A Complete Guide to TikTok Analytics and How To Find Them

TikTok not only serves as a light-hearted source of entertainment for consumers — but a new marketing lever for businesses across industries. The channel’s growth continues to skyrocket, and the platform is a core channel for a successful TikTok marketing strategy.

TikTok quickly transitioned from a channel of experimentation to a pivotal medium for reaching new audiences and getting high average engagement in today’s digital age. As brands increasingly turn to the channel to drive revenue, the channel introduced analytics to brands and creators. With social media analytics, marketers can track follower growth, video and profile views, and craft a data-driven strategy for cross-channel marketing campaigns.

How can brands use TikTok and find success? Observing TikTok influencer marketing and jumping on the latest trends is a place to start, but now it’s time to dive deeper into the data to understand which types of content resonate with users. Remember: your target demographic is likely younger than audiences on other visual channels, thus requiring a unique approach to content creation.

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How to Access Your TikTok Analytics

All users have visibility into basic analytics, however, to gain access to deeper insights, brands need a TikTok Business Account (formerly known as a Pro Account). Afterward, be prepared to add a wealth of content into the platform to generate enough data for an accurate analysis of your community's preferences.

How to Check Analytics on TikTok

Luckily, the method to check analytics on a creator or business account is the same. Insights in the native TikTok app take up to two days to update, so keep this timing in mind before you check your insights for the first time. To check TikTok analytics: 

• Navigate to your profile.
• Click the three lines in the top right corner. 
• Select ‘Creator Tools’.
• Click ‘Analytics’. 

Here you’ll have access to all the insightful metrics that come along with a TikTok account. 

TikTok Business Account Categories: Interpreting Your Metrics

You will find many differences from other social channels when it comes to their analytics. Discovery and relevance are top of mind on the channel, and should guide your strategy. Figuring out how to go viral on TikTok is crucial, as one viral post can launch your brand onto the platform and kickstart community growth.

Maximizing profile and video views will always be a top priority, especially when launching a successful advertising campaign on TikTok. The videos that speak to users’ preferences have the best shot at finding a spot on the For You page and ultimately meeting your brand objectives.

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How to See Analytics on TikTok

TikTok Business users are met with an Overview when first accessing the TikTok analytics tool. Here users are served three key metrics:

• video views
• profile views
• follower count

Brands can see total video views and how many times followers viewed your profile over the last seven days. The follower count metric displays the followers lost and gained over the last seven days. This historical data helps you understand your growth and community-building efforts over time.  

How To Turn On Analytics on TikTok

So, do you have to ‘turn on’ analytics on TikTok? Yes, you must ‘activate’ TikTok analytics on a Creator account. To do this: 

• Click the three lines in the top right corner. 
• Select ‘Creator Tools’.
• Click ‘Analytics’.
• To activate analytics, you must have at least one public video posted. If you do, select ‘Turn On’.

Be mindful that it will take two days for analytics in the native app to update, so be sure to turn them on well before you’d like to pull in analytics. 

TikTok Content Analytics Tab

In the content tab, brands can quickly get a pulse on which TikTok videos generate the most views and followers. Under Trending, you can see which of your videos were on the For You page and the total number of views those videos generated. You can see videos posted outside of the seven-day window to understand which types of videos have longer life spans than others.

Even if your videos underperform in the immediate days after posting, they could reach peak engagement rates weeks or even months after the fact, based on shifting TikTok trends and new content styles.

TikTok Follower Analytics Tab

The Followers tab is one of the most valuable TikTok metrics for understanding user behavior and your followers’ preferences. Marketers can analyze follower retention, audience demographics, and geographic location for insight into followers gained and lost over seven days.

Beyond the basics, brands can see which types of videos their followers are watching and at which times of day they are most active to optimize posting strategies. Marketers can also go a step further in their content strategy and keep a pulse on the music trending within their follower base. This intel can help guide your audio selection for new posts.

What do TikTok Metrics Mean?

As we discussed above, TikTok offers metrics in the Overview, Follower, Content, and LIVE tabs — whether you need a refresher or are just getting started on TikTok, here’s a comprehensive breakdown of each key metric on the app: 

Overview Tab Metrics 

Here, users can look at the following metrics over the last 7, 28, or 60 days, or with a custom date range. 

• Follower growth: How many followers you’ve gained 
• Video views: How many unique views your content received
• Profile views: How many unique views your profile received
• Comments: How many comments your content received
• Likes: Overall likes content has received 
• Shares: How many times your content has been shared on the app, via text, or to another social platform 

Follower Tab Metrics:

Strategizing on social requires a robust understanding of your current audience. On the TikTok Follower tab, users can see the following metrics: 

• Location: Where your audience is from
• Most active: Tells you what time followers are most active on the app 
• Change in follower growth: Tells you how much your followers have gone up or down

Content Tab Metrics 

This data is only available from TikTok for 7 days, so be mindful if you use TikTok exclusively to parse through data. Some of the following metrics are also available in the ‘Overview’ tab, but ‘Content’ offers a more granular look: 

• Total views: Overall views posts receive 
• Total likes: Overall likes posts receive 
• Comments: All comments received in past 7 days are available 
• Average watch time: How much time your audience typically spends watching your content 
• Watched full video: A percentage of viewers who watched the entire video 
• Traffic source type: If viewers found you from your profile, on the ‘Discover’ tab, etc. This data is particularly useful if you’re curious about how the TikTok algorithm interprets your content. 
• Audience territories: A closer look at your followers’ geography 

LIVE Tab Metrics 

Not every TikTok creator has LIVE access — if they do, they can see the following metrics on the LIVE Tab for the last 7 or 28 days: 

• Total views: All views live streams receive 
• New followers: New followers gained during live 
• Total time: Your total time spent on live 
• Diamonds earned: TikTok gives creators diamonds based on how popular their content is, which they can exchange for a Reward payment — money, or virtual items.

TikTok Insights by Dash Hudson

One of the best things about TikTok is the thorough analytics that are provided within the platform. To complement these TikTok analytics, Dash Hudson has developed TikTok Insights. These insights will provide users with customizable dashboards and full of data regarding account performance, per-post engagement and follower metrics to make your social reporting even more simple. Additionally, those looking to build a strong creative strategy will be able to utilize unique features like TikTok Trending Sounds, and TikTok Entertainment Score to truly understand what’s trending, and how entertaining their posts are.

FAQs

When can you see analytics on TikTok?

All users are able to see analytics on TikTok, however, businesses are able to see more in-depth analytics after switching to a Business Account.

How do I see my TikTok analytics?

Easy! Your TikTok analytics are available right on your profile. All you need to do is open your settings and privacy tab. Under Account, you will select Creator Tools and then Analytics. Here you will have access to all the analytics that are available within the native TikTok app like live, follower and content metrics. There is also the ability to look at a general overview of your profile if you’re not looking for granular insights. 

Why can’t I see my analytics on TikTok?

Luckily, analytics are available for everyone to use, but there is a reason why you may not be able to see them. In order to have access to analytics, you must have posted at least one public TikTok. From there, you will be given the ability to turn on your analytics and be given real-time data on how your posts have been performing. 

How do you see someone’s TikTok analytics?

Currently, there is no way to view other users' analytics within the TikTok app. That being said, it is possible to get a rough idea of other accounts' insights by using third-party applications that are dedicated to recording basic analytics like Social Blade. These types of applications will not give you in-depth information on demographics or individual post metrics, but they will give you data on followers and likes.

How to get a TikTok Business account?

To learn how to get a TikTok Business account, click on your TikTok profile, and go under “Settings and privacy” by clicking on the button in the top right corner. After doing so, click on “Manage account,” and then “Switch to Business Account.”

How do you put a link in your TikTok bio? 

To put a link in your TikTok bio, check your profile settings to see if you have access to the website feature, then click “edit” and add the link. Make sure to leverage Dash Hudson’s TikTok Link in Bio Solution to create a standalone URL you can customize for your feed.

Does TikTok have robust analytics? 

Yes, TikTok offers robust analytics — however, for social managers who want a more detailed, comprehensive overview, the right social media management tool will save time, streamline your reporting process, and offer a more custom range of data. While their Content tab offers more details for how followers engage with your content, this is only available for seven days, which presents obvious limitations when measuring long term campaign success or reflection on historical trends.

How to view TikTok History?

Viewing your watch history on TikTok is simple. To revisit to content you’ve just watched:

• Go to your profile.
• Click the three lines in the top right corner. 
• Select ‘Settings and Privacy’.
• Scroll down — under the subheading ‘Content & Display’, click ‘Comment and Watch History’. 
• Alternatively, to view a list of your most recent comments and their corresponding videos, select ‘Comment history’.