Measuring What Matters

What isn’t measured isn’t managed, and the same goes for TikTok.

A TikTok Business account gives you access to analytics to see details on your demographic, determine the best times to post, and know what type of content resonates with your TikTok followers.

Like every other platform, success on TikTok requires constant optimisation. Make the most of TikTok analytics tools to track your performance on the platform and look for opportunities to improve. Use these tools to measure content-specific engagement metrics, hashtag reach, and best times to post. Some tools can even help you identify potential influencers and predict upcoming trends.

These insights can be leveraged to plan ahead and optimise your content strategy for improved performance. For example, posting at a time when you get tons of engagement is likely to boost your content visibility.

Once you’ve been posting to TikTok for a while, it’s important to look objectively at how things are going. How are your reach and engagement metrics doing? Are those tutorial videos actually hitting? Who is actually watching and following your content?

Analytics take the guesswork out of content strategy: they prove what’s working — and what’s not. TikTok’s in-platform analytics tool can show you some really interesting metrics to help inform your next steps.

How to check analytics on Tiktok

On mobile:

1. Go to your profile.
2. Open the Settings and privacy tab in the top right corner.
3. Under Account, choose the Creator Tools tab.
4. From there, select Analytics.

On desktop:

1. Log in to TikTok.
2. Hover over your profile picture in the top right.
3. Select View Analytics.

If you plan to download your analytics data, you can only do this from the desktop dashboard.

Analytics are organised into three main categories: Overview, Content, and Followers.

Overview Tab: Under Overview, you will be able to see follower growth, video views, profile views, likes, comments, and shares over the last 7, 28, or 60 days, or a custom date range up to 60 days.

Within Overview, the Engagement section allows you to better understand your video performance using metrics such as likes (the number of likes your videos received in the selected date range), comments (the number of comments your videos received in the selected date range), and shares (the number of shares your videos received in the selected date range).

Content Tab: If you want deeper insights, dig into the Content tab for extended data and analytics for each video you post. This is where you’ll find information such as total views, total likes, comments, shares, average watch time, watched full video (percentage of viewers who watched the entire video), traffic source type (where viewers found your videos, including your profile, the For You feed, etc.), and audience territories. All Content metrics are available for the last 7 days only.

Followers Tab: highlights insights about the community you’ve built on TikTok. This includes information like where your audiences are from, times of the day or week when followers are most active on TikTok, and the change in follower growth compared to the previous period. If you scroll past the Followers graph, you can observe your profile views, toggling between a 7-day and 28-day view.

Interpreting your analytics

While analytics are helpful in understanding the performance of your videos, you don’t need to create future videos based primarily around them. It’s best to consider the bigger picture, lean lightly on analytics, and use them as a source for insight rather than strategy.

If one of your videos performs differently than others before it, keep in mind that fluctuations are normal. Review your analytics to note differences in watch time and other factors to determine what works for your viewers. Analysis like this is helpful in understanding what captures your audience’s attention and what you can do to share videos that resonate.

What do TikTok analytics metrics mean?

Overview tab metrics

The Overview tab offers a summary of the following metrics:

• Video views. The total number of times your account’s videos were viewed over a given period.
• Profile views. The number of times your profile was viewed over the selected period. This TikTok metric is a good indication of brand interest. It measures the number of people who liked your video enough to check out your profile, or people who are curious to see what your brand is up to on the platform.
• Likes. The number of likes your videos received in the selected date range.
• Comments. The number of comments your videos received in the selected date range.
• Shares. The number of shares your videos received in the selected date range.
• Followers. The total tally of TikTok users that follow your account, and how that’s changed within the selected date range.
• Content. The number of videos you have shared in the selected date range.
• LIVE. The number of live videos you have hosted in the selected date range.

Content tab metrics

From the Content tab, you can measure video performance.

• Trending videos. Shows you your top nine videos with the fastest growth in viewership over the past seven days.
• Total video views. The number of times a TikTok video has been viewed.
• Total like count of a post. How many likes a post has received.
• Total number of comments. How many comments a post has received.
• Total shares. The number of times the post has been shared.
• Total play time. A cumulative total of the time people have spent watching your video. An individual post’s play time does not reveal much on its own, but can be compared with other posts’ performance to determine your account’s average total play time.
• Average watch time. The average amount of time people spent watching your video. This will give you a good indication of how successful you were at maintaining attention.
• Watched full video. The number of times the video has been watched in full.
• Reached audience. The total number of users who watched your video.
• Video views by section. Where traffic for your post comes from. Traffic sources include the For You feed, your profile, Following feed, sounds, searches, and hashtags. If you’re using hashtags or sounds to boost exposure, here’s where you’ll see how well that worked.
• Video views by region. This section displays the top locations of viewers for the post. If you created a post or marketing campaign for a specific location, this is how to tell if it reached them.

Followers tab metrics

Visit the Followers tab to learn about your audience. In addition to key audience demographic stats, you can also see your followers’ interests, making this section a good source for content inspiration.

• Gender. Here you will find the distribution of your followers by gender. 
• Top territories. Where your followers are from, ranked by country. Keep these places in mind if you’re looking to localize content and promotions. A maximum of five countries are listed here.
• Follower activity. This shows you the times and days that your followers are most active on TikTok. Look for when activity is consistently high, and post regularly in that time slot.
• Videos your followers watched. This section allows you to get a sense of the content that is most popular with your followers. Have a look at this section often to see if it sparks any ideas for content. It’s also a good place to scope out potential collaborators.
• Sounds your followers listened to. TikTok trends are often underscored by audio tracks, so check the top sounds your followers have listened to to see what’s popular. Trends move fast on TikTok, so if you use these results for ideas, plan for a quick turnaround.