If a platform update suddenly makes your display or video campaigns look more profitable, check the view-through conversion settings before celebrating. Sales may not have changed at all — the credit rules did.
That warning sits at the center of PPC Land’s deep dive into view-through conversions, one of digital advertising’s longest-running measurement debates.
What view-through credit really means
A view-through conversion is a goal — a purchase, sign-up or install — attributed to an ad impression rather than a click. The person sees a banner or video, leaves without clicking, and later converts through another path, such as a branded search. If that action falls inside the platform’s lookback window and no higher-priority interaction claims it, the platform records the conversion against the ad.
The metric exists because most display and video ads are never clicked. comScore research presented by Gian Fulgoni in 2008 found that two-thirds of internet users clicked no display ad at all in a month, and 16 per cent of users generated 80 per cent of clicks. Click-only measurement simply missed most of the channel’s possible effect.
Why one campaign reports differently everywhere
Platforms match impressions to conversions using cookies, device identifiers or signed-in accounts. A ranking then decides which activity gets credit — and clicks almost always beat views. Google’s Demand Gen documentation, for example, ranks clicks first, engaged views second and impressions last. OpenAI gives clicks precedence, and Apple’s SKAdNetwork sorts click-through ahead of view-through directly on the device.
The details diverge fast:
- Definition of “seen”: Google App campaigns require at least 50 per cent of pixels on screen for one second, or two seconds of video. Demand Gen counts a view when just one pixel appears for any time. Amazon uses the Media Rating Council standard of 50 per cent in view for one second.
- Windows: Google Ads defaults to a one-day view-through window, adjustable up to 30 days. Meta moved to one-day view in January 2021. OpenAI launched with a one-day lock. Amazon counted views for 14 days until January 2026.
- Reporting placement: Google Ads keeps view-through conversions out of the main Conversions column unless optimization makes them biddable in Performance Max store goals, App campaigns or Demand Gen.
A simple example from the explainer: with a one-day window, a banner served Monday at 09:00 can claim a Tuesday 08:00 purchase if no click occurred. The same purchase on Wednesday gets nothing. If a search click happened first, the click gets credit and the banner receives zero.
What changed in 2026
The ground is moving fast. Amazon applied shopping-signal enhanced attribution to view-based store campaigns on January 1. Meta’s Ads Insights API removed 7-day and 28-day view windows on January 12. Google Analytics replaced its fixed three-day engaged-view window with a 1-to-30-day range on August 11. ChatGPT Ads added view-through reporting on August 18-19, kept it out of bidding and billing initially, then signaled an impression-billed campaign type that optimizes through view-through conversions.
Use it as a signal, not a verdict
View-through credit flows into ROAS, CPA and automated bidding. For prospecting display and video, it may be the only platform-reported evidence of sales effect. But exposure preceding an action does not prove the ad caused it. Google’s Demand Gen documentation concedes that view-through optimization does not directly target incrementality. Meta ranks lift testing above attributed sales. Practitioners in July 2025 called view-through credit a main driver of inflated Meta ROAS, and cookie bombing remains a known way to harvest cheap credit.
Patrick Wyatt of Criteo famously called the opposite view “a common though misguided belief.” Smart teams treat view-through numbers as directional, run holdout or lift studies, and normalize windows before comparing platforms.
Source: PPC Land
