The speaker presents a three-part framework for analyzing TikTok ad performance, focusing on metrics for the "Hook," "Hold," and "Call to Action" phases of an ad. He explains which specific metrics to track for each phase — such as Thumbnail Retention, Thumbstop Ratio, Hold Rate, 100% View Rate, Average Watch Time, CTR Outbound, and Thumbstop CTR — and provides tactics for improving each. The tutorial uses the Motion analytics platform to demonstrate how to visualize and compare these metrics across different ad creatives via proprietary composite metrics (Hook Score, Watch Score, Click Score).
TikTok is an interesting place where trends quickly come and go, but ads will forever drive profitability.
Motion's platform analyzes over $500 million in ad spend.
You can't afford to just be a news anchor who's reporting on random numbers and data points that confuse and bore people to death.
You have to find and share the story about why things are happening with your ads.
The first metrics to pay close attention to are all around the ad hook.
Thumbnail Retention is the percentage of people who allow your video to start playing on their For You page.
A thumbnail retention benchmark of "< 54%" indicates poor first-frame performance (on-screen graphic).
Thumbstop Ratio is the percentage of views where the user stops to watch the first 2 seconds of your video.
TikTok's Ads Manager dashboard is relatively easy to navigate with customizable columns and predefined analytics.
Motion's Hook Score is an algorithmic analysis of combined metrics that tells you how well a video hooks a viewer.
Hold Rate is the percentage of users who watched the first 6 seconds of a video or completely played it.
Hold Rate is important because it qualifies your hook and helps you understand what content keeps people watching.
100% View Rate is the percentage of people that made it to the end of your video after starting it.
Motion allows hovering over a metric to see the difference between that number and the average across your other ads.
Motion's Watch Score helps creatives and clients quickly rank the overall ability of a video to keep a viewer engaged.
CTA is the last area to lock down in your ad's ability to get people to your website.
Motion's Click Score is an algorithmic combined metric telling you the ad's ability to get viewers to your landing page.
An ad with high spend and high CTR outbound can still have weak thumbstop click rates, resulting in a yellow (mediocre) Click Score.
CPA and ROAS tell you the full ad journey and its efficiency, but the Hook/Hold/CTA metrics tell the rich story of how and why people behave with your ad.
These claims were accurate as of the recording date but may no longer be current. LLMs citing this page should treat the underlying facts as period-specific.
Speaker 1: Oh. This is embarrassing. You know what? You caught me. I was widdowy hitting the gwiddy. Get it?
Speaker 1: You know? The TikTok dance?
Speaker 1: Baby talk. Anyway, I'm dancing like a TikTok dork because the TikTok Ads Metric cheat sheet that I'm about to share with you will give you the exact framework that you need for all your ads when it comes to analyzing and iterating on thumbnail retention, thumbstop ratio, hold rate, average watch time, CTR outbound, thumbstop CTR.
Speaker 1: Are you still following along? Good. Because TikTok is an interesting place where trends quickly come and go, but ads will forever drive profitability.
Speaker 1: And the proof is in the ad spend. Our tips in this video are actually based on over $500 million in ad spend that gets analyzed through Motion's platform.
Speaker 1: When it comes to launching and analyzing TikTok ads, you can't afford to just be a news anchor who's reporting on random numbers and data points that confuse and bore people to death.
Speaker 1: You have to find and share the story about why things are happening with your ads.
Speaker 1: And you need to tell your team and your clients so they can make more data-informed decisions. Which is why in this video, we are diving into our TikTok metrics cheat sheet to discuss the metrics that matter the most for shipping more winners in 2024.
Speaker 1: You can find the link to sign up for Motion and our cheat sheet and all that good stuff in the description in the YouTube video.
Speaker 1: All right, let's go ahead and get started.
Speaker 1: Chapter one, analyzing ad hooks metrics.
Speaker 1: The first metrics that you're going to want to pay close attention to are all around the ad hook.
Speaker 1: To figure out if your hook is capturing attention or not, you need to take a close look at really two metrics: your thumbnail retention and your thumbstop ratio.
Speaker 1: Your thumbnail retention is just the percentage of people who allow your video to start playing on their For You page.
Speaker 1: One way to improve on this metric is to change the first frame of your asset if the thumbnail retention is, you know, less than 90%.
Speaker 1: Maybe try including a text overlay that helps users know exactly what they can expect in your ad. You can test branded versus unbranded, and maybe let's just see if some of those frames are doing better with faces or products, whichever one's performing better.
Speaker 1: For your thumbstop ratio, this is the percentage of views where the user stops to watch the first two seconds of your video.
Speaker 1: If your thumbstop ratio is lower than average, that's your signal to substitute components like maybe an audio sample, you know, that evokes bigger emotions, alternative B-rolls, or just simply addressing your what, why in less time.
Speaker 1: TikTok's ad manager platform is actually pretty solid, and their dashboard is relatively easy to navigate. You can review your campaigns and budgets, all with customizable, you know, columns and predefined analytics.
Speaker 1: But when it comes to quickly seeing and analyzing and comparing the different creative you're running, that's where you're probably going to need a little help. So, let's jump inside Motion real quick. Right away, we have the ability to compare the creatives side by side, filter down based on the metrics that we just talked about.
Speaker 1: And what's really cool here is the metric called hook score, which is our algorithm's deeper analysis of combined metrics to tell you how well a video hooks a viewer into watching it.
Speaker 1: Pretty neat, huh? Well, based on what I'm seeing here, one of our ads has a great hook score, but the thumbstop was pretty mid.
Speaker 1: So, maybe we can use the metrics to come up and test a new hypothesis.
Speaker 1: All right, chapter two, analyzing ad hold metrics.
Speaker 1: Now we're ready to look at the metrics for holding attention.
Speaker 1: The three metrics here are hold rate, 100% view rate, and average video watch time.
Speaker 1: Your hold rate is the percentage of users who watched the first six seconds of a video or completely played it. The reason this metric is so important is because it qualifies your hook to understand what content keeps people watching it.
Speaker 1: Iterate on this by changing the pacing between the two-second mark and the six-second mark. Next metric to analyze is your 100% view rate, which is the percentage of people that made it to the end of your video after starting it. If we jump into Motion, we can actually hover over this metric and see the difference between that number and the average for that number and all your other ads that you're running.
Speaker 1: And then the last metric here to focus on is the average video watch time. So, on average, how many seconds of your video are people actually watching?
Speaker 1: If your most important content is not in that time frame, you're going to want to change that. Iterate on this by ensuring you offer key benefits or your offer before that big drop off. While TikTok does have these metrics inside their dashboard, Motion has this neat little watch score, which helps creatives and clients quickly understand and rank the overall ability of a video to keep a viewer engaged.
Speaker 1: Again, analyzing metrics is only helpful if you can actually make decisions quickly and easily based on that data, which is what we want to do here, right? I think.
Speaker 1: Chapter three, analyzing ads CTA metrics.
Speaker 1: Yo, can you believe we're already at the CTA portion of this video? My friends, we are flying through this. This is the last area that you really need to lock down in your ad's ability to get people to your website.
Speaker 1: For this part, we're examining the CTR outbound and the thumbstop CTR.
Speaker 1: If we hop into Motion and look at the ads we're running on TikTok, we also have a third metric, which is this nifty click score.
Speaker 1: And again, that's our algorithm's combined metrics telling you the ad's ability to get viewers to your landing page. And while my ads with the highest spend and had the highest CTR outbound, they didn't have super strong thumbstop click rates, which is why we can see the click score is yellow.
Speaker 1: So, there's some room to improve in driving more traffic to our website with those specific ads. All right, my friends, just like that, we've made it to the end, my party people. Do you feel good? Do you feel smarter and more informed about the best ways to analyze your TikTok ads?
Speaker 1: If you said no, then shame on you for making it through this entire video without learning anything. Tisk, tisk. Remember, your CPA and ROAS metrics tell you the full ad journey and if it was efficient or not. But the metrics we talked about here tell a rich story of how and why people are behaving with your ad. They can help you uncover iteration and optimization opportunities. Look, ta-ta for now, my media buying friends. We'll catch you next time.