MONAT's European expansion took the affiliate playbook Somerce proved in the UK and rebuilt it locally: 700+ affiliates recruited in three months and 70% month on month growth across the EU.
TikTok Shop opened its newest European markets, and MONAT wanted in. The haircare brand already had proof the model worked: in the UK, the programme Somerce built grew 1,174% from month one to month six. But a playbook that wins in one market does not travel by copy and paste. Germany and France meant new languages, new creator communities, new shopping habits and no existing affiliate base to lean on.
The task was to take everything the UK engine had proven and rebuild it locally, in two markets at once, at launch speed.
Somerce ran the expansion as a localised operation, not a remote one. Our FR office put the team on the ground, close to the creators, the language and the market, so recruitment and management happened locally rather than being translated from London.
The launch itself was ambassador-led in both markets. Haircare professionals came first: creators whose authority matched the product and set the tone for the programme. Macro and micro affiliates followed to build volume, giving each market a community shaped like the one that had already worked in the UK, but built from local talent.
Behind the recruitment sat the full Somerce affiliate management engine. We recruit across every channel available to a brand, from the affiliate centre to direct outreach to the Somerce creator community, then keep creators posting with regular touchpoints, content ideas, top-up samples for top performers and briefs built on tested hooks. Winners get scaled, losers get dropped, and the content feedback loop keeps improving month after month. Support scales with performance too: as a creator's sales grow, so does the management around them, from personalised hooks through to dedicated one-to-one relationship management for the biggest sellers.
Because expansion is never just recruitment, the work sat inside a wider trading operation. Listings, offers and day-to-day shop operations were run the way we run every market, as part of full TikTok Shop management, so the new affiliate volume landed on shops set up to convert it.
Within three months of launch, the programme had recruited 700+ affiliates across the new EU markets. Germany delivered 108% creator growth. Across the EU, the operation compounded at 70% month on month growth.
The bigger point is what the numbers prove: the playbook travels. Not by copying it, but by localising it, with local teams, local creators and the same engine underneath.
We build an army of high-performing affiliates. In the EU, we built it twice, in two languages, in three months.
The UK playbook is proven. The EU playbook is live. If your brand is ready to grow on TikTok Shop, talk to the team that has done it.
Talk to us