What attribution window should I use in Meta Ads Manager?

Q: What attribution window should I use in Meta Ads Manager?

The course setup uses 7-day click, 1-day view — which is also Meta's default. This is the right starting point for most operators and the setting you should run during the testing phase. Here's what each option actually means, so you can make informed decisions as you scale: 7-day click, 1-day view (course default): Credits any purchase within 7 days of a click, or within 1 day of someone seeing your ad even without clicking. This is the standard setting and what most benchmarks in this course are built around. It captures the realistic decision window for most $30–$80 impulse-to-considered purchases. 7-day click only: Removes view-through attribution, which means only purchases from people who actually clicked are credited. Some operators switch to this once scaling to get a cleaner read on click-driven performance — especially if running on multiple platforms where view-through could double-count. Useful for diagnosis, not necessarily better for campaign delivery. 1-day click only: Too narrow for most products. You'll undercount sales and prematurely kill campaigns that are working on a slightly longer consideration cycle. The key insight: Attribution settings affect what Meta reports — they don't change how the algorithm optimizes delivery. Whichever setting you use, always cross-reference with your Shopify order count (your real source of truth). If Meta says 10 purchases and Shopify shows 7, you made 7 sales.

Asked 13+ times in the community — causes confusion because Meta's default setting changes

The course setup uses 7-day click, 1-day view — which is also Meta's default. This is the right starting point for most operators and the setting you should run during the testing phase. Here's what each option actually means, so you can make informed decisions as you scale:

7-day click, 1-day view (course default): Credits any purchase within 7 days of a click, or within 1 day of someone seeing your ad even without clicking. This is the standard setting and what most benchmarks in this course are built around. It captures the realistic decision window for most $30–$80 impulse-to-considered purchases.
7-day click only: Removes view-through attribution, which means only purchases from people who actually clicked are credited. Some operators switch to this once scaling to get a cleaner read on click-driven performance — especially if running on multiple platforms where view-through could double-count. Useful for diagnosis, not necessarily better for campaign delivery.
1-day click only: Too narrow for most products. You'll undercount sales and prematurely kill campaigns that are working on a slightly longer consideration cycle.
The key insight: Attribution settings affect what Meta reports — they don't change how the algorithm optimizes delivery. Whichever setting you use, always cross-reference with your Shopify order count (your real source of truth). If Meta says 10 purchases and Shopify shows 7, you made 7 sales.

See this in practice: Pick Your Ad Angles →

More on Meta Ads

← Back to All FAQs Explore the full operator library →