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Why Your S2S > TikTok API might not be tracking. A TikTok Tracking Story (7)

12-22-2021 05:44 PM #1 iAmAttila (Veteran Member)
Why Your S2S > TikTok API might not be tracking. A TikTok Tracking Story

Hey guys,

so I've been running tiktok for around 2 months now, doing lead gen on it with good success.

Profits are super nice, but compared to FB Ads, it's a total nightmare for stability and I still don't know why...

what happens is this.. for a few days it absolutely kills it then it dies out; which each day ROI dropping off and off and off, until its in the red.. my solution has been to start again always and then ride this success to fail rate over and over again with brand new creative lander pairs. (That's another story..)

Now that it's the holidays and I have some 'time off' since my team is gone until new years and we aren't hustling like crazy.. I was reading SCOTTY G's insane follow along here on STM and realized something.

I realized I am only tracking 1 thing (button clicks on LP) and even though my conversions data shows up in RedTrack. It's no where to be seen on my events page for the pixel in TikTok.

and Scotty's big aha moment was to track as many events in your funnel as possible, so i decided to investigate to learn WHY THE F aren't my conversions tracking nor the events on my lead gen opt in pages I've had there all this time...

Turns out --- TikTok is a finicky bitch... their pixel is not made equal.. They have PIXEL STANDARD mode and PIXEL DEVELOPER mode.

If you select STANDARD MODE (this is what I had).. and then you specify via script different pixel events on your lander, offer, funnel, checkout whatever.. it will NOT be counted by the pixel -- or SHOW UP inside the events list under pixel config.. What the EFF right? In facebook they do show up..

the only events that show up are the ones you add through their event setup wizzard... or via the page URL ..

if you want events to show up from API via tracker, or from the offer pages set by the advertiser.. then you must use DEVELOPER mode...


TL/DR: If you want to track all the stuff use the developer mode Pixel on tiktok, not the STANDARD aka the wizzard one.

12-23-2021 12:37 PM #2 ianternet (Senior Member)

I cant even get enough impressions currently

12-25-2021 01:18 PM #3 vortex (Senior Moderator)

Wow @iAmAttila thanks for this insight!

The million dollar question is: Does using developer mode to capture these additional pixel events result in better campaign performance?

Would love to see indication of this.



Amy

12-26-2021 07:09 AM #4 iAmAttila (Veteran Member)

Quote Originally Posted by vortex View Post
Wow @iAmAttila thanks for this insight!

The million dollar question is: Does using developer mode to capture these additional pixel events result in better campaign performance?

Would love to see indication of this.



Amy
with 99.9999% experienced based certainty from FB i'm pretty sure yes, because more datapoints for the algo == better optimization

12-27-2021 06:41 AM #5 zeno (Administrator)

You can still capture everything using the standard pixel, the difference being that you need to create rules on the TikTok side for every event. E.g. click X element selector > causes Y event. If you send events directly in JS code it just ignores them... really I am not quite sure why they couldn't do a single pixel and allow for both approaches, where you can push events manually in code and if they match any particular rule, the rule gets prioritised and used instead (and the original event dropped).

12-27-2021 07:58 AM #6 alexgb (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by zeno View Post
You can still capture everything using the standard pixel, the difference being that you need to create rules on the TikTok side for every event. E.g. click X element selector > causes Y event. If you send events directly in JS code it just ignores them... really I am not quite sure why they couldn't do a single pixel and allow for both approaches, where you can push events manually in code and if they match any particular rule, the rule gets prioritised and used instead (and the original event dropped).
They probably differentiate between 2 types of pixels, because most of the advertisers using tracking probably don't know much about how to properly fire events with code. With the standard pixel they kind of did a simplified version of GTM, where you can select the actions on your website, that will trigger X event, using an easy to use interface. Facebook doesn't have that feature for example.

01-18-2022 08:56 AM #7 Atnakov S (Member)

Quote Originally Posted by zeno View Post
You can still capture everything using the standard pixel, the difference being that you need to create rules on the TikTok side for every event. E.g. click X element selector > causes Y event. If you send events directly in JS code it just ignores them... really I am not quite sure why they couldn't do a single pixel and allow for both approaches, where you can push events manually in code and if they match any particular rule, the rule gets prioritised and used instead (and the original event dropped).
yes and no, the different events do not show in the event manager unless you use the dev pixel.

TLDR/best to do the dev pixel if you are an affiliate that wants to make money for which u need as much data points as u can get your hands on

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