TikTok as a startup growth engine: Interview with Liv Sandberg, General Manager of Global Business Solutions at TikTok CE & Nordics

Now, it’s practically difficult to locate a person that does not recognize what TikTok is. You may not be an individual (yet), however the system has actually advanced much past its credibility for viral dancings and enjoyment. Today, it plays a main function in exactly how individuals uncover items, involve with neighborhoods, and connect with brand names. For start-ups particularly, it has actually ended up being an effective development engine, supplying presence, social significance, and scalable effect, usually without the requirement for large budget plans.

For those that enjoy information, TikTok was started in 2016 in China as Douyin, and its global variation introduced in 2017. The genuine advancement in Europe was available in 2018 after the merging with Musical.ly, a social media sites application that permitted individuals to produce and share brief lip-sync video clips, generally to pop music. ByteDance had actually gotten Musical.ly in 2017 for an approximated $1 billion, a relocation that offered TikTok accessibility to a much more comprehensive target market. By 2019, it was just one of one of the most downloaded and install applications worldwide, and in 2020, its appeal blew up throughout the COVID-19 lockdowns, sealing its location as a mainstream social sensation.

Throughout TechBBQ 2025, I had the opportunity to meeting Liv Sandberg, General Supervisor of Global Company Solutions at TikTok CE & Nordics. With previous management duties as chief executive officer of Starcom and Head of Firm at Facebook, she brings a wide range of experience in the electronic marketing room. Our discussion touched 4 primary subjects: TikTok for start-ups, making tiny budget plans function, material approach for start-ups, and neighborhoods & exploration. We likewise looked in advance at success tales and what’s following for the system. Allow’s solve into it!

TikTok has actually rapidly relocated from being viewed as simply an amusement application to a system where items, brand names, and also activities are found. From a start-up point of view, exactly how crucial has TikTok end up being in Europe? Could you share any type of numbers on customer behavior or service fostering that reveal its significance as a device for development?

TikTok has actually advanced from being an amusement application to an effective exploration engine where individuals proactively involve with brand-new items, brand names, and neighborhoods. In Europe, more than 200 million people use TikTok every month, investing generally 90 mins a day on the system. That degree of interest offers start-ups a distinct chance to incorporate right into day-to-day society, not simply marketing rooms. Greater than 70% of European SMBs on TikTok state it aided them get to target markets they could not locate somewhere else, which reveals its worth as a development motorist.

As a start-up owner, I can spend my (occasionally restricted) advertising and marketing spending plan right into various other systems. From both a material and service point of view, why should I prioritise TikTok?

TikTok decreases the obstacles to development since you do not require a big spending plan or a well established fan base to produce effect. One genuine item of web content that reverberates can get to millions. Individuals concern TikTok with an open state of mind, prepared to uncover, that makes it very cost-efficient for recognition and conversion. Incorporated with imaginative devices that streamline manufacturing, the system makes it possible for start-ups to accomplish outcomes that would certainly or else call for much better financial investment.

If I’m a start-up with EUR 1K to invest, what sort of outcomes could I reasonably anticipate?

The dish for success on TikTok truly relies on a number of aspects– the market you remain in, your base degree of brand name recognition, and the services or product you’re supplying. What we have actually seen is that numerous brand-new business have actually accomplished solid outcomes not due to large budget plans, however since they mattered and listened with pop culture.

Lots of start-ups run with restricted sources. What’s the minimal financial investment you’ve seen drive significant outcomes on TikTok? Any type of standards around CPC or interaction prices that creators should recognize?

I have actually seen start-ups produce effect with really moderate budget plans. Involvement on TikTok is constantly over market standards, which implies also restricted financial investment can be reliable. While CPMs and CPCs differ by market, performance stays solid. The trick is a clear, imaginative concept that reverberates with the appropriate target market.

With the insane success tales we’ve seen (as individuals) everyday taking place on TikTok, what’s the oblique indicate buy TikTok Advertisements as opposed to counting exclusively on natural reach? Could you share any type of information on ROI or ordinary uplift when integrating both strategies?

The oblique factor comes when you have actually recognized web content that really reverberates naturally and intend to scale it better. Advertisements on TikTok job best as boosting, transforming tried and tested layouts right into organized development. The best ROI originates from integrating both– natural for screening and spent for velocity– usually supplying considerably greater reach and conversion uplift than depending on one strategy alone.

If a start-up just has time to produce a handful of video clips each week, what sort of web content should they prioritise? Could you share a sensible structure that functions? Or a key to TikTok success?

A well balanced web content mix functions best: trend-driven layouts to record social energy, brand name narration to construct link, and product-focused presentations to drive education and learning and conversion. Also 3 to 4 video clips a week throughout these columns can develop uniformity. What issues most is quality of message and significance to your target market. Material that really feels incorporated right into society constantly executes much better than web content that seems like an advertisement.

TikTok is usually called the brand-new internet search engine. Just how can start-ups take advantage of particular niche neighborhoods and patterns to drive not simply presence, however real conversions? TikTok is constructed around interest-based neighborhoods, from health and fitness to food to fund. Start-ups do well when they include authentic worth to those discussions– whether by fixing troubles, supplying understanding, or amusing. Optimizing hashtags and inscriptions makes sure presence with search, which is coming to be a progressively crucial entrance factor. Conversions take place when individuals view the brand name as a genuine individual in the area.

Returning to TikTok as an online search engine: have AI devices like ChatGPT impacted its development? As an example, I directly utilized to depend on TikTok as an online search engine since it was much easier, while considering this meeting, I understood that considering that making use of ChatGPT, I transform to it much less than previously. This brought me back to a write-up I covered the more comprehensive change we are all experiencing fromSEO to AEO Is TikTok currently servicing this change? Has it been impacted, or have the numbers moved?

AI has actually altered the method individuals search, however TikTok’s stamina depends on social and social exploration. Individuals do not simply come for solutions– they concern see items at work, to listen to genuine viewpoints, and to get in touch with neighborhoods. We are likewise advancing with brand-new devices like Manage Topics and Smart Search Phrase Filters, which provide individuals a lot more control over exploration. TikTok remains to expand as an exploration system, enhancing instead of taking on AI-based devices.

Could you share instances of European start-ups that effectively scaled their brand name making use of TikTok? What did they do right, and what can others pick up from them?

Planet Nusa in Denmark constructed solid commitment by involving straight with health and fitness neighborhoods. Ditur s caled by responding to every remark and transforming discussions right into web content, producing a virtuous cycle of interaction. In the UK, Little Moons changed from a particular niche mochi gelato brand name right into a grocery store success after going viral on TikTok. What joins them is credibility, rate of implementation, and community-driven development.

Looking in advance, what brand-new devices, advertisement layouts, or behavioral changes on TikTok should start-ups get ready for in the following 12– 24 months?

TikTok is coming to be an also more powerful component of the customer trip as a search and exploration system. Start-ups ought to prepare to take advantage of brand-new imaginative devices like Harmony Creative Workshop and Smart+, which reduced the obstacle to generating reliable web content at range. Depend on and safety and security will certainly remain to be a top priority, with efforts such as our Reuters fact-checking collaboration in the Nordics. The vital change is that TikTok is placing itself not equally as social media sites, however as a development engine for services of every dimension.

The article TikTok as a startup growth engine: Interview with Liv Sandberg, General Manager of Global Business Solutions at TikTok CE & Nordics showed up initially on EU-Startups.