Attribution systems credit ad impressions for conversions that occurred after the impression but were not caused by it. View-through attribution records a conversion whenever a user who saw an ad converts within the attribution window — regardless of whether the ad influenced the decision. The resulting conversion count is inflated by purchases that were already underway before the ad appeared.
Budget is allocated toward campaigns and channels that appear efficient in attribution reporting but are primarily capturing pre-existing intent — crowding out spend on genuine demand generation.
View-through conversion rate and attributed ROAS stop being reliable measures of ad-driven demand creation.
View-through conversions are rising while holdout testing or incrementality measurement shows lift well below the attributed conversion volume. The gap between platform-reported conversions and independently measured incremental conversions is widening as campaign reach expands into higher-intent retargeting audiences.