TikTok has recently made a change to its platform that will have a significant impact on creators’ ability to redirect traffic to app stores. The popular video-sharing app is now blocking links to app stores in creators’ bios, including third-party link-in-bio solutions like Linktree. The change was first noticed by Sendit’s co-founder David Tesler, who tested the functionality across a range of accounts and found that the links no longer worked to redirect clicks to the App Store.
A TikTok spokesperson confirmed that personal creator accounts will no longer be able to link to app store pages, but they will still be able to link out to websites. Going forward, only TikTok business accounts will be able to link to app store pages and there won’t be any fee for this functionality. The company believes this change will improve the clarity between businesses and personal accounts by making their feature sets more distinct. However, this is also a push to shift more ad dollars directly to TikTok.
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Creators will now need to promote their accounts through ads if they want to point TikTok users to their app’s App Store listing. This change is expected to impact CPI (cost per install) campaign deals between creators and brands. With this new policy, TikTok-driven installs may decline on the app stores, as creators wouldn’t be able to run the same kind of campaigns as before.
TikTok has had a growing influence on the App Store’s Top Charts in recent years, sometimes artificially inflating the real-world popularity of certain apps as a flood of TikTok users rush to install the app from a marketing campaign. This change is expected to affect the real-world popularity of apps promoted on TikTok, as creators will no longer be able to redirect traffic to app stores through their bios.
