usually have to work with affiliates. Our brands typically see about 80% of their total revenue coming from affiliates. For healthy brands, that’s normal. The more sales you generate on the platform, the more affiliates will want to work with you. There are also refundable samples on TikTok. If you generate enough revenue, affiliates will buy your product, start selling it, and get you more awareness. That compounds substantially.

Myriah Castillo:
TikTok is one of those platforms where, once you crest that initial threshold, you can generate way more impressions than you’d think possible. Our healthy accounts usually have about 4,500 active creators and around 43 million impressions per month, which is way bigger than anywhere else.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, it’s pretty wild. It sounds like brands that are winning are the ones putting out a ton of creator content. Why do you believe that volume matters? Some people say, “I’ll put four or five good videos up, maybe boost a couple, and that’s it.” What does the data show about the velocity of content being produced on behalf of a brand?

Myriah Castillo:
I think there are two big moments that make volume a need, not a want. The first is changes in Meta advertising, where creator content can act as a solution for the diversity problem. Meta now needs hundreds of different assets that are all inherently unique. Most brands can’t afford to produce that many commercials or graphics, and creators can fill that bucket. So from a paid perspective, it’s very important to have creators posting so you have that content.

Myriah Castillo:
On the awareness side, with LLMs and ChatGPT, creators can influence those platforms because they’re speaking in natural language and coming from many different sources. We’ve had brands significantly improve their search ranking on those platforms simply because of all the chatter. Those are two pivotal shifts. Beyond that, people are trusting people over brands more than ever. There’s a lot of distrust around claims and whether something is really worth it. You get a ton of social proof from creators, especially if you’re working with mid-tier to micro creators who feel like everyday people. That validates the brand much more than the brand speaking for itself.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, I always think about the authenticity that comes with certain creators. I follow a few in different areas, and I always look forward to what they’re putting out. It’s like a small snippet of their day—what they’re doing, what’s happening, things they promote. It’s a really interesting discovery path that feels very different from typical branded content. At the top of the show we talked about this creator-led growth system you have compared to old-school brand claims, campaign launches, and typical ads. It’s different when you have a relationship with an actual human who’s reasonable on camera—and then you get this trust.

Steve Hutt:
It’s almost like a lived experience with the product. You think, “Hey, that’s me,” or “I can see how I’d use that,” or “I didn’t think it would taste that good, but she loves it, so maybe I should try it.” What’s your thought on the old-school branded content versus what you do with more creator-led content?

Myriah Castillo:
I always say it’s creator-led, not creator-only. I do think the brand needs a unique voice, personality, and perspective, because creator content is only going to take you so far. It’s going to give you social proof and traffic back to your pages, but at the end of the day, if people are going to stay, follow you, and see your brand daily, the brand has to have some heart.

Myriah Castillo:
We’ve shifted our social media department to be completely creator-led, where our social strategists are content creators for the brands themselves. That’s helpful for brands that don’t have a strong personality yet or don’t have a founder who wants to be on camera. It gives them a brand voice. I think it’s very important to showcase that. I don’t think static graphics or beautiful photos alone are enough anymore. There needs to be movement and engagement. The brand has to stand on its own and shout from the rooftops what it really cares about too.

Steve Hutt:
I see. We have a lot of different types of founders and marketers listening: early-stage people just getting their feet wet, trying to build business acumen and find product–market fit, all the way to more established mid-market brands and a share of Shopify Plus brands doing five to ten million or more. With all these different sizes and stages, what have you seen really works well? Where are merchants usually at in their business when Joybyte becomes a compelling opportunity?

Myriah Castillo:
For brands that are just starting, they need traffic managers. They need someone saying, “Hey, come back to this page,” because it’s really hard to do that on your own. Boosted posts don’t really work anymore. You’d have to invest heavily in PR and event marketing. You basically need someone to say, “Hey, go here.” Working with small nano to micro creators can start to do that in a very budget-effective way.

Myriah Castillo:
I also think whitelisting is a totally missed opportunity for a lot of brands. That’s where you amplify the creator’s content on their page instead of from the brand page. The brand page doesn’t have an audience yet, but the creator does. When you amplify a post on their page, you drive more traffic back to your pages and can even get conversions. It’s a really easy place to start. You don’t have to spend a lot to get there. As you grow, you can open up to more creators, more budget, and you can reuse that content later as your budgets get healthier.

Steve Hutt:
That’s interesting. What have you found the more successful brands pay attention to in the first few months before they really start ramping up? Is it truly a crawl–walk–run scenario? Because you onboard new brands that may already have some traction—that’s usually why they’re working with you. What do you see in those first few months before they’re really ready to scale?

Myriah Castillo:
I think listening to the community is something a lot of brands get wrong. I understand it—they have a lot of emotion tied to their business and strong reasons behind how they run it—but they haven’t validated those ideas yet. They don’t know if that’s what people actually care about. I see brands wanting to overcorrect influencer content to force a very specific story or refusing to work with certain influencer groups that could be a good opportunity. They want to stay very one-note with their personas.

Myriah Castillo:
I’ve had brands do that with me for a couple of months and then I’ll say, “Hey, let’s explore this new audience,” and that audience becomes the liftoff point. When you’re at that stage, you can’t pigeonhole yourself too much.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, I totally get it. I noticed on your website before recording today that you have a lot of educational assets. One thing that stood out was the creator-led growth playbook you have in your knowledge section. Can you talk about what this playbook actually is, and then we’ll talk about next steps for how people can get it and potentially work with you?

Myriah Castillo:
Yeah. It’s a lot of what we talked about today—our approach to creator-led marketing and how it integrates into all of your marketing arms. It has great case studies that walk through what’s worked for brands of all different sizes. It’s also a great place to get in touch with us. There’s a contact form on that page where you can set up time with us and we can talk specifically about your brand.

Steve Hutt:
Yeah, this is amazing. That’s the main call to action for today: the playbook is available on your knowledge base. I’ll make sure to put it in the show notes for those who want to learn more—just to raise your education level about what’s available. It’s almost like a supplement to what we’ve been talking about today, maybe even a more definitive guide than our conversation.

Steve Hutt:
On the contact page, people just click there and then what typically happens once they reach out? Maybe they feel their influencer or creator network isn’t working effectively—or at all—and want to work with Joybyte. What’s the process like to learn about their business and determine next steps if it’s a good fit?

Myriah Castillo:
We’ll have an introductory call with our development team to understand where the business is at and what the goals and motivations are. Following that call, sometimes we’ll do an audit or deep dive—especially in TikTok Shop—if you have anything existing. From there, we customize the approach for your particular brand.

Myriah Castillo:
We then move into our onboarding process, which is about 30 days. That ensures clear alignment on our brief, strategy, where we want the brand to go, and expectations for getting started. After that, it’s off to the races with our process.

Steve Hutt:
Beautiful. Well, thanks, Myriah, for coming on the show today. I really appreciate it. I’ve written—I always joke about this on the show—but I’m literally on page two of notes. It’s a good episode when that happens. I have this “life of learning” mantra and I think my listeners do too. There’s so much opportunity out there, and if you’re not using creators effectively, you now have a great system to look at.

Steve Hutt:
Grab this playbook—it’s a good starting point. From there, if it’s a good fit, contact your team and I think we’re good to go. This has been lovely. Thanks again for taking the time and transparently sharing what’s working today in the creator world.

Myriah Castillo:
Of course. Thank you so much for having me. This was really fun.

Steve Hutt:
All right, have yourself a great afternoon. Well, that’s it for today’s episode. I’d like to thank you personally for being a loyal listener of eCommerce Fastlane. It’s my hope this podcast is offering you a ton of value through growth strategies, tactics, and exclusive insider tips on the best Shopify apps and marketing platforms—all with my personal goal to help you build, manage, grow, and scale a successful and thriving company powered by Shopify. Thanks for investing some time today and listening to the show. I’m so proud and excited that you have a growth mindset and are a constant learner. I truly appreciate you and your entrepreneurial journey. Enjoy the rest of the week and keep thriving with Shopify.