David Bridges
Latest Update: TikTok has officially informed Social Media Today (SMT) that the new user tracking feature is not yet live in the TikTok Ads Manager, and this information has not been communicated to advertising partners at this time.
TikTok has provided a statement regarding its Engaged Session test:
“We constantly experiment with a range of features and tests to gather community feedback and learn from our users, and not all tests evolve into final products.”
While the platform is exploring this option, it is currently not available for general use.
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TikTok is currently testing an innovative user tracking option, specifically designed to assist brands in measuring user activity outside the app without relying on traditional tracking pixels.
This initiative, given the past controversies surrounding TikTok’s tracking of user activity without explicit consent, may appear somewhat risky. However, the intention behind this feature is to provide advertisers with more comprehensive data, enabling them to understand how their TikTok promotions translate into tangible product engagement and sales.
As reported by AdWeek, TikTok has been collaborating with select partners on a new feature known as “Engaged Session,” which will empower advertisers to effectively target users who spend a minimum of 10 seconds on a website or retailer landing page after clicking on an ad.
According to AdWeek:
“TikTok asserts that this new tool is designed to ‘attract high-intent users to your website’ while providing valuable insights into engagement metrics such as Total Engaged Sessions and Cost per Engaged Session, metrics that closely align with third-party analytics services like Google and Adobe Analytics.”
The rationale is that these users have already shown significant interest in your products by clicking through, indicating a higher likelihood of making a purchase. They may just require an additional prompt to proceed, and this new option could facilitate that process.
However, it’s important to note that this approach poses a slight risk for TikTok regarding user behavior tracking. Various reports have indicated that TikTok may track more user actions than other applications, while some users remain convinced that TikTok is exceeding acceptable limits in its data collection practices from user devices.
Implementing ad targeting based on this data could raise concerns among some users, yet it is relatively harmless, as it only utilizes basic information for retargeting purposes.
If this feature becomes widely available, the Engaged Session option would be integrated under TikTok’s “Traffic” objective, allowing all TikTok ad placements to utilize it.
As previously mentioned, TikTok is currently in the testing phase of this feature, with no plans for a broader rollout at this time.
Troy Sanders
Ivy Caldwell
