About the reach metric

What is reach?

Reach is a metric that represents the number of unique user accounts that were exposed to an ad impression at least once. It provides a way to quantify the number of unique user accounts who had the opportunity to learn about your brand, absorb your message, or complete an action.

What is the difference between reach and impressions?

While reach is looking at unique user accounts, impressions considers every exposure, even if that unique user account has already been exposed before. Frequency represents the average number of times a single user account has been exposed to an ad or campaign and is used to illustrate the relationship between reach and impressions.

What does reach represent on TikTok, specifically?

TikTok's reach reporting gives clients insight into how many users, as measured by user accounts, were exposed to their campaign. It is designed in this way to represent message exposure, and should not be used as a means of measuring population size. Our reach reporting should not be directly compared to third-party audience reporting as the two calculations are based on different methodologies for distinct use cases.

Due to the extensive number of users on TikTok's platform who view advertisements every day, and the speed at which clients need actionable numbers, there is a certain element of sampling that takes place within the system to determine the reach measurement numbers quickly. Because of this sampling, reach numbers are estimated and should not be considered exact. Some reach estimations that look at specific dimensions can include modeling as well. For more information, refer to estimated metrics.

TikTok solutions may evolve as we are constantly innovating.

Are there ever instances where TikTok provides exact reach instead of estimated reach?

Yes, in the reporting for campaigns using the Reach & Frequency buying type, the Frequency Breakdown Report includes the exact reach and not an estimated reach. For more information, refer to estimated metrics.

Will the sum of the reach for my ad groups or creatives equal the total campaign reach?

Typically, the sum of the reach number reported for each ad group will not equal the reach of the total campaign. When looking at a single ad group, reach is answering the question "how many unique user accounts were exposed to this ad group?" When looking at reach for the entire campaign, reach is answering the question "how many unique user accounts were exposed to this campaign across all the ad groups?" If a single user views each ad group once, that will count as 1 unique user account per ad group, and 1 unique user account for the total campaign.

Will the sum of reach for each unique data dimension (e.g. demographic group) equal total campaign reach?

Frequently, the sums of the reach numbers reported for each unique dimension will not equal the reach of the total campaign on TikTok. Due to the extensive number of users on TikTok's platform who view advertisements every day, and the speed at which clients need actionable numbers, there is a certain element of sampling and projection that takes place within the system to create our reach measurement numbers. Because of this small amount of sampling, numbers are not 100% precise and should be used as a close estimate. The model runs for each cut of data/dimension that you are looking to view, and therefore when compared to the total campaign reach, there is a small difference in the totals.

There will be no effect on campaign performance.