tokconnectYou pitch on Tuesday, brief on Wednesday and report on the last Friday, times five clients. The research under all of it is someone screenshotting TikTok on a phone, because the one tool with TikTok's search numbers has no export. This hands your agent those numbers as text, for any niche, so the brief carries figures a client can check.
What you'd ask on day one
Three prompts, run on 19 September 2026 for a pilates client and a five-client roster. Real answers, pulled live.
Research brief for a new account
We just won a pilates studio. Pull TikTok's search topics for pilates with 7-day search volume and video counts, flag the ones with demand and no videos, and give me the audience for the top one.
| Topic | Searches, 7 days | Videos |
|---|---|---|
| pilates board exercise workouts | 4,813,018 | 324 |
| Pilates pants and leggings | 4,752,674 | 620 |
| pilates studios and workout classes | 4,745,274 | 0 |
| men doing pilates content | 4,573,357 | 0 |
| pilates boards and ab wheels | 4,559,419 | 0 |
Audience on "trying pilates" (88,708 searches, no videos): 60% female, 45% aged 18 to 24, 43% in the United States, 21% in the Philippines. That is a slide, a targeting note and three content pillars.
Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 19 September 2026. Snapshot.
Monthly digest across the roster
Every month I write a trend digest for five clients: a pilates studio, a wedding photographer, a landscaper, a dental clinic and a vegan bakery. Give me the biggest TikTok search topic in each niche and count the topics with demand but no videos.
| Client niche | Biggest topic | Searches | Gaps |
|---|---|---|---|
| Vegan bakery | honest review of vegan fast food | 25,360,504 | 5 |
| Dental clinic | dental clinics and dental services | 4,812,318 | 3 |
| Landscaping | park trees and garden landscaping | 4,742,373 | 5 |
| Wedding photography | wedding and prewedding photography ideas | 4,713,813 | 0 |
| Pilates studio | local pilates studios and reviews | 4,108,131 | 6 |
Gaps counts topics in the same ten results with over 100,000 searches and no videos. Wedding photography returned none, which belongs in that client's report: the niche is covered, so the play is quality.
Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 19 September 2026. Snapshot.
Competitor gap analysis
For the pilates client: who owns TikTok search for "pilates for beginners", how big are the studio accounts in that space, and which topics have demand nobody is serving?
- Who owns the query. @beckylupilatesflow, 6,964,565 views and 213,017 likes on one beginner workout; @nurnurfit 1,196,924 views; @s.z.movement 980,035. All instructors, not studios.
- The studios. @ruthpilatesstudio has 614,021 followers off 430 videos. The next studio accounts sit at 45,538 and 31,397.
- Nobody is serving. "pilates studios and workout classes" 4,745,274 searches, 0 videos. "men doing pilates content" 4,573,357, 0 videos.
The finding writes itself: instructors beat studios on beginner search, and the studio-class query is open.
Data: TikTok search and Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 19 September 2026. Snapshot.
Read the video count correctly before it lands in a deck: it is how many videos TikTok matched to that exact topic, not how many pilates videos exist. A zero is TikTok's own content-gap signal. What that means.
What it replaces
| What you do today | Tool | What it shows | What TokConnect adds |
|---|---|---|---|
| A junior screenshots Creator Search Insights for the brief | Creator Search Insights, in the app and at tiktok.com/csi (free) | Search popularity per topic, a 7-day chart, content-gap flags | The same numbers as text for any niche, twenty topics at a time. Neither surface has an export, history or API. |
| Pull the monthly numbers per client | Sprout Social, $79 to $399 per seat a month | Publishing, inbox, listening and post performance | Search demand before the content exists, on one key rather than a seat per person |
| Buy listening for the strategy deck | Brandwatch or Meltwater, quote only | Mentions, sentiment and share of voice | What people type into TikTok's search bar, which listening tools do not carry |
| Check a TikTok Shop client's products | Kalodata, about $46 to $130 a month by tier | Shop products, creators and livestream revenue | Organic search demand and content gaps, which Kalodata does not report |
| Vet creators for a campaign | TikTok Creator Marketplace (free) | Creator demographics and performance on branded content | Which creators already rank for the terms your client needs, and their comments |
| Quote hashtag volume from Creative Center | TikTok Creative Center (free) | Ranked hashtags, ads and sounds. Keyword Insights there is ad keyword data | Organic search counts for the phrase you name. Side by side |
How it fits your week
- Connect once. One key, one config block, in whichever assistant the team uses. Claude Desktop takes two minutes; the rest are on the connect page.
- Ask per client. New business gets the brief prompt, retainers the digest, quarterly reviews the gap analysis. The output is text, so it drops into your own template or deck.
- Date every table. Search popularity is a 7-day figure that moves. A dated table in the client folder records what was true when the strategy was signed off, which is what you need when they ask in March about a September call.
The numbers come from TikTok's own Creator Search Insights and TikTok search, pulled live. Search popularity is searches over the last seven days, global unless a country is picked. The definitions belong in the footnote of any deck you hand over.
What it does not do: no posting, no scheduling, no ads, no transcripts, no client portal. It reads what TikTok shows publicly, and it is independent, with no affiliation to TikTok.
Straight answers
Keep them. They do listening, publishing and the inbox. Neither reports TikTok search volume or content gaps, because TikTok publishes that only inside Creator Search Insights, with no export. That is the part you screenshot.
No portal, no white-label dashboard. The output arrives as text in your assistant and you paste it into your own template. Cite TikTok Creator Search Insights and the date you pulled it, as you would any data provider.
It never touches them. You connect with your own key, not a client login, and it reads public search data. No posting, no ads, no private data, no claim of affiliation with TikTok.
Every call has a saved response with the tool, the arguments and the date, like the snapshots above. Put the source line next to the figure. If the client opens Creator Search Insights on their own phone, they see the same tool.
The plan that fits
One tool call is one credit. Per client per month: two topic searches, six to open three topics with their audience, two for competitors and two for comments, so about twelve. Across five clients that is 60, plus five for the digest and twelve per new-business brief. A normal month lands near 80, a heavy one with weekly refreshes near 250.
Starter at $49 a month covers 1,000 credits, a five-client roster several times over, and the free 100 credits cover a first month across all five before you pay anything. Move to Growth or Pro as the roster grows. Compare plans.
Guides for agencies
- TikTok keyword research: the method behind the brief above, with the exact calls.
- TikTok competitor analysis: how to turn "who owns this query" into a slide a client acts on.
- TikTok SEO: what to write in the caption and on screen so the video ranks for the topic you sold.
- How to find trends on TikTok: seven sources for the monthly digest, and which are already stale.
- How to find TikTok influencers: free methods first, for campaigns with no tooling budget.
- TikTok analytics tools: what Sprout, Hootsuite, Later and TikTok Studio report, and what a client's stack cannot answer.
Questions agencies ask
We already pay for Brandwatch, Meltwater or Sprout. What does this add?
Listening tools tell you what people said. This tells you what people searched on TikTok: the topic, the 7-day search count, and whether any videos cover it. TikTok publishes that only inside Creator Search Insights, which has no export and no API, so no listening platform carries it.
Can I white-label it for clients?
No. There is no client portal and no branded dashboard. The output is text and numbers in your own assistant, which you paste into your own template or deck. Cite TikTok Creator Search Insights and the date you pulled the data.
What does it cost per client?
One tool call is one credit. A client month of research, two topic searches, three topics opened with their audience, a competitor check and a comment pull, is about twelve credits. Five clients come to roughly 80 a month, inside Starter's 1,000 at $49. Pricing.
Is it safe to run on client accounts?
It never touches them. You connect with your own TokConnect key, not a client login, and it reads public TikTok search data. No posting, no scheduling, no ads, no transcripts, and no affiliation with TikTok.