EXCLUSIVE: These music genres inspire TikTok purchases

Music can play a big role in TikTok promotions. (Image: Billion Photos)

Rating one type of music over another is subjective, except when it comes to ranking which genres are most likely to drive TikTok users to shop.

According to new survey data released exclusively to Chain Store Age by Adobe Express, the top five genres of music most likely to inspire an impulse purchase by a music fan seeing a TikTok video featuring them are:

Indie
Rock
Hip-hop/Rap
Country
Pop

When it comes to what music genre fans are most likely to shop on the TikTok Shop social commerce platform, the results are slightly different:

Rock
Country
Indie
Hip-hop/Rap
R&B

For 42% of surveyed music fans, the song in a TikTok video directly influences how they feel about the product being shown. Survey data also shows that popular songs on TikTok can affect purchasing behaviors.

Nearly one-in-three surveyed music fans (29%) said they're more likely to buy a product if it's featured alongside a song they like, a song from a favorite genre (23%), or a song they know (15%).

Overall, respondents spend an average of $44 each month on TikTok-inspired buys. By genre, hip-hop and rap fans spend the most ($61), followed by country listeners ($59) and fans of R&B and soul ($57).

Depending what type of engagement retailers and brands seek to obtain from TikTok videos, they may want to use different genres of music. For example:

Most views

K-pop
Rock
Jazz

Most Likes

Indie
R&B
Rock

Comments

Indie
R&B
Electronic dance music

Shares

Rock
R&B
Jazz

The seven most popular artists used in TikTok videos featuring official music are L.Dre, Doja Cat, Taylor Swift, AWOLNation, Harry Styls, Drake, and Megan Thee Stallion.

According to Adobe Express analysis, only about 2% of TikToks included music officially uploaded by artists, which means that most creators are mixing in other types of sounds.

Adobe scraped data from 65,174 TikToks from 16 niches and also surveyed 1,010 music fans in the U.S. about their social media preferences and habits.

Trump pauses TikTok ban

On Jan. 20, 2025, shortly following his inauguration, President Donald Trump signed an executive order repealing a ban that had briefly gone into effect on TikTok in the U.S. for a 75-day review period.

The TikTok app had briefly gone dark in the U.S. during the weekend of Jan. 18-19 following a unanimous ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court that a congressional act making it unlawful for U.S. companies to distribute, maintain, or update TikTok unless U. S. operation of the Chinese-owned platform is severed from Chinese control would go into effect.

Trump has also issued an executive order for the federal government to establish a sovereign wealth fund, which uses government assets to invest in global markets, companies, real estate and private equity. The fund could be used for the U.S. government to purchase a partial or whole stake in the U.S. business of TikTok, which would avoid the ban long-term.