Am I overthinking this?

Someone asked me a question about click attribution recently, and after going down the rabbit hole of Meta’s official documentation, I can’t answer it with 100% certainty.

Let’s discuss…

The Question

As you know, Meta utilizes click and view attribution, so conversions are reported by default that happen within 7 days of clicking or 1 day of viewing your ad.

But does that click need to be on a link to your website?

Reflexively, I said yes. That seems rather obvious. But then I checked Meta’s documentation for validation and I can’t find anything conclusive.

Meta’s Documentation on Attribution

Here’s Meta’s short definition of click attribution:

Click-through attribution: A person clicked your ad and took an action.

Of course, it’s technically called “click-through attribution,” so that should mean… through to your website, right??

Still, I needed that spelled out clearly. It has to say it somewhere. But, I’ve gone through page after page of Meta’s documentation, and there’s no mention of clicking through to your website.

What it Could Mean

It feels implied, but it’s ambiguous. Meta doesn’t say that it ONLY includes clicks on links to your website. It doesn’t list out the types of clicks that count. And it doesn’t say that it includes all types of clicks.

If we’re to be literal based on this information, it could mean clicking a video to view it without clicking the CTA button to your website. If that person converted within the attribution setting, that would be considered a click-through conversion.

Until now, I would have considered that a view-through conversion, assuming they converted within a day. If it’s not, that breaks my brain a bit.

I’m not willing to change my interpretation at this point, but it would be helpful if Meta provided clarifying language.

What do you think?