How to Read TikTok Metrics Like a Pro

 

 

TikTok is a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15-second videos on any topic. Since its launch, the TikTok social media platform hasn’t stopped growing. 

It stands out from other platforms by its unique way of showing fun and entertaining content, and it was recently announced that TikTok was the top app by worldwide downloads in Q1, 2022. In the first quarter of 2021, it had 3.5 billion all-time downloads (Tech Crunch). Since the beginning of 2022, there have been over 175 million TikTok app downloads.  

The massive popularity of this platform and its power give you a chance to show your brand through interactive, fun, and engaging videos.  

Keep reading to find out the most important metrics you should monitor through your TikTok advertising journey. We’ll show you which metrics are crucial to follow and optimize. You will also learn how to read TikTok metrics and analyze them in the best possible way. 

Before we jump to the main TikTok metrics to follow, here are some TikTok advertising key elements. 

Dashboard 

When entering your Ads Manager, in the section “Dashboard,” you have some basic metrics that show you how your campaigns are going. The first thing is your today’s spend and remaining account balance. 

It’s important to monitor it every day. When your account remains with less than your three-day average spending, your ads will slow down to save as much money as possible. You should avoid getting to this stadium and increase the budget on time. 

Right next to this is “Ad group status.” Here you will have insight into how your ad groups are going, how many of them are active, and if some ad group is out of budget, underperforming, or disapproved. 

Besides this, you can quickly pick your basic data like CPA, Conversions, Impressions, etc. You can choose the date and see if you need to go through some specific campaigns or ad groups and adjust. If you see a too high CPA or Cost, you need to optimize your campaigns/ad groups/ads.  

 

Pixel Tracking  

TikTok Pixel is a code that you can place on your website, and it allows you to share website visitor events to TikTok via a browser. Through Pixel, you can track all kinds of events. By implementing Pixel code on your website, you will have four events created by default. These are View Content, Add to Cart, Initiate Checkout, and Complete Payment. 

These precious metrics will show people’s interaction with your website, giving you insights into how many viewed your products, added them to the cart, went to the checkout, or made a purchase. 

Besides these default events, you can make many other events within your Events Manager. You can create Click Events and URL Events based on your website.   

Click Events  

Click events count every time someone clicks on a specific element on your website as an event. It is a great way to select some unusual buttons on your website and see how many people will click on that section. These clicks can include adding something to a cart, submitting a form, or downloading an app. “Click events” use web elements of the buttons or links you want to track.  

​URL Events 

URL events count user visits to specific pages on your website as events and include the confirmation page after a purchase or a thank you page. ”URL events” use keywords contained in the URL of the page you want to track. This could be good if you have an offer on your website, so your URL can, for example, contain the “awards” part of the URL. 

 

 

To read these Pixel metrics, you need to choose your optimizations. When creating a campaign, you will have a section in the ad group level where you can select your Pixel. After selecting it, you have the option to choose your optimization event. 

For example, if you choose “add to cart” as an optimization event, conversions in that campaign will be triggered after a user adds a product to the cart. If you choose “view content,” it will be triggered after a user views your product page. So, conversions don’t need to be actual purchases.   

Upper Funnel Optimization Strategy 

We highly recommend starting your first campaigns with view content or add-to-cart optimization events and then moving on to initiate checkout or complete payment optimization events. This way, you can let the algorithm learn about your potential customers. If you initially set up a complete payment as an optimization event, your campaign can struggle to get through the learning phase, which will slow overall campaign performance.   

Campaigns

For a more detailed analysis, there is the section “Campaigns.” In this section, you have a list of all your campaigns and all tools for their optimization and improvement. Here are some crucial metrics you should monitor during your campaigns. 

CPA  

This metric shows the average amount of money you’ve spent on conversion. You calculate it by dividing the total cost of conversions by the total number of conversions. The goal is to have a lower CPA, and if you see that you have a high CPA for over a week, it’s time to make changes and optimize better. 

CPM & CPC 

CPM is the average amount of money you've spent per 1,000 impressions. CPC is the average amount of money you've spent on a click. Both of them are important for your campaign’s performance, and you must check these metrics daily to see if your cost is too high. 

Other metrics to check daily are Conversions, Impressions, Clicks, CVR, and CTR. 

Note: Do not make conclusions on metrics after one or two days. Let the campaign run for a week, and then, if the metrics are not good, make adjustments.  

Conclusion 

You have various metrics in the section “Custom Columns,” and you can always export your data. So, we highly recommend testing as many options as possible given in Ads Manager and monitoring their performance. When you test some features and analyze TikTok metrics, you will see what suits your brand the most.  

Wondering how well you’re performing on TikTok? Visit our TikTok advertising page to get a custom audit or book a free consultation today.

  

About the author

Isidora Stankić is a TikTok Ads Specialist at Sellers Alley. Since joining the team, she has shown great interest in Amazon PPC and TikTok Ads. She is constantly learning new things and expanding her knowledge. Isidora is a team player, honest, and incredibly dedicated.