How to Analyze Your Ad and Organic Performance on TikTok

Numbers can often boggle your mind. But as soon as you appreciate their value, learn how to interpret them, and turn them into strategy improvements, numbers can be your friend. Looking at analytics, in its simplest sense, means measuring the success of TikTok ad campaigns for your e-commerce business.

In 2022, TikTok Shop’s gross merchandise value in the Southeast Asia region alone was $4.4 billion – a fourfold increase over the previous year’s numbers. Knowing how to accurately analyze the numbers that appear on your dashboard can help you reap the benefits attached to this 

In launching your e-commerce business on TikTok shop, one of the most important things you have to remember is to assess, evaluate, and make necessary adjustments. If we stick to ineffective content creation and distribution strategies, it is ultimately us and our businesses who will bear the brunt. Hence, it is vital to allot a considerable amount of time checking a TikTok analytics tool to propel your TikTok shop to the best it can be.

In this piece, we tell you what makes up TikTok analytics, how to read and interpret these numbers, why they matter to your e-commerce business, and what wonders we can unlock if we learn how to deal with these numbers. 

What is TikTok analytics and what is it for?

TikTok analytics is a set of metrics on the reach and engagement of each of your TikTok content and your TikTok profile as a whole. It is a helpful way of measuring your social media campaign and advertising efforts’ success. As soon as you sign up for a TikTok for Business account, then the TikTok analytics tool will be readily available to you. The TikTok for Business accounts is specifically created for content creators who want to go beyond mere monetization of their content reach and are more inclined toward those who are also interested in utilizing and maximizing the social media platform to market and sell their products through the TikTok shopping feature.

Typically, TikTok analytics will present you with all the relevant data that you will need to holistically evaluate and adapt your strategy based on the results you get from prior content issued within the duration of your previous campaigns for a specific period. The tool will provide you with data on views and interactions such as likes, comments, and shares. It will also elaborate on the ongoing TikTok trends, the demographics of the audience that your content reaches, your account’s growth in a specific length of time, and the times when activity is at its peak with your content. 

Types of Advertising Formats on TikTok

TikTok offers a range of advertising formats to help businesses reach their target audience effectively. Understanding these formats and their unique features can significantly enhance your advertising strategy on the platform. Here are some popular advertising formats on TikTok:

1. In-Feed Ads: In-Feed Ads appear in users’ “For You” feed as they scroll through TikTok. These ads typically last up to 60 seconds and blend seamlessly with organic content. They can include various elements like images, videos, music, and interactive features to engage users.
2. Brand Takeovers: Brand Takeovers are full-screen ads that appear when users open the TikTok app. These ads offer maximum visibility and can include images, GIFs, or short videos. They are an effective way to create brand awareness and capture users’ attention right from the start.
3. TopView: TopView ads are similar to Brand Takeovers but have a longer duration and higher visibility. They occupy the entire screen and play immediately after the user opens the app. This format allows you to deliver a more immersive brand experience and is ideal for storytelling or showcasing your product/service.
4. Branded Hashtag Challenges: Branded Hashtag Challenges encourage user-generated content by inviting TikTok users to participate in a challenge related to your brand. These challenges often involve specific hashtags and creative concepts. They help generate buzz around your brand, increase engagement, and foster a sense of community.
5. Branded Effects: Branded Effects allow businesses to create and promote custom augmented reality (AR) filters, stickers, and special effects that TikTok users can use in their videos. These effects can enhance brand recognition, encourage user interaction, and boost the viral potential of your content.

How to Set Up TikTok for Business?

Setting up your TikTok for Business account is a crucial first step toward analyzing TikTok analytics and leveraging the platform’s advertising features. Here’s a step-by-step guide to getting started:

1. Download the TikTok app: If you haven’t already, download the TikTok app from your device’s app store. It’s available for both iOS and Android.
2. Create a TikTok for Business account: Open the app and sign up for a TikTok for Business account. You can do this by tapping the profile icon on the bottom right, then selecting “Manage Account” and following the prompts to set up your business account.
3. Switch to Pro Account: Within your TikTok for Business account, switch to a Pro Account. This will give you access to analytics and other features specifically designed for businesses. You can do this by going to “Settings and Privacy” in your profile and selecting “Manage account,” then choose “Switch to Pro Account.”
4. Verify your account: Follow the instructions to verify your TikTok for Business account. Verification provides credibility and unlocks additional features such as ad creation capabilities and access to the TikTok Creator Marketplace.
5. Explore TikTok Ads Manager: Access the TikTok Ads Manager platform to manage and create your advertising campaigns. You can find the Ads Manager by visiting TikTok’s official advertising website and logging in with your TikTok for Business account credentials.
6. Set up your ad campaigns: Within TikTok Ads Manager, you can define your campaign objectives, target audience, and budget, and select the appropriate advertising format. Take time to familiarize yourself with the available options and tailor your campaigns to align with your business goals.
7. Start analyzing your TikTok analytics: Once your ads are running, regularly monitor and analyze your TikTok analytics to gain insights into your campaign’s performance. TikTok provides valuable data on impressions, engagement, click-through rates, and audience demographics. Use this information to optimize your campaigns and make data-driven decisions.

How do I check my TikTok analytics?

If you already have a Tiktok for Business account and have recently launched with a few pieces of promotional content, you may access your metrics via the Tiktok mobile and desktop apps. Just be reminded that if you plan to download the data for future reference, it can only be done through the desktop dashboard. 

If you want more advanced tools to view and make sense of these analytics, you may try some of the available social media management tools online. Although, they might cost you a fee. But there are perks to subscribing to one like categorizing your content and viewing important performance statistics like top posts, follower count, reach, views, comments, likes, shares, and engagement rates. The stats in these apps are based on Tiktok Analytics’ metrics but these management tools provide you with a broader, and deeper look into your content’s performance.

More advanced stats include audience breakdown by country and follower activity by the hour. With a deeper look at these two stats, you can optimize your social media plan and scheduling and make sure your audience catches your content at the time of their most activity. Country-specific or region-specific content can also be released at the most efficient times and location options if you know of these. 

What are the different metrics present in TikTok analytics?

But well, if you don’t feel like you need that level of advanced statistics right now, or if you can’t shell out a budget for a social media management tool, you can always rely on and make full use of the existing in-app analytics tools provided by TikTok. After all, they come off as pretty comprehensive and can provide you with a more or less clear picture of how you and your content are doing when it comes to your advertising efforts.

Overview Analytics

When you hover over your Overview Analytics tab on Tiktok, you can see the most recent analytics that is relevant to your TikTok profile and content. The Overview tab provides you with a rundown of the metrics, divided into three categories: Engagement, Follower, and Content. The data that your Overview Analytics tab previews can be customizable in terms of the length of the time being evaluated. 

You can choose between 7 days, 28 days, 60 days, or any date range below 60 as your point of reference in measuring your video views, profile views, likes, comments, and shares. 

The Engagement section under Overview helps you analyze your video’s overall performance based on views, likes, comments, and shares. This can give you a picture of how well, or how bad your video content is being received. There are many layers to social media content, and it is truly a bingo when all of these metrics are seen in a continuous increase. This means that your content is consistently engaging and gaining traction among the audience it reaches. If any of the four aforementioned metrics are lagging, it can give you an idea of what to work on and improve on the next time you release your content.

Content Analytics

The Content Analytics tab provides you with a deeper view of your content. Typically, the Content Analytics view lumps together some of your best-performing videos, to give you a sneak peek of which of the content you put out has proven to be most effective in cutting through the noise and getting right where you want them to. 

Also, for each of the video content, you have posted, you will be given in-depth data on their performance including total views, total likes, comments and shares, and average watch time. You can also see if the content is engaging throughout its duration through the “watched full video” rate which measures the percentage of the viewers who watched the entire video. 

Traffic source type, on the other hand, gives you an idea of where most of your viewers accessed your content, such as whether they saw it by directly coming to your profile, or whether it appeared on their own For You feed. If you wish to use these Content Analytics for the benefit of your marketing strategy, make sure you download and keep them safe promptly because they are only available for a limit of 7 days.

Follower Analytics

The Follower Analytics tab gives you insights into how big and diverse your TikTok community has grown. With Follower Analytics, you can get to know the region from where most of your followers come, which times of the day or the week they are most active and engaging with Tiktok, and your own released content. 

With an option from where you can toggle a 7-day or 28-day graph, Follower Analytics also provides you with data on how your follower reach has increased and the corresponding rate of growth from the previous period from what you are currently viewing. 

LIVE Analytics

LIVE analytics are specific data related to your LIVE videos. This tab hosts the insights from all LIVE videos hosted by your TikTok profile from the last 7 or 28 days. The main metrics present in the LIVE analytics tab include such as total views, new followers from LIVE videos, total time spent going on a live stream, and Diamonds earned. 

Diamonds is an umbrella term used for virtual gifts that can be sent by viewers of LIVE videos to the hosts, provided that the host is above the age of 18 years. These virtual gifts are exchangeable for real money through the TikTok app. For a guide on how to convert virtual gifts to money, you may check this link.

Other analytics

Aside from the aforementioned metrics, there are also other analytical tools on TikTok that can be useful to give shape to your marketing strategy. We list down some of them here.

• Hashtag views: Knowing how many times a hashtag has been used may help you track down the popularity of certain trends and hashtags and prompt you to cook up certain content to ride on the bandwagon. You can do hashtag research by inputting a specific hashtag via TikTok’s Discovery tab. Aside from the number of views per hashtag, you can also see related hashtags and the top videos that used that hashtag.
• Total likes: This total of all the likes accrued across all your videos can be a basis for knowing your average engagement rate and can serve as a baseline from which you set your next target engagement rate for the next campaign.
• TikTok engagement rates: Two formulas are being used by social media marketers in computing engagement rates from data present in your metrics.

These can be particularly useful not only for measuring your engagement, but also in doing thorough research, and weighing the pros and cons of partnering with a specific content creator.

What can we understand from these TikTok metrics?

Analytics is a helpful tool in building your content strategy but is not an end-all-be-all solution. There are many facets to social media marketing that cannot be measured in numbers. Analytics can be your friend, but it cannot and should not solely dictate how you navigate your content creation and marketing strategies. 

However, in the last analysis, it will be up to you to learn, know and decide on how to move forward to achieving your target TikTok content engagement and TikTok Shop sales. In the end, what’s clear is that you let the analytics guide you but do not rely heavily on them. What went viral today, or yesterday, cannot be carelessly employed again in another set of situations. From our successes, we should pick up important and evergreen lessons while welcoming experimentation with our content. And if success comes knocking on the door of your e-commerce business, consider joining hands with a 3PL service like Locad and experience fulfillment like never before. Moreover, take the extra time to work putting those analytics to work and gain more customers!