Did you know that 92% of business leaders agree that leveraging social media insights can greatly impact competitive positioning? TikTok is one of the most popular social media platforms. It has almost 1.67 billion active users as of Q3 2023. But how can you access TikTok data to aid your marketing effort?

Smart influencers do not hope for a stroke of luck with their next video. Rather, they constantly review performance metrics on the TikTok analytics tool to grow with strategic content planning. TikTok offers analytics tools to track your performance on its platform. On a basic level, they help you fetch real-time insights on video performance. Also, they provide data through the dashboard to optimize your TikTok marketing strategy to best resonate with your audience. 

In this blog, we will discuss how to leverage data through TikTok Analytics tools and how to use that data to streamline your marketing effort through TikTok Analytics API.  

Understanding the Importance of Data in TikTok Marketing Strategy

Social media provides invaluable insights. A striking 91% of business leaders say it helps them better understand their audiences. An even higher share, 94%, agree that creating content tailored to specific groups is key for brand-building. The implication is clear: to grow accounts, focus efforts on targeted content.

Growing your account requires identifying high-performing content. Equally vital is determining what fails to resonate.

This is where data analytics proves indispensable.

Leveraging key data points around audience geography and interests allows you to tailor your TikTok strategy for maximum impact.

Which type of audience data are we talking about?

• Demographics
• Most active time of the day 
• Most engaged Hashtags 
• Preferred images/videos
• Niche of most-engaged content

How do these mined data help?

Content optimization

When you analyze TikTok data, you know your customer base's taste. You can see what type of posts perform best and the best time to create the most engagement. With this data, you can create and publish posts to achieve the highest level of engagement possible.

Evaluate hashtag and sound strategies 

Data tells you how your audiences reach your videos through hashtags or sounds.

Alternatively, you can check trending sounds your target audience prefers. You can use them in your next video to gain more visitors. Similarly, data can help you identify hashtags that work well to bring in new viewers. Again, it may take some time to harness data, but over time, you will be able to optimize your content for consistent success.

‍Identify Influential Customers  

92% of customers like to go with recommendations during online purchases. The mined data of your audience can help you find your ideal brand influencers and give you ideas to grow their community of influencers. Brand influencers share your content with a large mass. That’s why they are your invaluable assets to brand marketing. What’s more profitable than targeting content for the top hierarchy of your niche audience?  

Compare results to Industry Benchmark 

The more performance elements you analyze, the easier it becomes to identify industry benchmarks. You can easily know how well others are performing compared to you. This gives you a fair idea of your next target level.

In this regard, TikTok provides in-app data and analytics tools to analyze elements that bring the most traffic and engagement. 

How to Set Up TikTok Analytics

You have to ‘turn on’ analytics on TikTok to ‘activate’ it on a Creator account. There are two ways you can do it. You can access your TikTok analytics both from mobile and desktop. 

From Mobile

To access from mobile, open the app, and tap the three vertical lines up in the top right corner under your profile icon.

Click "Creator Tools" and then "Analytics." Now, you can see the stats. 

From Desktop

If you're on a desktop, log in to your web account and go to tiktok.com/analytics. Hover your cursor over your profile icon and select "View Analytics."Alternatively, you can choose "Business Suite" under your profile icon to access the analytics. 

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Key Metrics in TikTok Analytics Tool

You will get a variety of performance metrics on your Analytics dashboard under the Overview, Follower, Content, and LIVE tabs. Whether you are an influencer or are marketing your products/services on TikTok, let’s help you have a quick look at each key metric on the app:

Tab Metrics 

Here, you get to analyze the following performance metrics of your content in the last 7, 28, or 60 days or within a custom date period. 

• Follower growth: Number of followers you’ve gained through your content 
• Video views: Number of unique views your content has received
• Profile views: Number of unique views your creator profile has received
• Comments: number of comments the audience left on your content
• Likes: number of likes your content has been received 
• Shares: How many times audience have shared your content on the app or on other social platforms

Follower Tab Metrics:

It’s difficult to thrive on TikTok, or for that matter on any social media platform unless you understand your current audience. Analyzing the TikTok Follower tab will help you gain insights into the following metrics: 

• Location: demographic of your audience, such as country and city 
• Most active: know the time around which your followers remain most active on TikTok 
• Change in follower growth: gives you an idea of the increase or decrease of your followers 

Alt Text: TikTok Followers Tab Metrics

Image Source

Content Tab Metrics 

You can access Content Tab Metrics for seven days. That’s why you have to be very careful while using TikTok exclusively to parse through data. Though you can get the following metrics under the ‘Overview’ tab, you get more vivid data under the ‘Content’ tab: 

• Total views: Total number of views your posts have received 
• Total likes: Total number of likes your posts have received 
• Comments: Get to see all comments your posts have received in the last week 
• Average watch time: Amount of time (in hours) your audience typically spends on your content 
• Watched full video: number of viewers (in % out of total viewers) who watched the entire video 
• Traffic source type: It shows how your viewers found you. You will find this data extremely helpful if you want to know how TikTok suggests your content for maximum visibility. 
• Audience territories: A closer look at the demographics of your followers

LIVE Tab Metrics 

TikTok offers LIVE access to very few creators. If you have LIVE access, you can check the following performance metrics on the LIVE Tab for the last 7 or 28 days: 

• Total views: total number of views on your live streams 
• Viewer ranking: Viewers ranked as per the highest gift count and watch time
• New followers: total new followers made through live streams
• Total time: total content duration of live streams
• Diamonds earned: Creators receive diamonds from TikTok based on the popularity of their content. You can check the total number of diamonds earned here. You can exchange them for money or virtual items.
• Top viewer count: It shows the highest number of viewers your live video streams have received at a certain time for a selected date range.

Titkok Analytics API

TikTok provides an open API to developers. Using the API, you can integrate TikTok into your applications with ease. What benefits does it provide? You can directly share videos from your application to TikTok, embed your content onto websites, upload or download videos, etc. 

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If you have a fair understanding of TikTok analytics, the API also helps you get deeper TikTok insights into your content performance. In fact, API is the most credible and secure way of fetching creator data. For instance, you can check follower growth, number of views, comments, and shares over a custom date range. 

Related Read:

• TikTok API Integration: Complete Guide for Developers
• How to Use the TikTok API

What kind of data can you access through API?

When you integrate TikTok into your application via API, you get access to the first-party data of consented creators. That means you get access access to their private data as well. Here are some creator-exclusive data attributes that you can access through API:

• Total number of views
• Total impressions & reach
• Content consumption metrics
• Easy content embedding URLs

TikTok API Challenges

Working with the TikTok API to fetch basic user data takes a couple of days. That’s because it involves a lot of stages. First, you need to have the app prototype for requesting access to the permissions. Second, you need to mention how your developers will use each of the permissions. It may take a week to get the response. After that, if you receive any feedback, you have to make changes to your app accordingly and resend your proposal. 

Another challenge is fetching real-time data for big influencers. It’s not difficult to code a robust system to regularly fetch fresh content and update data. What really challenges developers to the core is to maintain that error-free output once you cross 10-15k users on TikTok. One of the best ways to overcome this is to add bespoke data management attributes to your code and support it through smart webhooks so that you get notified of any changes in the tracking metrics.

However, all these challenges cease to exist when you use a universal API for TikTok, which allows developers to focus on product development rather than on infrastructural concerns. Also, developers may not get essential audience insights on direct API, such as gender, age, and location. But, with a universal API, developers can get complete influencer insights for tailoring their marketing strategy. 

Overcome TikTok API Challenges with Phyllo's Data Integration

With Phyllo’s Universal API, you can amplify your app’s performance for multiple social media platforms, including Instagram. It enables you to extract creator profile insights directly from the source platform. Plus, you get constant access to data and engagement metrics of creators, such as likes, comments, shares, views, reach, and saves.

Phyllo uses smart technologies to help you access real-time statistics, even for Instagram Stories. Also, you receive regular notifications through Webhooks regarding any update in any engagement metric. The aim of Phyllo has always been to offer transparency and security to creators. That’s why it ensures the creators feel no technical glitch while connecting or deactivating their Instagram accounts with Phyllo with the Connect SDK product. 

The creator engagement metrics get refreshed in every 24 hours to provide accurate data. This helps you find and partner with popular creators with an engaged target audience. This is how Phyllo can aid in fostering your influencer partnerships to help you achieve your marketing goals with ease. 

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FAQs

Does TikTok have a data API?

TikTok offers two APIs for accessing data from the platform - the Display API and the Research API.

The Display API provides a collection of HTTP-based application programming interfaces that enable products to showcase TikTok creators' videos and profile details. This allows services to integrate and display TikTok content easily.

Meanwhile, the Research API is intended for academic purposes. It grants vetted researchers access to TikTok's public data, including information on user profiles, posted videos, and comments left on videos. This supports research initiatives aiming to understand activity and engagement on the platform better.

How much does TikTok API cost?

You don’t have to pay anything to access TikTok API. TikTok's public APIs are free to use. 

Why can't I see analytics on TikTok?

Accessing the TikTok analytics tool depends on the appropriate TikTok account type enabled. Specifically, a TikTok Pro account (and Business account) is required to view analytic data for your videos and account.

If you can access TikTok analytics tools but do not have visibility, you do not have a Pro account set up. To check if your account has Pro status and analytics enabled, go to your TikTok account profile and select the three horizontal line menu in the top right corner.

Within the menu, there will be an option to upgrade to a Pro TikTok account if you do not yet have access. Upgrading enables viewing analytics and other benefits designed for professional and business accounts.