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Match rate: how many of your events a platform can tie to a real user

Match rate is the share of sent events that TikTok (or Meta) successfully matched to a real user profile - the quality metric of server-side delivery.

Match rate

Match rate is the share of events you send that the ad platform successfully tied to a real user profile. Every event goes through matching: the platform tries to connect it to a person using the identifiers in the payload — click ID, cookie, hashed email or phone. The events that fail matching are delivered but stay anonymous to the platform, so they contribute less to optimisation and attribution.

What moves match rate

The strongest identifier is the platform's own click ID (ttclid on TikTok, fbclid on Meta) passed through the tracker's postback. Beyond that, hashed email and phone help, provided the hashing matches the platform's specification — double-hashed or raw values are silently discarded. Browser events add cookie-based identifiers that server events alone lack.

How to read the metric

Meta grades matching per event as Event Match Quality (EMQ), TikTok reports matching in its Events Manager diagnostics. A low rate usually means missing click ID passthrough, wrong hashing, or events fired without any user data — each fixable at the delivery layer without touching the campaigns.

Sources

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Related concepts

Concept

Server-side tracking: delivering conversions from your infrastructure

Server-side tracking sends conversion events from your server (or tracker) directly to ad platforms, instead of relying on browser tags and cookies.

Concept

Offline conversion: the conversion no browser pixel ever sees

An offline conversion happens outside the tracked web or app session - an in-store purchase, a CRM deal, a phone order. Platforms accept them through server channels, with longer delivery windows than web events.

Concept

Match key: the identifiers that tie a server event to a real user

A match key is an identifier in an event payload - click ID, hashed email or phone, IP with user agent, mobile ad ID - that lets the ad platform tie the event to a real profile. Snapchat rejects events without one.

Concept

Standard events: Meta's fixed vocabulary for conversion actions

Standard events are Meta's predefined event names - Purchase, Lead, InitiateCheckout and others - that its optimisation and reporting understand out of the box.

Concept

Events API: TikTok's server-side interface for conversion events

The Events API is TikTok's interface for sending conversion events from your server, complementing the TikTok Pixel where browser tracking is lost.

Concept

Event Quality Score: how platforms grade the completeness of your events

An event quality score is the platform's grade of how complete an event payload is: Meta's Event Match Quality runs 0-10, Pinterest targets a "Good" EQS, Reddit and Snapchat surface warnings in their test views.