Creators and accounts

A creator is a person or brand. An account is one of their presences on a platform. Add a creator, give them one or more accounts, and trackagoat tracks every account's posts and stats. This page covers adding them, choosing which posts count, and what to do when an account goes private or stops updating.

The model: creators own accounts#

A single creator can have:

• A TikTok account
• An Instagram account
• More than one account on the same platform (for example, a main and a backup TikTok)

That lets you track someone's whole footprint under one creator and see their combined performance.

Adding a creator#

In your project, go to Creators → Add creator and add one or more accounts by:

• Profile URL: the platform is detected automatically (https://www.tiktok.com/@username, https://www.instagram.com/username/). See accepted links below.
• Handle: pick the platform, then enter @username or username.

trackagoat starts a first update for each account straight away. The first stats usually appear within a few minutes.

Adding an account#

On any creator, click Add account and paste a profile URL or handle:

• TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@username or @username
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/username/ or @username

Accepted profile links#

Paste the link straight from the app or browser. Query strings (?hl=en, ?igsh=…), a trailing slash, www./m. and a missing https:// are all fine.

Handles are saved without the @ and in lowercase, so @SomeUser and someuser are the same account. A link to a post, reel or video is rejected: paste the account's profile link or handle instead.

Discovery, stats and analytics then work the same way on every platform. See Instagram for what Instagram exposes.

Combined and per-account stats#

Every creator page defaults to the creator's combined performance across all their accounts: followers, views and posting cadence summed across platforms. An account switcher in the header filters any tab down to one account or platform. When a creator has two accounts on one platform, the switcher shows each handle.

A creator's header shows a primary handle: their TikTok account's handle if they have one, otherwise the earliest-added account's. The API returns it as the creator's top-level handle.

Creator-level stats (followers, likes, video count) are the sum across the creator's accounts.

The Accounts tab#

The Accounts tab (under Tracking in the sidebar) lists every platform account across your creators, with its platform, creator, follower count, tracked-video count, tracking mode, last update and status. Filter by platform or search by handle.

Select an account to open its page: its own stats, data freshness, a link to its creator, a link to the live profile, and the videos tracked for it. Instagram doesn't expose a total-likes figure, so Total Likes shows Not available there.

Plan limits count accounts#

A creator on its own costs nothing to track, so plan limits count accounts (the thing that gets updated), not creators. Add as many creators as you like. See Plans and limits.

Tracking modes#

Each account has a tracking mode that determines how newly discovered videos from that account enter the system. There are three modes.

Change tracking mode in the Settings section of the creator's Info tab. That section edits the creator's primary account. Each account has its own mode; to set a different mode on another account, use PATCH /api/v2/accounts/{id}.

Use Selective mode when you want to curate which of an account's videos count toward your program: for example, if a creator posts off-topic content you don't want in your campaign stats.

Hashtag mode#

Hashtag mode automates that curation. Define a list of hashtags, and any newly discovered video whose caption includes one of them is tracked automatically: no manual review.

This fits the common case where a creator posts both sponsored and personal content, and only posts carrying your campaign tag should count.

Configuring it:

1. Set the account's tracking mode to Hashtag.
2. Add one or more hashtags (up to 50, each up to 100 characters). Type or paste them, pressing Enter or comma between each. The leading # is optional and case doesn't matter: #Summer2026, Summer2026, and summer2026 are all stored the same way.
3. Choose what happens to everything else with Send non-matching videos to the Tracking Inbox:
   • On (default), non-matching videos land in the Inbox as pending_review, so you can still pull one in manually.
   • Off: non-matching videos are marked excluded immediately. They're still recorded and visible under Show excluded in the Inbox, but never counted in stats.

How matching works:

• Matching runs on the video's caption, and only on true hashtag tokens. Tracking ad matches #ad but not the word "already" and not #advertisement.
• A video matches if it contains any one of your tracked hashtags.
• Matching works the same way on TikTok and Instagram.

Two things hashtag mode does not do:

• Editing your hashtag list does not re-classify videos you've already discovered. The list applies to videos found after the change. This is deliberate: re-running the rules would overwrite approve/exclude decisions your team already made.
• For the same reason, a video that landed in the Inbox because its caption was missing stays there even if a later scrape fills the caption in. Approve it from the Inbox.

Creator detail tabs#

History on the Info tab is the creator's change log. It records automatic events: added to, removed from or re-added to tracking; deactivated and reactivated, with the choices made and the reason; re-enabled after an auto-disable; auto-disabled; account went private or public; tracking mode and tracking date changes; handle, display name, bio and avatar changes; campaign additions and removals; and follower, likes and video milestones.

To remove a creator, use Delete Creator in the ⋯ menu on the creator page. Their stats history is kept. To pause a creator and keep the option to bring them back, deactivate them instead. See Deactivating creators and accounts.

README#

Every creator has a README on the Info tab: a markdown editor for your team's context. Use it for:

• Creator background, niche, and content focus
• Relationship history and contact notes
• Known issues (e.g. "tends to post late on Mondays")
• Instructions for AI agents analyzing this creator

The README is the readme field on creator objects in the API. Agents read it before they act and add their findings to it as a dated, signed section, without overwriting what you wrote. See Notes and documents.

Tracking start date#

Each account has a tracking start date that sets the lower bound for that account's stats history displayed in charts. If you added a creator mid-program, set this date to the program start so charts aren't misleading. Set it in the Settings section of the creator's Info tab (it edits the primary account), or per account through the API.

Private accounts#

When a tracked account switches to private, it becomes the quietest kind of problem: its profile still updates (follower counts stay public), so nothing fails and nothing is auto-disabled, but no new post is ever discovered. Left unflagged, the creator simply reads as someone who stopped posting.

trackagoat detects the switch on the next profile update and:

• Marks the account with a Private badge on the creator page, the creators list, the accounts list and the account page. Hover it to see when it went private and what stops working.
• Sends org admins an Account went private notification.
• Raises an alert on Program Health listing every private account in the project.

While an account is private:

• New posts can't be discovered
• View and engagement counts stop updating
• Posting goals read as missed, because the posts aren't visible to us
• Goal and CPM payout periods hold, waiting for post data that can't arrive

The account stays tracked; nothing is disabled or deleted. Ask the creator to switch back to a public account; detection is automatic in both directions, and when it reopens you'll get an Account is public again notification, the badge clears, and we backfill the posts we can still reach.

Auto-disabled creators#

If an account fails 5 consecutive profile updates: usually because the handle was deleted or renamed: trackagoat automatically auto-disables it. A private account is never counted as a failure (see Private accounts). An auto-disabled account stops being updated so quota isn't wasted on a handle that may be gone, and is shown with an Auto-Disabled badge.

You can review auto-disabled creators on the Auto-Disabled Creators page (reachable from the creators list filter) or via the Tracking Gaps / Update Failures watchlists on Program Health.

To bring a creator back, an org admin clicks Re-enable. Re-enabling resets the failure counter and resumes updates. A 24-hour cooldown applies per creator: if a creator was re-enabled within the last 24 hours, you'll need to wait before re-enabling again. You can re-enable creators individually or in bulk.

Auto-disabling is done by trackagoat and is separate from deactivating, which an org admin chooses. See Deactivating creators and accounts.

When a creator changes their handle#

TikTok and Instagram give every account a permanent user ID that stays the same when the handle changes. trackagoat records it the first time it reads an account's profile, and uses it to follow a creator through a rename:

• If an update finds one of the account's posts now listed under a new handle by the same user, the account is renamed to the new handle. Its posts, history, goals and payouts stay where they are, it is re-enabled if it had been auto-disabled, and the creator's History shows handle changed (detected automatically).
• If you add the new handle as a separate account before that happens, trackagoat notices that both handles belong to the same user and flags it to our team, who merge the two accounts so the creator's posts and payout history are back in one place. Nothing is merged without review.
• If an old handle is taken over by someone else, trackagoat does not copy the new owner's stats onto the account. It is treated as a failed update instead, and the account is auto-disabled after 5 of them if no rename is found.

To fix a rename yourself, edit the handle on the account page instead of adding the new handle as a new account or creator.

Deactivating a creator or account#

Org admins can deactivate a creator, or just one of their accounts, to pause it without removing it. trackagoat stops looking for new posts and updating the profile, and hides it from your active lists, but keeps its goals, payout assignments and campaigns. You choose whether its videos keep updating, freeze with their current numbers, or stop counting, and, if the creator has payout structures assigned, whether their payouts pause or keep running. Deactivated accounts don't count toward your plan's account limit. Reactivate it at any time, as long as you have room under the limit. See Deactivating creators and accounts.

Removing a creator#

Related#

• Instagram
• Videos
• Inbox: approving posts
• Data freshness and scraping