Background

Advertisers use attribution to understand the actions that users take after an ad is clicked or viewed over a certain period of time. However, different brands and businesses have differing conversion objectives & consideration windows for the various products and services they offer. For advertisers, the attribution window is the number of days between when a person viewed or clicked your ad and subsequently took an action where a conversion is reported in TikTok Ads Manager.

To better support our advertisers, we're excited to announce that Attribution Manager has rolled out to all advertisers using the TikTok Pixel or Web Events API! Attribution Manager is the place where advertisers can select their desired attribution windows for both click-through and view-through conversions.

For app advertisers, Attribution Manager will be available once advertisers migrate to TikTok self-attribution. For more information on self-attribution, please reach out to your TikTok rep.

Attribution Manager Overview & How to Access

Attribution Manager is the place within TikTok Ads Manager where advertisers can see and adjust their attribution settings. To start, the main benefit of Attribution Manager is to give advertisers the ability to customize their attribution windows; however, all future attribution settings and reports will be located here as well.

To access Attribution Manager & customize their attribution windows, advertisers can navigate to Assets, click Events, go to Web Events, and select Attribution Manager in the top right. Please see below for more info:

Additionally, in the campaign creation flow advertisers will see the option to open attribution manager when they are selecting events for optimization:

Attribution Window Option and Default Settings

All advertisers will initially be defaulted to the below attribution windows; however, at any time an advertiser may change their window based on what's best for their business:

Web

• ​Default Windows: 7 day click-through and 1 day view-through for all advertisers

• ​Window Options:

• ​CTA: 1, 7, 14, 28 day

• ​VTA: Off, 1, 7 day

App

• ​Default Windows:

• ​Install: 7 day click-through and 1 day view-through for all advertisers

• ​In-App: 28 day click-through and 1 day view-through

• ​Window Options:

• ​Click-through (both install and in-app): 1, 7, 14, 28 day

• ​View-through (both install and in-app): Off, 1, 7 day

Matching signals for web

• ​Once an advertiser has access, all matching types will be unified under this new window. More specifically, this means that all matching types will adhere to the windows set in Attribution Manager (ie there won't be different windows based on different products you implement like Advanced Matching)

Note: CTA = click-through attribution; VTA = view-through attribution

Attribution Manager Impact & Best Practices

Once adveritsers have access to Attribution Manager and corresponding default windows, you may see more conversions in TikTok Ads Manager now that windows have been extended. Please monitor your campaigns over the coming weeks and adjust your bids and budgets as you now have a better holistic understanding of the influence of TikTok advertising.

Additionally, it's important advertisers review and adjust their attribution windows based on their typical conversion path length. For example, if you're advertising a product that takes some user consideration before a purchase, it's important to extend your windows to ensure you're capturing all conversions that were influenced by a TikTok ad.

FAQs

Why do I see more view-through conversions even though I was already using Advanced Matching, which I thought used a 1 day view-through attribution window?

Advanced Matching uses privacy-safe customer information such as emails and phone numbers to match website events to an ad view or click. Prior to the launch of Attribution Manager, when TikTok was able to match an event to an ad using emails and phone numbers, the attribution window was 7 day click and one day view. However, if we were not able to match the event via email or phone, the standard attribution window was 1 day click-through and non-configurable.

With the launch of Attribution Manager, all events will use the attribution windows set in the Attribution Manager UI, regardless of how those events are matched. Therefore, it's possible to see more view-through conversions even if you were already using a one day view-through attribution window with Advanced Matching.

I see a large increase in conversions immediately after you launched Attribution Manager and I don't know if I can trust the data.

Attribution Manager gives you complete control over your click-through and view-through attribution windows, allowing you the flexibility to measure, attribute, and optimize based on the attribution windows that best represent your sales cycle and campaign goals. With Attribution Manager, we've also launched the ability to use view through attribution as well as use longer attribution windows that align with other industry leaders. With the launch of Attribution Manager, all advertisers automatically are enabled for a 7 day click-through window and a 1 day view-through window to allow you to take advantage of industry standard attribution windows.

These windows are completely customizable and you may change them at any time within the Attribution Manager UI. By enabling view-through attribution and using a longer click-through attribution window, we are able to attribute more conversions that would have previously fallen outside of your attribution windows and not reported in TikTok Ads Manager. Additionally, more conversion data allows the delivery system to optimize in a shorter time frame and this ultimately allows us to more efficiently deliver ads to people that are likely to convert, increasing the overall number of conversions.

I don't see the value of a view-through conversion, why should I use view-through attribution?

TikTok is primarily a video platform -- users come to our platform to entertain themselves with enjoyable video content. This means that TikTok users often watch an ad without clicking, but then go back to your website at a later time and convert.

If you are not using view-through attribution to capture this expected behavior, you are likely under reporting the impact of TikTok advertising and limiting the available signals for downstream systems across bidding, targeting, and other automated solutions. Therefore, it's recommended you use view-through attribution because the additional conversion data makes it easier to pass the learning phase and provide better overall account performance. Ultimately this allows TikTok to more efficiently deliver ads to people that are likely to convert and increase the overall number of conversions.

Why were my attribution windows changed when I got access to Attribution Manager?

With Attribution Manager, we've launched the ability to use view-through attribution and increase the length of your attribution windows to align with industry standards. With Attribution Manager launch, all advertisers are automatically enabled a 7 day click-through window and a 1 day view-through window to allow you to take advantage of these standard windows. Your attribution windows are completely customizable and you may change them at any time within the Attribution Manager UI.

I see a large increase in conversion discrepancies between TTAM and my 3P analytics/measurement platform (for example, Google Analytics) now that I'm using longer conversion windows and view-through attribution.

An increase in discrepancies on the number of conversions reported in TTAM and third-party analytics platforms (such as Google Analytics) is completely normal and expected when you use longer conversion windows and/or enable view-through attribution for the first time. This is because TikTok reports both single-session and cross-session conversions, but most third-party analytics platforms are limited to reporting single-session conversions only for TikTok. This is because TikTok's in-app browser blocks user-unification across different touchpoints and the user who was influenced by a TikTok ad is attributed to another channel. With the launch of attribution manager, all additional conversions will be from cross-session conversions and therefore discrepancies will likely increase.

Please see external one pager and Help Center to further explain why these discrepancies are expected

Can I change my attribution windows after the launch of Attribution Manager?

Yes, Attribution Manager puts you in complete control of your attribution windows. You may change your attribution windows at any time within the Attribution Manager UI. The available attribution windows are 1 day, 7 day, 14 day, and 28 day click through attribution and 1 day, 7 day or opt-out of view-through attribution.

I don't want to enable view through attribution because I want to know how many conversions happen after a click and how many happen after a view.

In the TikTok Ads Manager UI, you are able to see a breakdown of click-through attribution conversions and view through attributed conversions by navigating to Campaign View and in the Campaign Tab or Ad Group Tab, accessing Custom Columns to select Attribution on the left-hand side where you can select metrics such as VTA Conversion, Cost per VTA Conversion, CTA Conversion, and Cost per CTA conversions. Columns will then be added to the UI based on the selected metrics

I was satisfied with the one day click and no view through attribution windows. Why should I make my attribution windows longer?

Extending your attribution windows in length gives TikTok more conversion data to fuel our downstream algorithms across bidding, targeting, and optimization. More data means that the delivery system is able to optimize in a shorter time frame and reducing the learning period. Ultimately, more conversion data allows TikTok to more efficiently deliver ads to people that are likely to convert and increases the overall number of conversions.

How is a view-through conversion defined?

If the ad has an impression, and the user later converted, this counts as a VTA. However, we are working on additional metrics that have view thresholds (eg the ad needs to be watched for X seconds) - stay tuned for more!

Does this update apply to Pangle?

Yes, attribution windows selected in Attribution Manager will apply to Pangle.