An Agency Guide to TikTok Analytics and the Top 10 Metrics to Track

There's no denying that TikTok has become a cultural phenomenon, and many companies are hopping aboard the short-form video train to drive brand awareness—and business. While leveraging popular platforms and capitalizing on trends is great, it's also important to monitor the efficacy of those efforts. After all, every business has a bottom line.

TikTok analytics are essential for agencies to get familiar with. Not only do they help you prove the ROI of your agency to clients, they also inform you on how to ramp up your efforts and drive a bigger impact for your clients. This guide covers everything you need to know about collecting TikTok data, turning those insights into meaningful results, and impressing your clients with your agency's know-how.

What Is TikTok: From musical.ly to Global Phenomenon

TikTok, the social media platform known for its short-form video content, dates back to 2014 when it was first launched in China as Douyin by the tech company ByteDance. In 2017, ByteDance expanded its reach by releasing a similar app called Musical.ly outside of China. Musical.ly gained popularity quickly, particularly among teenagers, for lip-syncing and dance videos.

ByteDance recognized the potential of short-form video content and merged Musical.ly with Douyin in 2018, rebranding the platform as TikTok for international markets. This move proved to be pivotal as TikTok quickly gained traction globally, attracting millions of users drawn to its easy-to-use interface and creative video editing tools.

TikTok's rise to prominence was propelled by its algorithm-driven feed, which personalized content based on user preferences, creating a highly engaging experience. Influencers and content creators flocked to the platform, further fuelling its growth and cultural impact.

TikTok Market Penetration and Usage

As of 2023, TikTok has solidified its position as one of the most popular social media platforms worldwide. With over 1 billion monthly active users, TikTok boasts a diverse user base spanning various demographics and geographic locations. Its appeal to younger generations remains strong, with a significant portion of users aged between 16 to 24.

TikTok's influence extends beyond entertainment, with brands and marketers leveraging the platform to reach and engage with audiences in innovative ways. Its advertising capabilities, including sponsored content and in-feed ads, have attracted businesses looking to tap into TikTok's massive user base and viral potential.

TikTok has cemented its status as a global cultural phenomenon. Its impact on popular culture, music trends, and meme culture continues to shape online culture, making TikTok an indispensable platform for social media enthusiasts and marketers alike.

Where To Find TikTok Analytics in the Native Platform

Users with a TikTok Pro or Business account can access TikTok analytics in the platform. This is done by navigating to the TikTok profile and clicking the three dots. From there users simply have to tap creator tools, and finally tap analytics. The built-in TikTok analytics dashboard covers key metrics to help users understand the performance, engagement, and growth of their TikTok account.

TikTok's analytics tab offers various sections for users to view analytics. Here's a brief overview of what's available:

• Overview tab: The platform's overview tab shows TikTok performance metrics like total video views, profile views, likes, comments, followers, and more. The option to segment these essential metrics by a custom date range helps users understand trends over the selected period.

• Content Tab: The content tab gives data on the performance of a TikTok account's content. These metrics include top viewer count, top nine videos, and engagement and viewership journeys, providing valuable insights into which of an account's videos resonate most with their audience.

• Followers Tab: This section lets users access TikTok analytics around follower count and audience demographics. It's also possible to track the account's total number of followers over a selected date range, providing further insights into growth over time.

• Live Tab: The TikTok live tab helps users understand the value of time and energy spent hosting live videos. TikTok live analytics tracks metrics like live video viewers, virtual gifts received, viewer ranking, and audience engagement during live videos.

Overall, the native analytics tools in TikTok are useful for creators and businesses, offering actionable insights to create successful content, engage with their audience, and grow their presence on the platform. That said, third-party TikTok analytics tools are also available to provide additional insights and analysis for users looking to optimize their TikTok strategy further.

Native TikTok Metrics vs. KPIs

TikTok metrics are the various data points and statistics available within the native TikTok analytics tool. These metrics include views, engagement rate, new followers, viewer demographics, and more. They provide valuable insights into account performance and content engagement on TikTok.

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), on the other hand, are strategic goals that align with a client's overall business objectives. Each TikTok metric provides useful insights into performance, but KPIs focus on specific outcomes that demonstrate progress towards these broader goals.

TikTok is a great platform for video marketing, no question - but it's not always a good fit for every business.

Michelle van Blerck, Communications Manager, Digital Freak

For agencies aiming to reinforce the value they provide to clients, it's essential to bridge the gap between a key TikTok metric and client KPIs. This involves translating raw data into meaningful insights that align with the client's goals, and in turn demonstrate the impact of your agency's efforts.

Your agency should first identify and prioritize the KPIs that matter most to each client, and then highlight the impact that your TikTok posts have on those KPIs. KPIs may cover conversion rates, customer acquisition cost (CAC), return on investment (ROI), brand sentiment, or campaign reach and engagement.

Being mindful of which TikTok metrics best demonstrate the progress towards these KPIs helps your agency craft more compelling and informative analytical reports. This also involves analyzing data trends, identifying areas for optimization, and adjusting strategies to achieve desired outcomes.

Top 10 TikTok Metrics to Track for Clients

As your agency strives to demonstrate the value of your efforts on TikTok, tracking the right metrics is crucial. Let's take a look at the top TikTok metrics to track and the insights each one provides for your clients.

1. Video Views

Video views is a fundamental metric for evaluating the performance of video posts on TikTok. Tracking the number of views a video receives provides insight into its reach and popularity among users. High view counts indicate that the video is seen favorably by TikTok's algorithm and that its content is resonating with the audience, while low views may signal the need for adjustments to content strategy or promotion efforts.

This metric is most useful for your clients when it's contextualized. The total views that a specific TikTok video gets won't provide a ton of insight on its own, but if you contrast and compare views between different post types, time of posting, video lengths, or other key factors, you'll start to surface useful trends and insights. This will help your agency create content that's aligned with what performs best on your client's account.

Social media video metrics and what they mean, provide insights on ranking trends after algorithm updates as seen by your customers.

Kira Krostag, CEO / Founder, Site Smart Marketing

2. Engagement Rate

Engagement rate measures the level of interaction users have with TikTok posts relative to the post's total reach. Interactions include sub-metrics like:

• Likes

• Comments

• Shares

• Saves

A high engagement rate indicates that the content resonates well with the target audience and encourages active participation. A low engagement rate, on the other hand, indicates that the content may have missed the mark.

Monitoring engagement rate helps your agency measure the effectiveness of a client's TikTok content and refine strategies to drive greater engagement. Whether you're conducting an analysis of a client's current strategy or evaluating the performance of your agency's work, engagement is an important metric to observe. Comparing which video posts see high engagement and which ones see low engagement helps you understand what a client's audience prefers.

3. Video Engagement Metrics

For video content specifically (which is the main content type on TikTok), it's important to also look at video engagement metrics. These include measurements like:

• Average Watch Time: How long on average viewers tend to watch of the video.

• Completion Rate: How many viewers make it through the entire video.

These provide insights into whether viewers are engaged with your client's TikTok videos, and whether the full video is offering value. If you see high drop-off rates early into a video, it could indicate that the video's content is a mismatch to what the target audience is looking for. High completion rates, on the other hand, indicate that a video is providing significant value and matching the target audience's preferences.

For a business account, understanding video engagement is super important. With people's attention spans being shorter than ever, it's essential for your agency to point out if viewers are dropping off before a client's video gets to its most important message—especially for paid content and TikTok ads!

4. Follower Growth

Follower growth tracks the rate at which a TikTok account's follower count increases over time. A growing number of followers indicates the effectiveness of content and marketing efforts in attracting and retaining a dedicated audience. If an account's followers start to decline, it could indicate that something is amiss in the content being posted.

If your agency is working on increasing a client's brand presence or driving brand awareness, tracking the growth rate of new followers will be essential. Deciding to follow an account indicates that a TikTok user is committed to engaging in the content the account will post in the future. They might have seen the account's posts pop up in their for you page a few times, or felt that a video they watched resonated enough that they want to be updated every time the account posts.

5. Audience Demographics

Demographic metrics outline who a TikTok account's audience is. These metrics cover factors like an audience's average:

• Age

• Gender

• Location

• Interests

This information paints a clearer picture of who a client's audience is, and whether it lines up with their target personas and ideal customer profile (ICP). If the demographics are aligned with the client's target audience, it means the content is matching that audience's preferences. If there's a significant mismatch, it could indicate that the content is missing the mark.

This metric is especially helpful when it's contextualized with additional data. For example, if your client's TikTok audience reflects their target demographics, but engagement or conversion rates are low, this could indicate that they're reaching the right people but their messaging or content is falling flat. This opens up a perfect opportunity for your agency to propose alternative solutions or opportunities to optimize!

6. Conversion Metrics

Conversion metrics measure the effectiveness of TikTok campaigns in driving desired actions such as purchases, website clicks, or app installs. In general, a conversion rate is the calculation of how many users take a desired action. This might also be formulated as one of the following sub-metrics:

• Click-through rate: How many users, viewers, or visitors click from a video or TikTok profile to a desired destination.

• Cost per Conversion: The amount of money spent on a TikTok advertising campaign compared to the conversions it generates.

• MQL to SQL conversion: How many MQLs that are targeted with a TikTok ad campaign convert to SQLs.

Conversion rates are a very important metric to track for your clients because they underscore the tangible impact that TikTok has on their business's bottom line. If clients are at all skeptical about the merit of social media marketing or advertising, be sure to highlight conversion metrics in your reporting!

I see a future trend is promoting products for sale on the tiktok shop–already happening honestly. But I see partnerships driving these sales.

Stacey Steiner, Director of Brand Activation, Prattify

7. Trending Videos

Tracking trending videos provides valuable competitive insights and inspiration for content creation. TikTok success is highly algorithm-dependent, so seeing what's succeeding helps clients assess whether their content will hit the mark. Staying up to speed on the general TikTok trends helps agencies jump on them quickly when they align with the client’s brand image.

TikTok's trending videos metric shows the top nine videos with the fastest growth in views over the preceding week. Identifying trends and viral content, and figuring out how to make it relevant to a client's brand and objectives enables your agency to demonstrate its savvy and value. This helps you create stronger TikTok strategies for clients, but also helps you to be reactive when timely opportunities crop up.

8. Brand Mentions and Sentiment

Beyond TikTok content metrics, it's also important to monitor brand awareness and sentiment metrics through mentions. If TikTok users are talking positively about a brand, it's great news and indicates positive customer experiences and strong brand affinity. Meanwhile, negative mentions may signal customer dissatisfaction, and risk harming a brand's reputation.

Tracking a client's brand mentions on TikTok and the sentiment attached to them will give your agency plenty to work with. Not only will you be able to highlight their strong suits, you'll also be able to filter out the useful critical feedback coming from any negative comments. These TikTok insights go beyond influencing the content produced for the platform itself, and are applicable in product, marketing, sales, and other strategies, too.

9. Influencer Collaboration Metrics

According to the AgencyAnalytics Marketing Agency Benchmarks survey, influencer marketing is considered to be the most promising channel this year.

Any time a client is leveraging influencer marketing on TikTok, it's essential to track metrics related to these efforts. This goes both for selecting influencers to work with and analyzing the performance of the influencer marketing campaigns. Influencer metrics might include:

• The influencer's total reach and their TikTok follower metrics.

• The influencer's live video performance, like live video unique viewers.

• How their TikTok videos perform, including watch time, likes, comments, and shares.

• The demographics of their audience like age group, gender, location, etc.

If your agency is using influencer tactics for any of your clients, you'll want to carefully vet those influencers and be selective with who you choose to represent a client's brand. Once selected, it's important to monitor the impact of engaging an influencer's TikTok account in your client's marketing efforts. Influencer metrics help your agency calculate the ROI of these efforts.

10. Ad Performance Metrics

Tracking the reach and efficacy of TikTok advertising helps clients understand where to double down and where to pull back on their spend. Ad performance metrics include:

• Ad impressions

• Click-through rate

• Cost per click (CPC)

• Conversion rates

• Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Straightforward ads with clear branding in a vertical format for TikTok, Reels, etc. have been the hottest item lately. These platforms allow for excellent targetability. Then, we just ensure the creative is clear, concise, and when possible includes a smiling face.

Paul Echols, Creative Director + Agency Owner, Square 205

These are especially important metrics if your agency is running paid campaigns for clients on TikTok or aiming to prove ROI for advertising on the platform. Additionally, running tests on TikTok advertising helps your agency narrow down the most effective tactics for your clients. You might test out different video formats, calls to action, landing pages, target audiences, or other factors. Tracking the performance of these tests will be essential to deriving insights about what performs best.

Turning Raw TikTok Analytics Data Into Actionable Insights

When it comes to reporting, simply displaying TikTok data for your clients is a start—but it's not enough. Turning these metrics into meaningful insights and telling a story about your client's TikTok performance is how your agency will truly demonstrate your value and drive results. It's as much about pinpointing the numbers that really matter as it is about turning those numbers into recommendations and strategic plays. Follow these tips to do just that:

Tips for Deriving Actionable Insights From TikTok Analytics

• Set Clear Goals & KPIs: Define specific objectives and key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with the client's business goals and desired outcomes. Not only will this direct the focus of your efforts, it will also be a guide for measuring their impact down the line.

• Identify Key Metrics: Choose specific TikTok metrics that directly relate to the goals you've set. It's important to narrow down the metrics you'll track, because it keeps reporting more clear, focused, and connected with your client's bottom line.

• Analyze Trends: Beyond capturing static data, monitor how metrics change over time and derive insights from these trends. You might compare performance from one selected date range to another or of different video types and A/B tests.

• Benchmark Against Competitors: Scope out the competition and get familiar with each accounts' performance, engagement, tactics, and content. Track what works for them and what doesn't, and channel that information into strategic suggestions for clients.

• Connect the Dots With Other Platforms: Integrate TikTok analytics data with data from other platforms to gain a holistic view of the client's digital presence and inform cross-channel strategies. This is simplified with a complete reporting solution like AgencyAnalytics (more on that next).

• Use Insights To Drive Strategy: Most importantly, be sure to translate data into actionable strategies that optimize content creation, audience targeting, and campaign execution to drive tangible results for your clients. Data should never be presented in isolation, but contextualized with a narrative and a path forward.

These tips will support your agency in crafting higher quality TikTok reports and delivering meaningful insights to clients about their TikTok analytics data.

How To Create TikTok Reports Using AgencyAnalytics

AgencyAnalytics pulls together data from TikTok and TikTok ads, Instagram, Facebook, and so many other social media sources for a consolidated reporting solution. Beyond social media, AgencyAnalytics also connects with email marketing software, ecommerce platforms, and more than 80 popular marketing tools for a holistic analytics environment designed specifically for the needs of marketing and advertising agencies.

Crafting customized and comprehensive client reports has never been simpler with features like:

• Report Templates: Pre-built reporting templates help your team quickly assemble valuable TikTok reports for clients. Each template has carefully selected metrics and visualizations to present key data points, and white labeling to showcase the agency's branding. They also include a concise report summary to give an overview of the performance data.

• Custom Dashboards: Personalized dashboards give each client a clear, real-time overview of their most important metrics. Various widgets make setup easy and straightforward, allowing you to bring data from TikTok, Shopify, Google Analytics 4, and other sources in a single view for clients.

• Automated Reporting: Schedule automated report delivery to give clients regular updates on their TikTok performance. With predefined schedules, clients receive reports in a clear and structured format, all generated within the AgencyAnalytics platform.

• Granular Permissions: Maintain security for both your agency and your clients with granular access permissions. Set up client logins with access to specific dashboards and reports while maintaining high-level security measures to safeguard sensitive data.

Building a business case for clients to show them how different KPIs, tools, and marketing options actually deliver is key. This is especially important when clients don't understand the relationship between social media channels, paid/boosted and organic ads, etc specific to their business/product/service.

Michelle van Blerck, Communications Manager, Digital Freak

5 Tips for Creating TikTok Reports That Wow Clients

Crafting compelling TikTok reports is the best way to show clients the impact of your agency's efforts on the platform. The best reports are aligned with your client's goals and objectives, carefully curated, and action-oriented. So how do you roll all that up into a clear, comprehensive TikTok report? Here are 5 key tips for a report that delivers:

1. Combine TikTok Data With Other Campaign Metrics: Bring data from other sources into your TikTok reports for clients. This helps them see the bigger picture of how TikTok is connected with their brand's broader online presence, creating a machine that draws new business in.

2. Track the Right TikTok Metrics: Focus on tracking key TikTok metrics that align with your client's goals and objectives. Video views, engagement rate, watch time, and follower growth are great if they want to build brand affinity. Meanwhile, conversions and click-through are great for clients focused on generating revenue.

3. Focus on the Results That Matter: Be selective in what goes front and center. Highlight the results that are most closely aligned with your client's business objectives. This helps to showcase the tangible impact of your TikTok campaigns as well as your agency's understanding of your client's priorities.

4. Use Automated Reporting Tools: Do your teams a favor and streamline the reporting process by leveraging automated reporting tools that aggregate and visualize TikTok data. This will save loads of time and effort, and also ensure accuracy and consistency in your reports.

5. Wrap Results in Your Agency’s Brand: Customize TikTok reports with your agency's branding, like your logos, brand colors, and design elements. This reinforces your professional brand and gives a polished touch to demonstrate your attention to detail.

Comparing TikTok’s Native Analytics Platform to AgencyAnalytics

TikTok's native analytics tool offers basic insights and a good selection of metrics, but AgencyAnalytics offers a comprehensive reporting solution. What exactly does that look like, and how does reporting with TikTok's built-in analytics tab compare to a tool like AgencyAnalytics? Let's take a look:

AgencyAnalytics goes beyond the limitations of the native TikTok analytics tool, providing enhanced customization, multi-platform integration, and robust client management capabilities. It's built to save you precious billable hours and drive client satisfaction.

To see how AgencyAnalytics breaks down data silos and alleviates the legwork of manual reporting, start your 14-day free trial now!

TikTok Analytics Summary and Key Takeaways

Effective TikTok analytics reporting not only demonstrates your agency's achievements but also reinforces your value proposition to clients. Here are a few key takeaways to keep in mind:

• Evaluate Your Current TikTok Analytics Approach: Review how your agency currently tracks and analyzes TikTok metrics for clients. Consider the consistency of monitoring efforts, the selection of relevant metrics, and your team's ability to interpret TikTok data in a meaningful way.

• Explore Third-Party Tools: Look into analytics tools that enhance and streamline your agency's reporting process. Platforms like AgencyAnalytics offer a suite of tools designed to simplify data analysis, reduce manual workloads, and deliver professional-grade reporting.

• Customize Reports: Tailor TikTok reports to align with each client's unique priorities, objectives, and expectations. Incorporate custom branding elements to reinforce your agency's value, so reports reflect your commitment, professionalism, and capability.

• Set Up Automated Reporting: Implement automated report scheduling to keep clients informed about their TikTok performance on a regular basis. Not only does this free up time for your staff, it also ensures timely updates for clients.

Applying the tips and best practices outlined in this guide, leveraging the right tools, and refining your reporting tactics will all contribute to more impactful and consistent client reporting efforts at your agency.