What is View-through conversion in advertising?

View-through conversion (VTC): what it means in advertising

Definition

A view-through conversion is credited when someone is shown your ad, does not click it, and converts later within the view window. Meta commonly defaults to a 1-day view window. It is the most generous form of attribution in common use, because the only evidence connecting the ad to the sale is that the ad was served.

What to know

Impressions are cheap and delivered at enormous volume, so any channel counting view-throughs will claim more conversions than one counting clicks alone. Comparing two platforms without checking whether both include view-throughs produces a meaningless comparison.

View-throughs are not worthless, they are unproven. The only way to learn what a viewed impression was worth is a holdout test, which is why display and video budgets are the ones most worth testing for incrementality.

Related terms

Attribution windowAn attribution window is the period after seeing or clicking an ad during which a conversion is still credited...Conversion windowA conversion window is the length of time after an ad interaction during which a conversion is still counted f...IncrementalityIncrementality is the share of conversions that genuinely happened because of advertising, rather than convers...ImpressionsAn impression is one instance of your ad being served. Impressions count deliveries, not people: the same pers...

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