- A view-through conversion is attributed to an ad seen but not clicked.
- It almost always overstates the real contribution: some of these conversions would have happened without the exposure.
- To isolate systematically from post-click in any report, or reach false conclusions.
Definition
A view-through conversion is counted when someone converts after seeing an ad, without having clicked on it.
Worked example
A campaign claims 140 conversions, of which 96 view-through and 44 post-click. Presented as a whole, it looks excellent. Isolating only post-click, cost per conversion is three times higher. The truth lies between the two, and only an incrementality test would settle it.
Orders of magnitude
View-through windows vary: one day on Meta by default, up to thirty on some display platforms. The wider the window, the more optimistic the figure.
The most common mistakes
- Adding post-click and view-through without saying so. It's the most common way to inflate a report.
- Comparing two platforms with different view-through windows. The gap measures the settings, not the performance.
- Rejecting them wholesale. A seen ad has a real effect: it's its magnitude that's uncertain, not its existence.
Where to find the metric
In LinkedIn Ads, the View-through conversions column, separate from post-click. In Meta, via the attribution settings, notably the one-day-after-view window. In Google Ads, the View-through conversions column on Display and YouTube.
Frequently asked questions
The Adwise team connects Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, GA4 and Search Console so agencies and freelancers can run their campaigns from a single place.