Viral views and likes are vanity metrics — they tell you a video got attention, not that anyone wants to buy. The metric that actually predicts revenue is buying intent in the comments: how many viewers are asking where to buy, naming a price they'd pay, or saying "adding to cart". A video with 200K views and a 9.1/10 intent score is worth more to a brand than one with 5M views and dead comments. Here's how to rank TikTok content by intent instead of reach, using the Asgard TikTok API.
Quick answer
- The mistake: optimizing for views, likes, and shares — attention, not purchase.
- The better KPI: a buying-intent score built from the comments (sourcing, urgency, price, specs).
- Why: intent predicts revenue; reach doesn't. High-view videos can convert nothing.
- How: pull comments per video, score intent, and rank your content and creators by intent — not views.
Why views are a garbage KPI for commerce
- Reach ≠ revenue. Entertainment goes viral all the time and sells nothing — attention isn't demand.
- Likes are cheap. A like costs nothing and signals nothing about willingness to pay.
- The algorithm rewards watch time, not intent. What makes a video spread isn't what makes it sell.
- Vanity metrics hide your best content. A "smaller" video packed with "where do I buy this" is your real winner — and views bury it.
What a buying-intent score actually measures
Instead of reach, you score the comments. A strong intent signal looks like:
- Purchase urgency. "Sold! Sold! Sold!", "adding to cart", "need this immediately" — ready to buy now.
- Where-to-buy / sourcing. "Make a list, I'll copy-paste and buy all", "where did you get the baskets?" — active purchase attempts.
- Product specs. Detailed questions = serious consideration, not idle scrolling.
- Shipping / availability friction. "Can't find them on Amazon UK?" — demand blocked only by logistics.
Takeaway: roll these into one 0–10 score per video and you can finally compare content by how much it actually drives buying — a video at 44% high-intent comments is a different animal from one at 4%.
How ranking by intent changes your strategy
- Double down on what sells. Make more of the format and products that produce high-intent comments, not just high views.
- Pick creators by intent, not follower count. A mid-size creator whose comments beg to buy beats a mega-creator with dead engagement.
- Brief creators to trigger intent. Clear product focus and a call to action produce sourcing and urgency comments.
- Report on intent to leadership. "9.1/10 intent, 89 high-intent comments" is a revenue story; "5M views" isn't.
- Kill vanity spend. Stop boosting high-reach, low-intent videos that don't move product.
How to measure it with Asgard
- Collect the videos. Use the hashtag, search, or video endpoints to gather your brand's and competitors' content.
- Pull every comment. Call the comments endpoint for each video.
- Score intent. Classify comments (urgency, sourcing, price, specs, friction) and compute a buying-intent score per video.
- Rank the content. Sort videos and creators by intent score and high-intent comment share, not views.
- Reallocate. Invest in the formats, products, and creators that top the intent ranking.
Frequently asked questions
Are TikTok views a good metric for brands? No — views measure attention, not purchase intent. A high-view video can convert nothing. Ranking by buying intent in the comments predicts revenue far better.
What is a TikTok buying-intent score? A 0–10 score built by classifying comments (urgency, sourcing, price, specs, friction) to measure how strongly viewers want to buy — a commerce KPI, not a reach one.
How do I rank videos by intent? Pull comments per video with the Asgard TikTok API, score intent across them, and sort content and creators by intent instead of views.
Should I pick influencers by follower count? No — pick by the buying intent their comments show. A smaller creator with high-intent comments can drive more sales than a mega-creator with dead engagement.
Related reading
- What TikTok comment sections tell brands about buying intent
- Every "where can I buy this?" TikTok comment is a lost sale
- TikTok Data Scraping API
Rank your content by what actually sells:
☞ Asgard TikTok API · docs at asgardata.com