Reading the comments under a competitor's selling videos
by CIA updated 21/09/2026 3 min read
Also available in: Tiếng Việt
Comments under selling videos are the cheapest customer research nobody uses fully. Customers write things there they never put in a survey: what worries them, what similar product disappointed them, and which alternative they are comparing against.
Which videos to read
Do not pick the highest-view video. Viral videos attract people outside the customer base, so the comments are diluted.
Pick in this order:
- The selling video with the most comments in the last 30 days — those commenters are considering buying.
- A comparable product's video from another shop — to compare how customers react.
- A video older than three months — late comments are usually people who bought and came back to report.
Four groups to separate
Comments analysis — 12 credits, up to 300 comments (6 pages × 50) — returns comments and repeated phrases. Sorting is yours to do, and these are the four groups worth separating:
Group 1 — unanswered questions. "Do you ship cash on delivery", "will this size fit 60kg". Every question repeated many times is a line to add to your product description or your video.
Group 2 — specific complaints. "I bought it, the glue came off in a week." The most valuable group: if you can source stock without that flaw, you have a genuine selling point.
Group 3 — comparisons to other products. Customers name what they are weighing this against. Your real competitor list lives here, not in a competitive analysis deck.
Group 4 — purchase intent. "Taking one", "DM me the price", "ordering two". The share of this group is the best signal of that video's selling power.
From four groups to work
| Group | Do this now |
|---|---|
| 1 | add the answer to the product description and the first 10 seconds of video |
| 2 | add it to your sourcing criteria |
| 3 | build a real competitor list to track |
| 4 | measure this share before and after changing your content |
Group 1 changes results fastest. Most selling videos fail because they skip one question everybody has in mind.
Three things comments do not tell you
The silent majority. Most buyers never comment. Comments give you the voice of the vocal group, not of all customers.
Revenue. Not inferable from comment counts.
Who the commenters are. The tool returns only a display name and the text — no email, no phone number, no profile. This is a hard boundary at CIA. Anyone has the right to see, correct or delete data about themselves under Decree 13/2023/ND-CP at the data request page.
Frequently asked questions
Are 300 comments enough? For one video, usually most of them. Read three different kinds of video rather than trying to exhaust one.
Does the tool label sentiment automatically? No. It returns comments and repeated phrases. Machines get Vietnamese nuance wrong often, so the reading is yours.
Can I read hidden comments? No. The tool reads what the video displays publicly at the moment you run it.
More on this topic: TikTok Shop