How To Setup TikTok Ad Tracking

TikTok has over 1.53 billion users as of 2023, and of that user base, 1 billion return to the app at least once a month to be counted as monthly active users. The app continues to grow and skews towards the younger demographic, with 885 million users aged 18 and above on TikTok.

While TikTok might be known for dancing videos and a fun place for the younger crowd to hang out and engage with their favourite influencers, it has also become a powerful marketing tool. Any platform that has direct access to an audience of 1 billion or more would become an attractive source of new customers for brands.

Today, many TikTok influencers strike up brand deals and create content for these brands, and push it through to their followers and the For You page in hopes that the ad would be picked up by ranking algorithms and provide the brand with enough reach that it was worth paying the influencer.

In the earlier days of TikTok, this was a highly profitable strategy; since TikTok was looking to poach creators from other platforms and encourage a new generation of creators loyal to their service, they provided unpredicted access to their growing audience. This allowed creators to supercharge their follower count in a short space of time and then sell this reach to brands.

As TikTok matures and the amount of content on the platform reaches a saturation point, TikTok has to become a lot pickier about what it shows users to keep them on the platform, and because of this, creators aren't getting the reach they once enjoyed. To add to the competition for views, TikTok also had to figure out ways of monetising its service, and ads were always going to be part of that strategy.

Today, creators and brands use ads either to boost their reach and following or to sell to users directly inside TikTok.

TikTok ads are all reach and have no conversion.

To encourage the uptake of TikTok ads, the platform is providing favourable serving to ads in its feeds, and many brands and creators have leveraged this to try and grow their accounts. TikTok ads are great for brand building and reach, and it's easy to get infatuated with the vanity metrics like views, engagement and followers.

If you're a brand, these are great reporting metrics, but they're not going to do much for your bottom line. If running ads is about generating new users and sales, you have to be a little more strategic.

While TikTok can give you access to a wide audience at a competitive CPM, the quality of that audience is debatable. To help brands and marketers find the right users, TikTok has followed the Facebook model and provides brands with the ability to merge their onsite data with their TikTok ad account to create a powerful marketing tech and ad tracking tool.

Time for TikTok to get serious

The TikTok pixel is a piece of code similar to that offered by other social media apps like Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter and Pinterest. It can be found in your ad account assets and installed on your website to help track TikTok users who find their way onto your website and help you push user actions and conversions to your TikTok ad account.

If you're running a TikTok ad campaign with the intention to drive new sign-ups, sales, or bookings or any kind of performance marketing, then installing a pixel and getting it to train up on your data sets is a must.

What is the TikTok pixel?

The TikTok pixel is a script that you can install on your website. Once installed, the pixel will track specific events, such as page views on your website or account creations that came from TikTok users. These events are then recorded in your TikTok Ads account so that you can see which ads are driving the most users migrating to your site or leading to the most sales.

1. The TikTok pixel offers marketers a measurement tool that can help track return on investment (ROI). The TikTok Pixel can help you build ad campaigns and give you direct metrics that can help campaign refinement.
2. Second, it can help you create more targeted ad campaigns by understanding which ads are performing well and which ones aren't.
3. Finally, the TikTok pixel can help you create custom audiences, remarketing lists and campaigns with more personalised ads.

How to set up the TikTok pixel

If you're ready to start using the TikTok pixel, you will need to have the following:

1. A TikTok Ad account
2. A TikTok Account
3. A website that you can either edit or Google Tag Manager access

If you have access to all three, you can follow these steps.

Create your pixel

Head over to your TikTok Business account. Sign in to your account and go to

TikTok Ads Manager > Assets > Events. Create a pixel, give it a name and follow the prompts to get the code.

Install the pixel code on your website or app

The next screen you'll see is the Set Up Web Events with TikTok Pixel screen. Here, you'll have the option to manually install your pixel or set it up automatically via a 3rd party. There are several popular eCommerce connections like Shopify and BigCommerce already available.

If you're using a custom site or a CMS that isn't supported by TikTok, you can choose to install your pixel manually, click Manually Install Pixel Code and then click Next.

Copy the pixel javascript code and then paste it into the header section of your website.

Look for a piece of code that starts with and ends with – your pixel should go right after the tag.

Alternatively, if you have Google Tag Manager, you can install your pixel by creating a custom HTML tag and pasting the code in the tag and setting it to fire on all pages.

Once you've picked your method and actioned as above, you should be all set with the basic installation!

What are TikTok pixel events?

Using the basic install, you can only track page views on your site coming from TikTok and create funnels or audiences around that. To take your ads a step further, you will need to add event monitoring for more granular tracking.

This event monitoring can be done by adding TikTok pixel events, which are the specific actions people take on your website or app.

There are fourteen types of TikTok pixel events, namely:

1. Add payment info
2. Add to cart
3. Add to wishlist
4. Click button
5. Complete payment
6. Complete registration
7. Contact
8. Download
9. Initiate checkout
10. Place an order
11. Search
12. Submit form
13. Subscribe
14. View content

Each type of event corresponds to a different action someone might take on your website or app. You can be as selective or as comprehensive as you like; you can install some of the custom events or all the applicable events available.

If you are going to run a comprehensive event setup, be sure that your ads are limited to the events you find most important, or you will be optimising for too many goals and sending conflicting data to campaign refinements.

Setting up campaigns based on events might also require you to set up create custom audiences based on the event actions for new ads and build out the funnels you wish to track.

How to debug your Tik Tok Pixel?

Once you've installed your TikTok pixel and set up the individual event, your last step is to test the data feeds. One way to do this is to run an ad campaign and burn your ad budget by clicking on your own ads, or you can take a simpler route and use a special plugin.

Again, TikTok has taken a page from Facebook's ad tools and created a TikTok Pixel Helper that can help you test whether your pixel is working correctly.

All you would need is a chromium compatible browser, head over to the chrome store and search for the plugin or install the TikTok Pixel Helper Chrome extension from the link provided.

Once installed, open a new tab in your browser and paste your tracking link followed by ?dbgrmrktng.

• For example - http://nichemarket.co.za/?dbgrmrktng

The TikTok Pixel Helper will then provide information on the status of your pixels. It can also show you whether your events are working and receiving data.

Contact us

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Recommended reading

If you enjoyed this post and have a little extra time to dive deeper down the rabbit hole, why not check out the following posts about tracking?

• How To Track Social Sharing In Google Analytics
• Get Back Your Google Analytics Account With These Simple Steps
• How To Properly Set Up Google Analytics With Shopify Sites
• Google Analytics Interaction Hit Vs Non-Interaction Hit
• How To Track Video Views With Google Analytics
• How To Track Search and Zero Search Queries In Google Analytics

Tags: Digital Marketing, Online Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Tracking