How to get TikTok marketing clients with search data

The fastest way to get TikTok marketing clients is to show a business the searches its customers already make on TikTok that no video answers. As of 5 October 2026, "finishing invisalign" drew 296,251 searches in 7 days and "Lip filler tampa" drew 248,975, 99% of them from the US, and TikTok matched 0 videos to either. A pitch built on numbers like these is specific, checkable and about the prospect's customers, which is why it gets read.

This playbook covers how to get TikTok marketing clients from first search to signed retainer. Pick a niche where searches outrun videos, find prospects, build a 10-minute "missing searches" audit, send a short email, and handle the four objections you will hear. Every TikTok number comes from a pull on 5 October 2026 across three niches agencies often pitch: med spas, dentists and orthodontists, and home remodelers.

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<a href="https://tokconnect.com/guides/win-tiktok-clients-with-search-data/"><img src="https://tokconnect.com/graphics/win-tiktok-clients-with-search-data/summary.png" alt="Local businesses are being searched on TikTok with no videos to show: 296K weekly searches for finishing invisalign, 0 videos; 9 of 20 invisalign and whitening searches have 0 videos; 99% of Lip filler tampa searchers are in the US; 18 of 20 kitchen remodeling accounts under 1,000 followers" width="1200" style="max-width:100%;height:auto"></a><br>Source: <a href="https://tokconnect.com/guides/win-tiktok-clients-with-search-data/">How to Get TikTok Marketing Clients With Search Data</a> by TokConnect

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How to get TikTok marketing clients: the missing-searches method

Most agency cold emails say "we help brands grow on TikTok". The prospect has read that a hundred times. The missing-searches email says "'Lip filler tampa' was searched 248,975 times on TikTok last week, and no video answers it". That is new information about their own customers, and they can check it in the TikTok app.

1. Pick a niche where typed searches have few or no matched videos.
2. Find 20 to 50 prospects in that niche and sort them by how active they are on TikTok.
3. Run a 10-minute audit per prospect: their searches, who searches, what they post.
4. Send a short email with one number and three video ideas.
5. Follow up two or three times, each with a new search.
6. Handle the objections with the same data.

Step 1: pick a niche where searches outrun videos

We ran two seeds per niche through TikTok's search data and kept only typed searches, the phrases people actually type. Then we counted how many had no matched videos and how many searches each existing video splits.

Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 5 October 2026. Typed searches only; global 7-day figures. Searches per video = 7-day searches / videos TikTok matches, for searches with at least one video. Open the snapshot.

Dental is the strongest pitch niche here. Invisalign patients search every step of treatment ("attachments invisalign", "invisalign ipr", "putting invisalign in", "finishing invisalign") and almost half of those steps have no video. Where videos do exist, each splits a median of 425 weekly searches. An orthodontist who films one video per step owns a whole treatment journey.

Med spas show a different shape: city searches. "Lip filler tampa" (248,975), "lip filler nyc" (206,396) and "Lip filler nj" (36,181) all had 0 videos. That is the best pitch line a local agency can get, because the prospect is in that city. Remodeling has fewer gaps, but the gaps are specific: "trailer kitchen remodel" (257,677) and "mobile home kitchen remodel" (227,131), a buyer most remodelers never film for.

Step 2: find prospects and sort them by TikTok activity

Search TikTok accounts by business type and read the follower and video counts. We pulled the first 20 accounts for three searches. The three niches need different pitches.

Data: TikTok account search via TokConnect, pulled 5 October 2026, 20 accounts per search. Handles removed. Open the snapshot.

Med spas and orthodontists already post. The median med spa in our list had 438 videos. Don't pitch "start TikTok"; pitch "your videos aren't answering these searches". The audit in step 3 is built for that.

Remodelers mostly don't. 18 of 20 had under 1,000 followers. Pitch the start: a first month of videos aimed at searches with buyers behind them. Expect a longer sale and a smaller first retainer.

Beyond TikTok's own account search, the usual sources work: Google Maps for a city, the Instagram accounts of businesses that run ads, and local award lists. Then check each one's TikTok before you write.

Step 3: the 10-minute "missing searches" audit

Keep it to one page. The prospect should be able to read it on a phone in a minute. Here it is for a hypothetical Tampa med spa, with real numbers.

Data: TikTok Creator Search Insights via TokConnect, pulled 5 October 2026. Searches are global 7-day figures; audience shares are TikTok's 30-day split. Snapshot.

The same audit for an orthodontist would lead with "attachments invisalign" (271,727, 0 videos) and "invisalign ipr" (281,759, 0 videos; 78.9% of searchers in the US and 10.5% in Canada). For a remodeler, "mobile home kitchen remodel" (227,131, 0 videos) has an older audience than most TikTok searches: 24.8% of searchers are 35 or over, and 99.6% are in the US.

Step 4: the email, with placeholders

Short wins. Instantly's 2026 benchmark found its best campaigns kept emails under 80 words and ran 4 to 7 steps, and Saleshandy's study of 53.1 million cold emails recommends 50 to 80 words for the first email. Lead with the number, then the gap, then one small ask.

Subject: "[search]" got [number] TikTok searches last week

Hi [first name],

"[search]" was searched [number] times on TikTok last week. TikTok shows 0 videos for it, so nobody in [city] is answering those searches yet.

I found [2 to 4] more searches like it for [business type] and put them on one page with three video ideas for [business name]. Want me to send it over?

[Your name], [agency], [postal address]
Not interested? Reply "no" and I won't email again.

That is about 70 words. Send the one-page audit only when they reply. Holding it back gives them a reason to answer, and keeps the first email free of links and attachments.

Follow-ups

Follow-ups bring in a large share of replies: 42% of replies in Instantly's data came after the first email, and in Saleshandy's study 44% of positive replies came from follow-ups. Make each one carry a new number.

• Day 3: "One more: '[second search]' got [number] searches last week, also with no videos. Happy to send the page."
• Day 7: "Most of the people searching '[search]' are [age group], [share]% in [country]. That's who a video would reach."
• Day 14: "Last note. If TikTok isn't a priority this quarter, I'll leave it here. The searches will still be there."

Sending rules

Keep lists small: Saleshandy found campaigns to fewer than 200 people got twice the reply rate of campaigns to more than 1,000. In the US, CAN-SPAM applies to business email too: an honest subject line, your postal address, a clear way to opt out, and opt-outs honored within 10 business days. Gmail's sender guidelines require SPF or DKIM on your sending domain and a spam rate below 0.3%. Other countries have stricter rules on cold email, so check yours.

Benchmarks to judge your results by: Instantly's 2025 data put the average reply rate at 3.43%, the top quarter at 5.5% or more and the top tenth at 10.7% or more. Saleshandy's January to June 2026 data put the average at 3.7%.

Step 5: handle the objections with the same data

For clinics, add one line on compliance: before-and-after and treatment videos follow the rules for medical advertising where they practise, and you build that review into the plan. If you also place creators for clients, our TikTok influencer agency guide covers pricing and disclosure.

Run the prospect audit with your AI app

By hand, each audit means looking up searches one by one in Creator Search Insights, which has no export. With TokConnect connected to ChatGPT, Claude or Cursor, the audit for one prospect is one prompt, and a list of 20 prospects is a short session. The three niches on this page took 12 lookups.

Once a prospect signs, the same data feeds the monthly report: our TikTok report template has a section for search demand and content gaps, and the agency page shows the full workflow.

How we got these numbers

All TikTok figures were pulled on 5 October 2026 through TokConnect's MCP server: search_topics for six seeds (lip filler, botox, invisalign, teeth whitening, kitchen remodel, bathroom remodel; 20 records each), audience_demographics over 30 days for one zero-video search per niche, and search_users for three business types (20 accounts each). Searches are TikTok's global 7-day search popularity. "Videos matched" is TikTok's count of videos for that exact phrase.

We count only typed searches. A record is a topic group if its 7-day figure is 5 million or more, or 1 million or more with the week's first reading under 5% of its last, or it sits in TikTok's Featured Content, or its wording describes a group ("Real-life kitchen remodel progress" was dropped on wording). Some typed searches are new: "finishing invisalign" read 0 at the start of the week. One med spa search was a person's name and is left out of the page but kept in the snapshot. Account search returns TikTok's ranking for the phrase, not every business. Outside facts come from Instantly, Saleshandy, the FTC and Google, read 5 October 2026. Data: niche searches, prospect accounts, outside facts.