What an Engaged View Is
An engaged view is a video ad that someone actually watched, without clicking. Video ads, especially on YouTube, drive many installs from people who never tap the ad: they watch it, remember the app, and search for it in the store later. Click-based attribution misses all of them. Ordinary view-through attribution can catch them, but it credits any impression, including ones the user scrolled past in a second.
An engaged view sets a higher bar. The user has to watch for a meaningful time before the impression can claim credit.
How Google Defines It
Google Ads is where the term is most established. For YouTube and other video placements, an engaged view counts when the viewer watches at least 10 seconds of a skippable ad, or the full ad if it is shorter than 10 seconds, and does not click. If the user then converts, for example installs and opens the app, within the engaged-view conversion window, Google records an engaged-view conversion.
The window is set per conversion action in Google Ads, with a default of 3 days. Other networks that run video have adopted similar ideas with their own thresholds and windows, so check each platform's definition before comparing their numbers.
Engaged Views in the Attribution Hierarchy
Attribution platforms rank evidence. A typical order is:
- Click on an ad or tracked link inside the click lookback window.
- Engaged view inside its window, where the network reports one.
- Ordinary impression inside a short view-through window.
A click from any source usually beats an engaged view, and an engaged view beats a plain impression. That keeps engaged views from taking credit for installs that clearly came from a click elsewhere.
How MMPs Handle Engaged Views
Most engaged-view data comes from self-attributing networks. Google knows who watched which video and for how long; the MMP does not. So when Google claims an install as an engaged-view conversion, the MMP reads that claim and decides how to report it, often as its own category or within view-through installs, and whether a later click from another network should win instead.
That makes engaged views a common source of attribution discrepancy. Google's own reporting includes engaged-view conversions by default, while an MMP may credit some of those installs to another network's click or report them separately.
Using Engaged-View Data Well
- Report it separately. Look at installs from clicks and engaged views side by side, rather than blending them into one number.
- Compare quality. Engaged-view users often retain and pay differently from click users. Check D7 retention and revenue for each.
- Watch for overlap. Engaged views happen at large scale on YouTube. If a large share of organic installs move into engaged views after a campaign starts, ask how much of that is influence and how much is coincidence.
- Test incrementality. For big video budgets, a geo or audience holdout shows what the views actually add.
Engaged Views and Linkrunner
Linkrunner reads Google Ads attribution as a linked third-party app analytics provider, with event mapping to conversion actions and automatic campaign and spend sync, so Google-claimed installs sit in the same reporting as every other channel. Linkrunner credits each install to one source with last-touch rules and deterministic matching first. For partners that send impressions server-to-server, view-through attribution is off by default and can be turned on per partner with a 1 to 24 hour window. See Google and Meta ads and mobile attribution.