TikTok’s Events API is a secure server-to-server interface that allows advertisers to share the actions customers take on their websites directly with TikTok.
When web events are shared with TikTok, they can better inform our optimization, targeting, and measurement systems by providing insights into your website visitors' journeys. Our systems process the data similarly to the TikTok Pixel.
To optimize ad delivery and build marketing audiences, we recommend setting up both TikTok's Events API and Pixel together. Please follow our best practices to learn more about a redundant Web Tracking setup.
Learn more about how to get started with the Events API.
Benefits of Events API
Events API helps businesses to future-proof and adapt to the changing ads ecosystem, by allowing unobstructed marketing data sharing between your business and TikTok to reach your marketing objectives. Benefits of implementing TikTok’s Events API include:
Improve ad delivery and targeting by capturing missing conversions.
Conversions reported via TikTok’s Pixel only might be impacted due to browser policies and other connectivity issues. When implemented with the Events API, all conversions will be reported and leveraged to better inform optimization, targeting, and measurement products.
Enrich conversions by implementing both Pixel and Events API.
TikTok will merge and enrich duplicate conversions shared with TikTok within 5 minutes of each other, improving identity matching and ad delivery performance.
Beyond the 5-minute merge window, duplicate conversions arriving within 48 hours of one another will be deduplicated and not used for measurement and reporting purposes.
Granular control over the data your business shares with TikTok.
When implemented without TikTok’s Pixel, you have the flexibility to share only the data required to meet your marketing objectives enabled by TikTok’s optimization products.
Web Tracking Setup Scenarios
There are three ways to set up Web Tracking with TikTok, by utilizing Pixel, Events API, or both. Please see below the benefits of these setup scenarios:
| Events API | Pixel | Pixel + Events API |
Benefits | -Allows unobstructed event sharing between your business and TikTok. -Improves ad delivery and targeting by capturing missing conversions. -Controls what data your business shares with TikTok. | -Lightweight implementation often takes only minutes to install. -Automatically captures customer actions every time your customer loads a webpage. -Keep informed on the latest Pixel releases with automatic updates. | -Enriches conversions shared by the Pixel by implementing the Pixel and Events API together. -Enhances ad delivery, audience creation, and full-funnel measurement by maximizing event capturing from both channels . |
Time to Implement | -Direct API implementation can take between 1-4 weeks. -Commerce Partner integration can take less than an hour. -Data Partner integration depends on the partner. | -Manual Pixel code implementation often takes minutes. -One-click setup with 3rd party Pixel partners. | -Similar to the Events API implementation, with additional time to set up event deduplication. |
Resources | -For Direct API: in-house server-side developers. -For Commerce and Data partners: support depends on the partner. | -In-house client-side developers -For Commerce and Data partners: support depends on the partner. | -For Direct API: in-house client-side and server-side developers. -For Commerce and Data partners: support depends on the partner. |
Note: Event Deduplication is required for advertisers using both the TikTok Pixel and Events API to share duplicate copies of events reporting the same conversion on their website. Learn more about how Event Deduplication works.
How to Integrate with Events API
There are a few integration methods you should consider when thinking about integrating with Events API:
Commerce Partner Integration: For advertisers partnering with one of TikTok’s Commerce partners, setting up Events API takes only a few minutes in TikTok’s Events Manager. Learn more about Commerce partners integrated with Events API.
Data Partner Integration: For advertisers partnering with one of TikTok’s Data partners, such as Customer Data Platforms (CDPs), Tag Managers, CRMs, and other marketing technology partners, setting up Events API is done via the partner platform. Learn more about Data partners integrated with Events API.
Direct Integration: For advertisers who prefer the utmost control over their data, setting up the Events API is achieved by dedicating in-house developers to follow our Marketing API documentation. Learn more about integrating with Events API directly by following our best practices.
Note: Sharing events via server-to-server APIs is becoming commonplace across publishers. If you have previously gone through the process of integrating server-to-server APIs with other publishers, you may be able to utilize the same integration method to share Event data with TikTok’s Events API.
Sharing Events with Events API
Prior to integrating with the Events API, we recommend predefining which Events you are interested in sharing with TikTok to achieve your marketing objectives. Standard events are predefined actions website visitors can take that are supported across TikTok Ads. This includes 14 standard events which can be used to track URL keywords or web elements.
When setting up the Events API with the TikTok Pixel side by side, it is recommended to mirror your Pixel setup. This means sharing identical events through both channels, and the required data to allow deduplication between both channels.
For additional information on choosing events, please visit our section on Standard Events and Parameters.
Sharing Matching Data with Events API
It is highly recommended to include multiple types of matching data to increase the accuracy of targeting and optimization models.
Match Data | Description | Additional information |
Click ID | -Click ID is a unique identifier that is appended to the click URL every time a person clicks on an ad on TikTok. Once the website is loaded, you can store the Click ID and share it back to TikTok every time the person triggers an event. -Each Click ID is unique and adheres to the same CTA window as configured in Attribution Manager (see Attribution Manager). | Details you can share with your developer team on Click ID are available in this article Set up TikTok Click ID and Cookies. |
Cookies | -If you're using the TikTok Pixel and have enabled the use of first-party cookies in your Pixel settings in TikTok Events Manager (see Using Cookies with TikTok Pixel), TikTok will automatically save a unique identifier in the ttp first-party cookie. The value of this cookie is used to enhance the matching of website visitor events with TikTok ads. | Details on how to share first-party cookie values with Events API are available Report Web Events and Parameters. |
Advanced Matching | -Advanced Matching is a feature that enables you to share privacy-safe customer emails and phone numbers, as well as IP addresses and browser user agents, to be matched with people on TikTok. -We recommend sharing External IDs that represent any unique identifier on the advertiser's side, such as loyalty membership IDs, user IDs, and external cookie IDs. | Details on Advanced Matching, including Frequently Asked Questions around hashing and security are available Advanced Matching. |
Matching Best Practices
To increase the probability of matching website visitor events with TikTok users, and improve your ad attribution and ad delivery optimization, we recommend sharing as many match keys and identifiers as possible from the following list:
Click ID
First-party cookie
Advanced Matching:
Email (hashing required)
Phone (hashing required)
External ID (hashing required)
IP address and user agent
Privacy and Data Usage
Learn more about how this information is used by reading TikTok Business Products (Data) Terms.
Learn more about how TikTok honors users' in-app and device-level privacy settings by accessing our Safety Center.