Attribution Window

An attribution window is the time you allow between someone touching your ad and converting for that ad to still get credit.

If a sale falls inside the window, the ad gets it. Outside the window, the ad gets nothing and the sale looks organic. On Meta in 2026 the standard defaults are 7-day click, 1-day engage-through, and 1-day view, after Meta redefined click-through in March 2026 and added engage-through for social clicks, reactions, and video views of five seconds or more.

So if someone clicks your ad today and buys on day six, a 7-day click window keeps the credit. If they buy on day nine, that same window drops it. Widen the window and your reported sales go up without a single extra order actually happening.

A longer window does not create more revenue, it just claims more of it. Comparing a campaign on a 7-day window against one on a 1-day window is comparing two different measuring sticks, and the longer stick always looks better.

Lock the window before you compare, or the number lies to you.