A lot of what passes for media measurement discussion has recently focused on YouTube’s announcement of a change to the definition of a “view” on the service. As of last Monday (8/24), if a video starts, it’s a “view.” Apparently, this matches the definition of the metric for almost every platform.
If you want to understand how YouTube measures its definitions of impressions, views, engaged views, and qualified views, watch two videos (on YouTube, of course) that last a bit over three minutes combined — enough time to get a quarter hour of credit in PPM, but not in the diary service.
How YouTube Defines Views, Impressions, and Engagement
YouTube now says that if a video starts, it’s been viewed.
However, YouTube has also introduced something called “engaged views.”
If you want to be truly confused by all this, watch this video from Rene Ritchie. He describes himself as an “OG Creator now working at YouTube.”
Here’s the link, which might keep you engaged for just over two minutes.
Some definitions from YouTube, quoting from Rene’s video:
A “view” means that you watched the first frame. According to Google Gemini, a YouTube frame lasts between 16.7 and 41.7 milliseconds. And you thought a three-minute minimum for PPM credit was short.
An “engaged view” is defined as watching past the initial frame. In other words, somewhere between about 33.4 and 83.4 milliseconds (one frame times two). You can count as “engaged” in around 1/20th of a second. Rene says you need engaged views to earn money as a creator.
An “impression” is credited “if you see a thumbnail recommended on the home page or suggested on the watch page and you don’t interact with it in any way,” but it’s not counted as a “view.”
“If you see a thumbnail recommended on the home page or suggested on the watch page and you hover over it and it starts to autoplay, that is now counted as a ‘view’ from the very first frame,” he goes on to say. “And if you let it keep playing for some amount of seconds after that first frame, it’s an engaged view. Same for a Short in the Shorts feed. The moment it starts to play, it’s a view.”
Rene goes on to debunk the belief that it took 30 seconds for YouTube to register an “engaged view.” He said, “It’s simply not the case. YouTube doesn’t specify how many seconds because it can vary across surfaces. And YouTube also doesn’t want anyone focusing on gaming the metric.”
He goes on to mention the YouTube Partner Program, which is based on “qualified views,” explained in this video he made.
Qualified views for long-form video come from “public long-form videos or archived live streams.” He mentioned that Shorts views must be “engaged views,” as defined earlier. He said “engaged” means the video was “watched long enough for YouTube analytics to count it as an engaged view.” Again, “qualified views” must be public.
What This Means for Advertisers and Media Buyers
While there has been a fair amount of questioning and some condemnation about this change, I’m going to go with caveat emptor, or “buyer beware.” We’ve seen consistent reductions over the years in what constitutes viewing, listening, or reading. Meanwhile, we hear words like “engagement” and “attention,” along with all sorts of other ways to measure whether an individual absorbs a commercial message and whether they do anything as a result — assuming, of course, that the viewer, listener, or reader is a human and not a bot.
Perhaps your synapses fire faster than mine, but it generally takes me more than 1/20th of a second to become engaged with any form of media. And can you imagine if Nielsen had ever said something to radio people like, “We can’t tell you how much time it takes to qualify for a quarter hour, because someone might game the system”? We’d either laugh them out of the room or begin throwing rotten fruit and vegetables, assuming anyone brought some to a Nielsen meeting.
I don’t know what media planners and buyers think about all this, but when impressions are counted because a video thumbnail showed up on your page, or when engaged views can take as little as 1/20th of a second, I hope they’re asking questions. But were they asking these questions of Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube Shorts before this announcement? Can agency people look their clients in the eye and say, “Yes, this is a good place to advertise because you’re getting lots of engaged views”? What are we missing here?
Let’s meet again next week.
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