Back to Portfolio

Reducing API Rate Limit Usage by 80% on TikTok Ads

API EfficiencyPerformanceAPIScalabilityInfrastructure
Reducing API Rate Limit Usage by 80% on TikTok Ads

As customer adoption of Fivetran's TikTok Ads connector grew—particularly among agencies and large enterprises teams—we began hitting API rate limits that degraded sync performance and blocked growth. To meet the demands of our enterprise and strategic customer segments, we needed to significantly reduce our API load and make the connector more scalable.

This case study outlines how I partnered with TikTok's engineering team and led internal performance efforts to reduce API rate limit usage by over 80%, enabling Fivetran to onboard more customers, especially agencies managing multiple ad accounts.

Problem

TikTok's API enforces strict rate limits per OAuth application, which both limited the number of customer accounts we could support under a single app and limited the number of API calls we could make over a period of time. As adoption scaled, especially among agencies with many client accounts, we began seeing:

  • Throttled sync jobs
  • Increased failure rates
  • Performance degradation across high-volume customers
  • Blocked onboarding of new agency clients due to capacity constraints

This became a growth blocker that impacted our ability to serve a key customer segment.

Working With TikTok to Unlock Multi-App Support

I worked directly with TikTok's partner engineering team to design and implement a solution that allowed Fivetran to register and support multiple OAuth applications under the hood. This approach let us distribute load intelligently across different customers, drastically reducing pressure on any single app.

This required:

  • Coordination with TikTok's internal API team
  • Changes to our OAuth flow and connector configuration model
  • An internal framework to support multi-app management
  • Backend support to dynamically route requests by app
  • Testing and rollout planning across staging and production environments

Goals

  • Reduce API rate limit usage across customer accounts
  • Improve sync reliability and support multi-account use cases
  • Enable onboarding of high-volume agency customers
  • Support business-wide objective of expanding Fivetran's strategic ad connector offerings

Solution

To solve the problem, I proposed and led a multi-track initiative:

Multi-OAuth Application Support

  • I collaborated directly with TikTok's partner engineering team to enable Fivetran to register and manage multiple OAuth apps. Internally, this meant redesigning our connector configuration and OAuth flow to intelligently distribute customer accounts across apps.

Backend Routing and Sync Optimization

  • I led a technical audit of our sync logic and worked with engineering to optimize API usage by:
    • Refactoring how we paginated and batched API calls
    • Eliminating redundant requests
    • Aligning our request patterns more closely with TikTok's best practices

Execution

  • Coordinated with TikTok on multi-app registration and API guidance
  • Updated backend routing logic to assign and load-balance OAuth apps per customer
  • Conducted internal testing across sandbox and staging environments
  • Rolled out changes incrementally with monitoring in place to track improvements
  • Collaborated with support and success teams to communicate changes to impacted customers

Results

  • Reduced API rate limit usage by ~80%
  • Significantly improved sync reliability across high-volume customers
  • Unblocked onboarding for new agency customers with large account loads
  • Reduced customer support escalations related to sync delays or failures
  • Strengthened partnership with TikTok and aligned with their platform best practices
  • Supported the broader business strategy of expanding adoption across strategic marketing use cases

Key Takeaways

This project demonstrated how deep technical optimization—when aligned with customer pain and business strategy—can unlock growth. By solving a low-level systems issue, we enabled the company to scale an important connector and improved trust with high-value customers.

It also reinforced the value of external partnerships (in this case, TikTok) and the importance of proactively designing for scale in platform integrations.