Measurement Isn’t a Report Card: In The Know with TikTok’s Ann Nguyen
In the Know is a series that spotlights industry leaders sharing the ideas, strategies, and real-world insights driving meaningful impact in market. InMarket sat down with Ann Nguyen, TikTok’s Global Head of Measurement Solutions, at Cannes 2026 to talk about operationalizing measurement, the limits of “perfect” data, and what it actually takes to turn signals into decisions. These key themes stood out:
The most successful advertisers run Store Visits and Sales Lift together.
Asked for an example of what’s working for brands right now, Ann didn’t point to a single metric; she pointed to a pairing. The brands seeing the strongest results run store visit lift and sales lift studies simultaneously, rather than waiting on one signal at a time.
Store visits help you identify how effective media is today at driving foot traffic, and sales lift helps you understand how that foot traffic actually becomes incremental sales.
Running both side by side lets teams read directional results in real time and move with confidence that a slower-moving marketing mix model (MMM) will eventually tell the same story. Ann called out InMarket’s Visit Lift and Sales Lift solutions specifically as the kind of pairing that makes this possible.
Measurement has to earn its keep, not just keep score.
Asked what’s top of mind for clients right now, Ann pointed to a shift from proving marketing works to embedding measurement directly into how brands make decisions, what her team calls operationalizing measurement.
Measurement needs to prove that marketing works. But beyond that, measurement also needs to be embedded in how clients make decisions financial cycles, financial decisions, end-to-end.
As she put it, most of the work isn’t the model itself; it’s the “so what”: translating media metrics into the systems and cadence where budget and strategy decisions actually get made.
Built from both sides of the measurement equation.
Ann’s path to TikTok runs through a decade on the client side building marketing analytics teams, followed by senior product marketing leadership on the platform side. Now nearly three years into her role as TikTok’s Global Head of Measurement Solutions, that dual vantage point still shapes how she runs things: her team acts as the voice of the customer to product, and the voice of product back to customers, helping translate core advertiser challenges into features and then helping clients actually use them.
It’s easy to be the voice of the customer when you’ve been the customer. And building the right products is only half of it; it’s just as important to help clients understand how to use them to make decisions.
Measurement isn’t a report card.
Asked for the one insight every leader needs to act on, Ann’s answer doubled as her go-to line:
Measurement isn’t a report card. It has to reflect the business reality of how and when companies actually make decisions.
It’s a reminder that measurement’s job was never to hand back a perfect score; it’s to hold up as proof a business can act on, delivered fast enough to matter.
How that shows up in the work
InMarket and TikTok already put that instinct to work together. Through InMarket’s Visit Lift and Sales Lift solutions, TikTok advertisers get closed-loop measurement connecting campaigns directly to store visits and sales work TikTok for Business honored this year with its Innovation in Measurement (Lift) award at its inaugural Global Partner Summit. It’s a real-world example of what InMarket’s Outcome Intelligence is built to deliver everywhere: proof, not a stand-in for it, fast enough for brands to act on.
Watch the full conversation from Cannes 2026 here, and connect with our team to see how InMarket can help you build custom, outcome-driven measurement for your brand. Get in touch at InMarket.com/Contact.