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15 min read
The creative is compelling, and the ads are generating millions of impressions. Yet, when you look at your Google Ads dashboard, the click-through rate is low, and the number of direct conversions is minimal.
Simul Sarker
CEO of DataCops
Last Updated
December 10, 2025
The Scenario: You have just launched new YouTube video campaign and programmatic display campaign to build awareness for upcoming product launch. Creative is compelling, and ads are generating millions of impressions. Yet, when you look at your Google Ads dashboard, click-through rate is low, and number of direct conversions is minimal. Your immediate instinct might be to question campaign's effectiveness and consider reallocating budget to your high-performing search campaigns.
The Question: But what if those display and video ads are working exactly as intended? What if they are successfully planting seed of awareness in minds of thousands of potential customers who, days later, remember your brand and navigate directly to your site or search for you on Google?
The Reality: This "billboard effect" is real, powerful, and completely invisible if you are only measuring one thing: clicks.
The Critical Distinction: This brings us to fundamental distinction in performance measurement: click-through attribution versus view-through attribution. Understanding difference between these two metrics is not merely academic exercise. It is essential for accurately valuing your marketing channels, justifying your budget, and building truly holistic advertising strategy.
This Article: Will dissect both concepts, explain their strategic importance, explore modern challenges that make tracking them difficult, and reveal how first-party data foundation is critical to seeing complete picture.
At first glance, difference seems simple, but implications of each are profound.
They represent two fundamentally different ways user can interact with your advertising and two different signals of intent.
Click-through conversion is most straightforward and widely understood form of attribution.
Definition:
Click-through conversion (CTC) is conversion that is credited to ad that user actively clicked on before completing desired action (e.g., making purchase, filling out form).
How It Is Tracked:
Process is direct and causal.
When user clicks ad:
Unique identifier (like Google's gclid parameter) is appended to destination URL
This identifier is stored in first-party cookie on user's browser
When user converts, analytics tag on your site reads this cookie
Reports conversion back to ad platform, linking it directly to specific ad click
Example:
User searches for "noise cancelling headphones" on Google.
Journey:
They click on your Shopping ad
Taken to your product page
Purchase headphones in same session
That sale is click-through conversion.
Why It Is Important:
CTCs are bedrock of direct response advertising.
User's click is explicit signal of intent.
Connection between ad and conversion is unambiguous, making it reliable metric for calculating:
Direct Cost Per Acquisition (CPA)
Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)
For channels like Search, where user intent is high, CTCs are primary measure of success.
View-through conversion is more nuanced and often misunderstood metric that measures influence of ad, not just its direct response.
Definition:
View-through conversion (VTC) is conversion that occurs after user has seen ad (an impression) but did not click on it.
User then converts later by taking different path:
Visiting your website directly
Finding you through organic search
How It Is Tracked:
Historically, this has relied on third-party cookies.
Process:
When display or video ad is served and meets viewability criteria (e.g., 50% of pixels on screen for at least one second), impression pixel fires
Attempts to drop cookie on user's browser
If that same user later converts on your site without having clicked one of your ads in interim, your analytics can identify impression cookie
Credits conversion as VTC
This credit is only applied within specific time frame, known as "view-through window," typically between 1 and 30 days.
Example:
User is watching videos on YouTube and sees 15-second, non-skippable ad for new meal delivery service.
Journey:
They do not click ad
Next day, they remember brand name
Type it directly into their browser
Sign up for trial
This would be counted as view-through conversion for YouTube campaign.
Why It Is Important:
VTCs are absolutely critical for measuring value of brand awareness campaigns and visual ad formats.
Channels like Google Display Network, YouTube, and paid social media are not always designed to generate immediate clicks.
Their primary job is often to:
Build brand recall
Influence future consideration
Ignoring VTCs leads to dangerous and incorrect conclusion that these top-of-funnel channels are not working.
Relying solely on click-through conversions is like trying to judge movie by only counting number of people who clapped at end.
You miss entire emotional journey that led to that applause.
In marketing, click-only worldview creates dangerously biased picture of performance and leads to flawed strategic decisions.
When you only value clicks, you inherently favor channels where clicking is dominant user behavior.
This means:
Search campaigns will almost always look like your most valuable channel
Channels where users are in passive consumption mindset (watching videos, browsing social media) will look like failures
This leads to classic and costly mistake:
Marketer sees low click-through rate on YouTube campaign and high ROAS on branded search campaign.
They logically conclude they should:
Cut YouTube budget
Pour more money into branded search
What they fail to realize:
YouTube campaign is very thing creating branded search demand in first place.
By cutting top-of-funnel awareness driver:
They eventually starve bottom-of-funnel channel
Overall performance declines
Quote from David Ogilvy, legendary advertising executive:
"I do not regard advertising as entertainment or an art form, but as a medium of information."
For display and video ads:
That information is often delivered passively, through impression
Value is in viewing, not necessarily clicking
VTCs are our attempt to measure impact of that information transfer.
Imagine physical billboard on highway.
No one can "click" billboard, yet it is responsible for driving countless customers to store or restaurant.
View-through conversions are digital equivalent of this billboard effect.
1. Quantifying Brand Impact
VTCs are one of best available metrics for measuring success of your brand awareness campaigns.
They provide tangible evidence that your ads are successfully:
Building brand recall
Influencing subsequent, high-intent actions like direct site visits and branded searches
2. Understanding Cross-Channel Synergy
Marketing is team sport.
VTCs help you see how your players work together.
They reveal how:
Top-of-funnel awareness campaigns (Display, Video) act as "assists"
For bottom-of-funnel scoring channels (Search, Direct)
This allows you to build complementary strategy where each channel is valued for its unique role in customer journey.
Metric Focus Primary Channels User Intent & Ad Goal
Click-Through (CTC) Google Search Ads, Google Shopping, Affiliate Marketing, Retargeting Ads High Intent - User is actively seeking solution. Goal of ad is to capture that intent and drive immediate action.
View-Through (VTC) YouTube Ads, Google Display Network, Programmatic Video & Display, Paid Social Media Ads (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn) Low to Medium Intent - User is passively consuming content. Goal of ad is to generate awareness, build brand recall, and influence future consideration.
To make intelligent budget decisions, you must evaluate your channels using correct lens.
Judging YouTube campaign on its click-through rate is as misguided as judging search campaign on its view-through rate.
While VTCs are strategically vital, traditional methods used to track them are becoming increasingly fragile.
Very foundation of VTC tracking (the third-party cookie) is crumbling, making it harder than ever to connect ad impression to later conversion.
This is single greatest threat to traditional VTC measurement.
The Mechanism:
As explained earlier, VTC tracking works by:
Ad network (like Google) drops third-party cookie when ad is viewed
Looking for that cookie when conversion happens on your domain
The Breakdown:
Privacy-centric browsers like Safari (with Intelligent Tracking Prevention) and Firefox:
Have been blocking these cookies for years
Google is in process of phasing them out entirely in Chrome
When cookie is blocked or deleted:
Link between impression and conversion is severed
Your VTC count will drop dramatically
Not because your ads have stopped working
But because technical ability to measure them has been broken
Ad platforms like Google and Meta have vast amounts of data on their own users.
They can effectively track:
User who sees ad on YouTube
Later converts on site that has Google Analytics installed
However, these "walled gardens" do not easily share data with each other.
It is extremely difficult to track:
User who sees video ad on Facebook
Later converts via Google Search click
This creates data silos, preventing truly unified, cross-channel view of VTCs.
Ad Blockers:
Before you can even have view-through conversion, you must have view.
Ad blocking software:
Prevents display and video ads from ever being served to significant portion of user base
For these users, your ad's influence is zero because its existence is zero
Consent Management:
With regulations like GDPR and CCPA:
Tracking pixels and cookies cannot be fired without user consent
If user denies consent, your ability to track both CTCs and VTCs is diminished
Further clouding picture
The result is perfect storm.
Very metric needed to justify top-of-funnel spending is becoming hardest to track reliably.
Answer is not to abandon pursuit of measuring influence but to adapt your strategy.
If you cannot reliably track "cause" (the impression), you must become laser-focused on accurately and completely measuring "effect" (the conversion).
This requires building resilient data foundation with first-party approach.
This is where infrastructure solution like DataCops becomes essential.
It is not replacement for platform-level VTC reporting, but it provides clean, complete conversion data needed to make that reporting more accurate and to conduct more reliable analysis.
1. Capturing Complete Conversion Picture
Biggest weakness in any attribution analysis is incomplete data.
By using first-party data collection (serving its script from your own subdomain):
DataCops bypasses many of ad blockers and privacy restrictions
That cause other analytics tools to miss conversions
Provides more complete and accurate count of all conversions happening on your site
Regardless of user's browser
This gives you trustworthy dataset of "effects" your marketing is producing.
2. Enabling More Accurate Lift Analysis
With complete dataset of conversions, you can run more reliable lift studies.
These are powerful, cookie-less way to measure impact of awareness campaigns.
The Method:
You can run geo-targeted display or video campaign:
In one set of markets (test group)
While leaving it off in similar set of markets (control group)
The Measurement:
By using clean, complete data from DataCops, you can accurately compare lift in:
Direct traffic
Branded organic search
Total conversions
Between test and control groups.
This lift is direct measure of your campaign's influence.
Robust proxy for VTCs that does not depend on single impression cookie.
3. Supercharging Platform Algorithms
Ad platforms like Google are already using statistical modeling to estimate VTCs in cookie-less world.
However, accuracy of these models depends on quality of conversion data they are fed.
When you use DataCops to send clean, complete, and deduplicated stream of first-party conversion data back to Google's and Meta's APIs:
You are providing their algorithms with better fuel
This helps them more accurately model conversions
Optimize your campaigns for both clicks and views
1. Two attribution types measure different things Click-through measures immediate action, view-through measures lasting influence.
2. Click-only view creates dangerous bias Favors search, undervalues awareness channels that create demand.
3. VTCs reveal billboard effect Digital equivalent of physical billboard driving customers without click.
4. YouTube/display judged on wrong metric Low click-through rate does not mean campaign failing, need VTCs.
5. Classic mistake kills performance Cut YouTube budget, branded search demand disappears, overall revenue declines.
6. Marketing is team sport Top-of-funnel assists bottom-of-funnel, need both in attribution.
7. Third-party cookie deprecation breaks VTC Safari/Firefox already blocking, Chrome phasing out, measurement crumbling.
8. Walled gardens prevent unified view Google and Meta do not share data, cross-platform VTC tracking difficult.
9. Ad blockers eliminate impressions Cannot have view-through conversion without view being served.
10. First-party data captures complete effects If cannot track cause (impression), must accurately measure effect (conversion).
11. Lift studies provide cookie-less proxy Geo-test vs control groups with complete conversion data measures influence.
12. Clean data supercharges platform models Better conversion data helps Google/Meta estimate VTCs accurately.
Channels:
Google Search Ads
Google Shopping
Affiliate Marketing
Retargeting Ads
User Behavior:
Actively seeking solution
High purchase intent
Ready to take action
Primary Metric:
Optimization Goal:
Channels:
YouTube Ads
Google Display Network
Programmatic Video & Display
Paid Social Media (Meta, TikTok, LinkedIn)
User Behavior:
Passively consuming content
Low to medium intent
Building consideration
Primary Metric:
Optimization Goal:
DataCops provides first-party foundation for accurate attribution measurement across both CTC and VTC:
Traditional tracking misses 30-40% of conversions due to:
Ad blockers
ITP restrictions
Privacy browsers
This makes all attribution (both CTC and VTC) inaccurate.
DataCops serves from your own subdomain (analytics.yourdomain.com):
Bypasses ad blockers and ITP
Captures 100% of conversions
Regardless of browser or privacy settings
Provides trustworthy dataset of all "effects" your marketing produces.
When you feed complete conversion data to Google and Meta:
Their VTC modeling becomes more accurate
Algorithm optimization improves
Better budget allocation decisions
With complete conversion dataset:
Run geo-targeted test vs control
Accurately measure lift in direct traffic and branded search
Robust proxy for VTC measurement
Does not depend on third-party cookies
See complete picture:
Which channels driving clicks (CTC)
Which channels driving awareness (VTC proxy via lift)
True value of entire marketing mix
If you want accurate attribution across click-through and view-through:
Step 1: Audit Current Attribution Gaps
Check VTC counts in Google Ads and Meta
Compare to historical data (likely declining)
Identify awareness campaigns with low CTC but potentially high influence
Step 2: Stop Judging Awareness Channels on Clicks
Recognize YouTube/Display goal is brand recall, not immediate clicks
Understand low click-through rate does not equal failure
Avoid classic mistake of cutting awareness to fund search
Step 3: Implement First-Party Data Foundation
Deploy DataCops from your own subdomain
Capture 100% of conversions (complete "effects" dataset)
Five-minute setup via CNAME DNS record
Step 4: Feed Clean Data to Platform Algorithms
Send complete, deduplicated conversions to Google and Meta APIs
Improve accuracy of their VTC modeling
Enable better campaign optimization
Step 5: Run Lift Studies for Awareness Campaigns
Use geo-targeting for test vs control groups
Measure lift in direct traffic and branded search with complete conversion data
Cookie-less proxy for VTC measurement
Step 6: Build Holistic Budget Allocation
Value click-through channels for immediate action (Search, Shopping)
Value view-through channels for awareness and influence (YouTube, Display)
Fund entire funnel, not just bottom
Tools: DataCops provides first-party data foundation for accurate attribution by capturing 100% of conversions (bypasses blockers), feeding clean data to platform algorithms (improves VTC modeling), and enabling lift studies (cookie-less measurement of awareness impact). Reveals complete picture of both click-through and view-through performance.
The bottom line: In complex world of digital marketing, it is tempting to cling to simplest, most direct metric: the click. But to do so is to ignore rich, nuanced story of how brands are built and how purchase decisions are influenced over time. Click-through conversions measure immediate action. View-through conversions measure lasting influence. You need to measure both to build truly effective and sustainable marketing engine. Relying only on CTCs leads to undervaluing and underfunding very awareness campaigns that feed your entire funnel. While technical challenges of tracking VTCs are growing, strategic imperative to measure them remains. Path forward is not to abandon this crucial metric but to fortify your entire data strategy. By building foundation of clean, complete, first-party data, you can more accurately measure total impact of your advertising, from ads users see to ads they click. This holistic view is only way to allocate budget intelligently and prove full value of your marketing efforts.
About DataCops: First-party analytics platform that enables accurate click-through and view-through attribution by capturing 100% of conversions (bypasses blockers), feeding complete data to platform algorithms (improves VTC modeling), and enabling lift studies (cookie-less measurement of awareness campaign influence).
