Troubleshooting: Why Ad Metrics May Not Add Up

When you review campaign performance metrics, there may be times when the metrics do not add up. However, this is expected and easily explained. Below we have listed three common reasons why TikTok Ads Manager's metrics may not add up.

Note: When reviewing your metrics on TikTok Ads Manager's Campaign page, use the "Total of" field to view an accurate total of your selected metrics.

Reason 1: You are adding up Reach-based metrics

When you are looking at Reach-based metrics they represent unique actions taken by people or unique people reached by your ads, you will find these figures may not add up as expected when trying to sum up these metrics across the levels of TikTok Ads Manager's campaign structure: ads, ad groups, campaigns, and ad account.

Examples of Reach-based metrics include: Reach, Frequency, Cost per 1,000 people reached, Average Watch Time per Person, and LIVE Unique Views.

Since Reach-based metrics represent unique actions or people, you cannot simply add these together across groups like ads, ad groups, or campaigns. Otherwise, you risk counting the people and the actions they've taken multiple times. To avoid over-counting these metrics, TikTok Ads Manager will eliminate duplicated actions or people when summing them up; this is known as deduplication.

For example, imagine you want to find the number of people reached in a campaign with three ad groups. Individually, each ad group reached two people, but the campaign only reached a total of four people. So why doesn't the campaign have a total reach of six?

This is because, within the campaign, one person (Ash) was reached in each ad group, and they could only be counted once and were deduplicated from the campaign's total reach.

Reason 2: You are adding metrics using dimensions that identify people

When you analyze metrics using dimensions that identify people by characteristics like Interest, Behavior, or Audience, you need to be aware that people can belong to multiple groups simultaneously. To accommodate this, when the system counts the total number of metrics, the number of users is de-duplicated.

For example, let's say you ran an ad that reached two people, Ash and Charlie, who each clicked your ad once. Now, when you look at clicks by interest tags, it appears like your campaign generated four clicks.

This is because the people who clicked your ad have multiple interest tags. However, the total will only display the ad's actual number of clicks.

This type of logic applies to the Interests, Behaviors, and Audience dimensions.

Reason 3: You are not including deleted campaign elements in your total

Your ad group or ad metrics may not add up to the numbers you see at different levels (for example, Ad Group Level to Campaign Level and Ad Level to Ad Group Level). This could be because your reports do not include data from deleted ad groups or ads.

If you want to include the deleted ad groups or ads, use the Deleted in Ad Group Status / Ad Status in the filter.