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Just Launched: Meta’s 1-day engaged view attribution and why you need to know about it
Meta’s just launched 1-day engaged view attribution for advertisers.
P.S. It’s not been rolled out for everyone, so check your account now!
It’s actually great news for advertisers, but a lot of Facebook marketers aren’t aware of this important metric.
So what is engaged-view attribution anyway?
And why does it matter for your business?
Let’s quickly take a look at how Meta describes engaged-view attribution:
But what does this really mean?
And more importantly, how do you use it to make decisions about your ads?
Based on the definition above, there are 4 components that contribute to Meta attributing a conversion under this metric:
- A potential shopper views a “skippable” video ad.
- They watch your video for at least 10 seconds (or 97% if your video is under 10 seconds).
- They don’t click through to your website (“engaged view is non-click conversion attribution”, so your click conversions are excluded from this attribution).
- They end up converting within 24 hours.
Now, you can see why this is an important metric for advertisers who’d like to optimize their ads for higher conversions.
1-day engaged viewer attribution is much more useful than 1-day view conversions. The latter tells me nothing about ad performance and is often where Meta can show inflated numbers/over-attribute non-incremental conversions — driven by other marketing efforts.
More usefully, you can compare these two attribution metrics when viewing your results in Meta Ads Manager.
How to access engaged-view attribution in your Meta Ads Manager
To access the Engaged-View Attribution Setting, you’ll first need to use the Sales, Leads, or Engagement objective and select “Website” as the conversion location when setting up your campaign.
Note: As of now, this feature has only been rolled out in select ad accounts, and not for all ad types. For example, we don’t see this attribution in Advantage+ campaigns.
Once you do that, make sure you add your pixel and conversion event, then scroll down to “See more options” to view your attribution settings.
As of now, they’ll look like this:
Hover on the attribution settings section till the “Edit” option appears. Once you click on it, you’ll be able to see the following dropdown:
Here, if you want to access engaged-view attribution, choose from the drop-down to select 1 day. If you choose None, you will not get engaged-view metrics for your campaign.
Comparing Attribution Settings in Your Meta Ads Manager
When viewing your results in Ads Manager to see how many conversions are attributed as engaged-view, you can also compare them with other attribution windows.
Select “Compare Attribution Settings” from the Columns drop-down menu to view different attribution windows for the same period:
It is important to remember that you will only see engaged-view for video ads that lead to a view-through conversion.
NOTE: Your engaged-view numbers will be included in your 1-day view numbers.
TIP: Since only skippable video ads are attributable, it makes sense to enable this for campaigns with video creatives.
The Challenge with 1-Day Engaged-View Attribution
Remember, engaged-view attribution doesn’t apply to all video ads. Meta says it applies specifically to “skippable” videos.
But which placements, exactly, are skippable?
Unfortunately, this is far from clear. If we were to use Meta’s ad specs for video placements, the following placements are listed as skippable:
- Facebook In-Stream Video Ads
- Facebook Reels
- Instagram Reels
But Instagram stories and some other placements have a “Keep Watching” option. Does that make them skippable?
And what about engaged viewers of videos in your feed? Do they get included in engaged-view attribution, and further does Meta optimize ads for this metric?
As of now, it is far from clear.
However, actual attribution data suggests that quite a wide selection of videos qualify as skippable.
Take a look at this tweet from Barry Hott here:
This is great, but until Meta clarifies that all videos qualify for this attribution, advertisers may find this a tricky metric to rely on.
Why?
- A majority of my conversions may not be eligible for engaged-view attribution, making it impossible to know exactly what percentage of my 1-day view conversions are engaged-view. I may think I’m getting lower-quality view-through conversions due to a lack of engagement, when in fact, a lot of videos may not qualify as skippable and hence won’t be considered for this attribution.
- There’s no comparable metric for static images — admittedly, it’s tough to come up with a data point for engaged views of static image ads.
- At the moment, Meta does not allow advertisers to explicitly optimize for 1-day engaged view.
Final Thoughts on Meta’s Engaged-View Attribution
Engaged-view attribution is a great metric — and advertisers will do well to watch and optimize for it.
Despite some limitations, it’s a useful metric for three reasons:
- Comparing 1-day engaged views with 1-day view conversions can reveal how Meta over-attributes non-incremental 1-day view conversions.
- Having a metric beyond CTR is a good way to understand which of your videos is driving conversions.
- Optimizing for 1-day engaged views may be much better than letting Meta continue to go after 1-day view conversions, which ends up rewarding it for going after the lowest-hanging fruit.
Intuitively, if a potential shopper scrolls straight past your ad and converts within 24 hours, it is probably due to some other factor, and you shouldn't want to optimize for that.
NOTE: At the moment, Meta does not allow advertisers to explicitly optimize for 1-day engaged view.
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