If your brand relies on social media for growth, collaborating with the right TikTok influencers can dramatically expand your reach - especially among Gen Z and Millennial shoppers. In February 2024, TikTok generated an estimated $189 million of net revenue from in-app purchases on the App Store and Google Play combined. According to TikTok’s own statistics, after watching creator advertising, 64% of TikTok users reported that they would purchase the product.
Manually researching creators, however, is anything but efficient - scrolling, clicking, comparing follower counts, and copy-pasting usernames into a spreadsheet wastes valuable time you could spend building real partnerships. Using TikTok’s Creative Center also requires a lot of manual effort in creating datasets, as export is not supported.
There’s a better way to find TikTok influencers, though: With Apify, you can skip the copy-pasting and let automation do the work by using no-code data collection tools from Apify Store, home to over 8,000 scrapers and automation solutions.
Plus, you get $5 of free credit every month, which is more than enough to start finding real, relevant creators right away.
How to find the best TikTok influencers for marketing
We’ll use Apify social media scrapers to discover TikTok creators. Apify scrapers are called Actors - specialized tools designed to perform specific automated tasks.
Each TikTok Actor follows the same process: it accepts inputs, runs in the cloud, and delivers results that can be easily exported. Each one includes configurable input fields (such as keywords, hashtags, URLs, or even AI prompts), allowing you to tailor the scraping run to your exact data needs. Running a scraping session requires no coding skills.
Is it difficult to find the ideal TikTok influencers for your specific needs?
Not at all. With Apify, you can discover relevant creators in minutes. In this tutorial, we’ll explore two methods of TikTok data collection and set up a workflow to send scraped data directly to a Google Sheet. Here’s how:
Method 1 - using Influencer Discovery Agent
- Step 1: Go to Influencer Discovery Agent and sign up for free
- Step 2: Set up an Actor-to-Actor integration
- Step 3: Configure the scraper and run it
- Step 4 (optional): Schedule automated runs and notifications
Method 2 - using TikTok Scraper
- Step 1: Go to TikTok Scraper and sign up for free
- Step 2: Set up an Actor-to-Actor integration
- Step 3: Configure the scraper and run it
- Step 4 (optional): Schedule automated runs and notifications
- Step 5: Clean your dataset
Final Step (optional): Data enrichment with TikTok Profile Scraper
We'll use another Apify Actor to learn more about the creators extracted in Method 1 or Method 2.
Method 1 - Influencer Discovery Agent
Influencer Discovery Agent is an AI tool that will run a scraping session based on your prompt. All you have to do is describe your ideal creator, and the tool will crawl TikTok, evaluate each user based on your requirements, and provide you with a list of possible influencers with a detailed assessment.
Step 1: Go to Influencer Discovery Agent and sign up for free
Head to Influencer Discovery Agent on Apify Store and click the Try for free button to create a free Apify account. You can easily sign up with your GitHub or email account from any provider. Once you’re in, you’ll access Apify Console, a workspace to run and manage web automation tasks.
After signing up, you’ll receive a $5 monthly credit. Influencer Discovery Agent uses a pay-per-event pricing model, so you’re charged only for specific events, not for using the platform itself.
Step 2: Set up an Actor-to-Actor integration
Actor integrations enable you to connect your Actors with other Actors or tasks. To automate our data collection, we’ll set up a simple workflow between Influencer Discovery Agent and Google Sheets Import & Export directly in the Apify platform. That way, once we trigger our data collection, the output will be automatically saved in Google Drive.
Click on the Integrations tab and start typing Google Sheets in the search bar. Select Google Sheets Import & Export to proceed.
Now let’s configure the integration. First, we need to give it a name (in this example, we’ll go with BookTok Influencers) and connect our Google account, so that the Actor has access to Google Drive and can modify a Google Sheets file once the data is ready. Since we want the data to be sent to the spreadsheet once the scraper finishes running, we’ll select Run succeeded as our starting point.
Now we can choose a Google Sheet for the Actor to use as the endpoint of our data flow - click Select file from Google Drive to do this. To read more about the Actor’s operational modes, have a look at the Google Sheets Import & Export readme.
Finally, toggle the Deduplication by equality so that with every new scraping round, the spreadsheet gets updated with new data, deleting the duplicates. Click Save.
You can check your setup at any time by clicking the Integrations tab:
Step 3: Configure the scraper and run it
Head to the Input tab. To discover relevant influencers, use a prompt and describe your ideal creator. In this example, we want to find creators among the TikTok's book-loving community, so we’ll use the following:
The influencer should be a well-known persona on BookTok, with at least 50000 followers. The content should include book reviews, recommendations, and partnerships with publishers.
Click Start to execute your run.
Once the run finishes, the scraper will automatically send data to the Google Sheet for further processing - plus, the data will be updated with each new run. You can also download results directly as an Excel, HTML, XML, JSON, or CSV document by clicking the Export button. You can also select or omit fields to export.
Your list of influencers is now ready for analysis. The Google Sheets document contains not only TikTok usernames, but also an AI-generated description of whether or not the creator is a right fit, the number of fans, and more.
Step 4 (optional): Schedule automated runs and notifications
If you want to update your list of influencers regularly, you can schedule the scraper to run automatically and collect data without manual input. To do this, create a task and a schedule in Apify Console.
First, make sure your scraper is properly configured, then click the Save as a new task button in the top-right corner.
Give your task a name and save it.
Now, you can easily schedule the task by accessing Schedules in the left-hand navigation and clicking the Create a schedule button:
We’ve already saved our task, so now it’s time to add it to the schedule. Click Add task at the bottom to customize your schedule, select a task, and choose how often you want the scraper to run - weekly, monthly, or on any day that works best for you.
Adding a task and customizing a schedule
Click Enable, and your schedule will be up and running. It will automatically start the scraper at your chosen time and send the results to Google Drive, thanks to the integration we set up earlier.
To enable notifications (and receive an email whenever the scraper runs), open your schedule in the Schedules tab and click Enable notifications. No further setup is needed.
Method 2 - TikTok Scraper
This powerful scraper can help you observe and track trends, in addition to discovering influencers. You can use it to get data based on hashtags, scrape all posts from user profiles, get individual video posts, and music data. We’ll use it to find new creators based on a keyword search.
Step 1: Go to TikTok Scraper and sign up for free
Just like in the first method, start by visiting Apify Store and creating a free Apify account (if you don’t already have one) to try out TikTok Scraper. Click the Try for free button to access Apify Console.
TikTok Scraper is paid per event, charging only $3.70 for 1,000 results, so your $5 in free monthly credits can already get you a solid batch of data.
Step 2: Set up an Actor-to-Actor integration
We’ll use the same process as in the first method and set up an integration between TikTok Scraper and Google Sheets Import & Export to send results automatically to Google Drive.
Click on the Integrations tab and start typing Google Sheets in the search bar. Select Google Sheets Import & Export to proceed. Follow the instructions from the first method to connect the Actor to your Google account and configure the workflow - remember to create a new spreadsheet for the Actor.
Step 3: Configure the scraper and run it
Head to the Input tab. This time, to find influencers, we’ll use keywords. For our BookTok use case, we’ll enter the following: BookTok, book review, publishing, and book recommendation.
By default, this scraper sorts search results according to what appears in the Top section of TikTok search. You can narrow it down if you like: to search only videos, use Video, for profiles only - select Profile. Click Start to execute your run.
Once the run finishes, the scraper will automatically send data to your Google Sheet for further processing - plus, the data will be updated with each new run. You can also download results directly as an Excel, HTML, XML, JSON, or CSV document by clicking the Export button. You can also select or omit fields to export.
Step 4 (optional): Schedule automated runs and notifications
Follow the instructions from method 1 to create a task, schedule it, and enable email notifications whenever the Actor finishes a run.
Step 5: Clean your dataset
Since TikTok Scraper extracts primarily content matching your keywords, you might notice some usernames appearing in your spreadsheet more than once - especially if the influencer is a frequent poster. It’s easy to remove the duplicates directly in the spreadsheet, though: Select a authorMeta/name column, go to Data → Data cleanup → Remove duplicates.
Final step (optional): Data enrichment with TikTok Profile Scraper
Now that you have a list of TikTok creators’ names from one or both sources, you’ll probably want to learn more about them. For that, we’ll use another Apify tool - TikTok Profile Scraper.
It’s just as easy to use as the other TikTok scrapers, featuring a no-code interface, and it’s designed specifically to extract complete profile data - including bios, account status, follower and following counts, as well as total plays, shares, and comments.
Go to your Google Sheet with influencer data and find the InfluencerMetadata/name column (in case of the Influencer Discovery Agent results) or authorMeta/name (in case of the TikTok Scraper results) column. Copy the usernames, then head back to TikTok Profile Scraper. In the Input tab, click the Bulk edit button. Paste all the user names and click Set.
Click Save & Start to run the scraper and gather more details about your influencers. Your dataset will now be enriched with additional information to support your influencer marketing strategy, including a signature with email addresses, recent content, and relevant hashtags.
How to reach out to influencers for marketing?
Once you’ve identified potential TikTok creators who align with your brand, the next step is to build a genuine connection. The most common method is cold outreach.
Start by following them, engaging with their content, and understanding their audience, tone, and creative style. When you reach out, personalize your message. Mention what you like about their work and explain clearly why a collaboration would benefit both of you. Be transparent about what you’re offering - whether that’s free products, payment, or another form of compensation.
You can contact TikTok influencers through email (often listed in their bio or linked Instagram profile) or direct messages.
How to get better quality influencers from your scrapes
If you’re using scraping tools like Apify, refining your search criteria can dramatically improve the quality of influencers you find.
For Influencer Discovery Agent, the same golden rule applies as with any generative AI tool: Your results are only as good as your prompt. Include clear criteria such as follower range, content themes, tone, and even preferred hashtags. The more detail you provide, the more accurate and relevant your matches will be.
When searching with keywords, think of specific queries instead of broad terms. Instead of using fitness or travel, narrow down your results with keywords such as veganfitnesscoach or luxurytravelblogger . This filters out generic creators. Over time, you can build keyword lists that consistently return high-quality, authentic influencers relevant to your brand.
Conclusion
With Apify scrapers and simple integrations, you can automate data collection without programming skills, store your results in Google Sheets, and get notified when new creators appear in your niche.
By refining your search terms, filtering by follower count, and personalizing your outreach, you can build meaningful relationships with influencers who genuinely align with your brand. Apify gives you the tools to focus less on data gathering and more on building authentic collaborations that drive results.
FAQ
How to find the right TikTok influencer?
You can quickly build a list of influencers by using Apify’s scrapers: Influencer Discovery Agent or TikTok Scraper. Enter an AI prompt or search terms, run the scraper, and automatically collect profiles with usernames, bios, follower counts, and links - all neatly organized in a Google Sheet or another integrated data destination.
Can I automate the data collection?
Yes. Apify Console lets you set up automated workflows by integrating Actors with third-party apps or other Actors. You can also schedule regular runs and enable email notifications.
How many influencers can I scrape with the $5 monthly free credit?
With $5 of free credit, you can scrape 50 names using Influencer Discovery Agent and over 1,300 using TikTok Scraper.
