Of all the concerns marketers may (or may not) have about TikTok right now, the pixel isn’t one of them

By Seb Joseph

Marketers have a lot on their minds when it comes to TikTok these days, from the geopolitical tensions over the app’s supposed ties to the Chinese government to whether they should be funding some of the content on it.

One area they’re not worried about is the pixel, the bit of TikTok code that a marketer places on their site to track whether any of its visitors came from the app, and subsequently what they did once they got there.

It just isn’t a concern for many marketers right now, said Avi Ben-Zvi, vp of paid social at Tinuiti. “They [advertisers] buy into what TikTok is selling in terms of privacy,” he continued. “Their concerns are more centered around, is there a contingency plan in place in case a ban should happen, because TikTok has become paramount to their paid media.”

Normally, a comment like this would’ve been far from contrarian. But these aren’t normal times. TikTok’s data security processes are in the spotlight — given governments’ moves to ban the app, including from government devices, due to security concerns. And CEO Shou Zi Chew in last week’s Congressional hearing wasn’t really able to give any hard guarantees that the app had the necessary safeguards in place to prevent something from going wrong in the future.

And yet marketers aren’t in a tizzy about it. If anything, they’re pragmatic about the current situation. It reminded them that they have a role to play in making an educated decision on what they’re willing to trade off when it comes to privacy versus the value of tools like a pixel. And that’s fine for a lot of marketers. So far, the pixel works in the way it’s supposed to. Marketers haven’t seen evidence of any malfeasance

“I think it’s being blown up as most things are,” said Kaela Green, vp of paid social at Basis Technologies. “I haven’t seen any brands really concerned about the pixel.”

Another marketer who was not authorized to speak to Digiday said something similar: “No concerns about the pixel on our end being discussed so far.”

Furthermore, Tinuit’s Ben-Zvi also noted that while the majority of his agency’s social roster is on TikTok now, nobody’s been talking about pulling the pixel. And he’s not heard any concerns about putting it on either.

That’s not to say marketers like this are lax on the pixel. On the contrary, they asked questions; they knew the use of the pixel could become a vector to massive violation of personal privacy if not properly managed. But more often than not they got those assurances from TikTok from the outset in 2019.

“The concern around pixels in general has usually been from a consumer [data privacy] perspective, but that’s already started to change tremendously because of things like iOS 14, and the type of data that can be collected is nowhere near the level it was in 2019,” said Ben-Zvi. “So the level of consumer data that’s being housed by these pixels is actually less.”

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Source:: Digiday