Attribution, or how Meta gives credit to an ad for conversions, is central to advertising. But it’s more complex than just knowing the default is 7-day click and 1-day view. There are many layers to this that can lead to confusion and misinterpretations of results.

My goal with this post is to provide a thorough explanation of every aspect of attribution to give you a fuller understanding of how it works and how to approach it. These are the core elements of conversions from Meta advertising.

Let’s get to it…

The Role of the Attribution Setting

When using the Website conversion location where the performance goal is to maximize the number or the value of conversions, your results will be measured in conversions.

You will also define the conversion event that you (and Meta) care about most. The algorithm will then focus on optimizing for that event to get you as many of that event as possible within your budget.

Buried under “See more options,” you’ll find details about the attribution setting.

The default attribution setting is Standard, using 7-day click, 1-day view, and 1-day engaged view (for videos only).

We’ll get into the details of these momentarily. The main thing to understand is that the algorithm is driven by this attribution setting. By default, it will be looking for conversions that can be reported within seven days of clicking or one day of viewing your ads (without clicking). This also controls your default reporting.

But you can change the attribution setting in the ad set. If you do, that will alter both delivery and default reporting. The algorithm’s ultimate goal is to find you conversions. So if you change how a conversion is defined, the algorithm will change how it finds them.

Compare Attribution Settings

The Compare Attribution Settings feature is one that you should use often. It’s found near the bottom of the Columns dropdown menu in Ads Manager.

Regardless of what was used to define a conversion in the ad set, you can select to compare different attribution settings to see how results are broken down.

This is a valuable tool for making sense of your results. If a high percentage of your conversions are 1-day view, for example, you might consider the results inflated. Those results are “true” in that Meta didn’t make them up. It reflects the number of people who were surfaced your ad who then converted within a day. But these conversions are less indicative of your ad clearly driving the result.

We’ll get to that when discussing view-through conversions. The main thing to understand is that this tool is valuable and you should use it to uncover details of your conversion results. In addition to results being inflated, you can also uncover results that don’t appear by default (like those from 28-day click).

Click Attribution

Click attribution sounds straightforward enough. This measures when someone clicks your ad and converts. But, there are several caveats which make click attribution less clear.

1. Day Windows.

There are three click attribution windows available:

• 1-day
• 7-day
• 28-day

The easiest way to describe click attribution is that someone clicked your ad and immediately converted. While that may be ideal, it’s often not how the customer journey happened.

The customer may have clicked your ad, visited your website, and discussed making the purchase with a spouse or business partner. Meta will report on conversions that occur within 1, 7, or even 28 days of clicking.

While 1-day click will normally reflect immediate conversions after clicking your ad, the default attribution setting is 7-day click and 1-day view. That includes people who converted within seven days of initially clicking.

Originally, the default attribution setting was 28-day click and 1-day view. While that changed with the tracking updates related to iOS 14, advertisers can still view conversion results that happened within 28 days of clicking by selecting it when comparing attribution settings.

2. Cross-Device.

We like to imagine the cleanest possible customer journey. Not only would someone click our ad and immediately convert on our website, but we assume it’s from the same device. That, too, is not always the case.

While switching devices can impact Meta’s ability to connect a conversion to the initial click, it remains very possible. People are often logged into their Meta accounts from multiple devices. Advertisers can provide first-party data via the API. A customer may also use an email address that is connected to the Facebook accounts that made the initial click.

Remember this and the day windows when considering why Meta’s results don’t match up with third-party reporting that rely heavily on URL parameters and referral traffic.

3. Any Click.

This is something that unfortunately took me a decade to figure out. And if it took me that long, I’m confident that many advertisers misunderstand this today.

Click attribution includes conversions by people who made any click on your ad. It doesn’t have to be a click to your website.

I tested and confirmed this by creating an image ad that lacked a URL. In the image, I instructed people to go to a specific URL and perform an action. Again, it was not linked anywhere in the ad. Meta reported all of my conversions from that ad as click-through.

These are conversions that I previously assumed counted as view-through, and I’m sure many advertisers think the same. Counting them isn’t necessarily a problem since view-through conversions are viable, too. But the window on these conversions tends to be seven days, rather than one for view-through.

And once again, this will create havoc with your third-party reporting. Since customers aren’t clicking on a link, your reporting software is unlikely to be able to match up a conversion with your ad. But Meta can do just that.

LISTEN: The Truth About Meta’s Click Attribution

View Attribution

View attribution is the most controversial. It allows Meta to credit an ad when a customer viewed (or were surfaced) your ad within one day of converting. There was no click involved. No click on a link to your website or any other type of click.

This is controversial for mostly obvious reasons. If someone didn’t click your ad, did it really contribute to the conversion?

I think we can reasonably say that it depends. View-through conversions can absolutely inflate results, particularly when your ad reaches people who are already connected to you. A customer may not have even seen your ad, but they act on an email that you sent later that day.

But we can also come up with very reasonable explanations for when a view-through conversion does contribute. Maybe someone saw your ad and was impacted by it. Within a day, they Google your product or go directly to your website and complete a conversion.

View-through conversions from remarketing tend to be the most scrutinized. But there are also legitimate examples of your ad contributing to conversions when no click happened.

The problem is that it’s not particularly easy to differentiate between a high and low-value view-through conversion. Yes, you can use Audience Segments to see whether conversions happened from remarketing, regardless of your targeting strategy. But even a view-through conversion from remarketing isn’t necessarily low-value.

Ultimately, we should take some middle ground on this. Acknowledge that view-through conversions are less valuable than click-through conversions. We don’t know whether the ad was even seen prior to the conversion. But we can’t, and shouldn’t, ignore them completely.

Use the Compare Attribution Settings feature to add context to reporting. You don’t want the majority of your conversions to be view-through. Scrutinize your results if that’s the case.

But also consider making adjustments to your attribution setting in the ad set if it’s necessary. Consider these scenarios…

1. Selling a Product.

If you’re selling a product, the default of 7-day click and 1-day view makes sense. Keep 1-day view in the attribution setting, but continue to monitor the concentration of view-through results.

2. Collecting Leads.

If you’re simply collecting leads for a lead magnet, your attribution setting should almost always be 1-day click. Is it reasonable to think that someone thought so much about the free thing that you’re promoting that they Googled you later to find it and subscribe? If it’s free, it’s far less likely. The lead journey is typically far simpler than the journey to a purchase.

3. Remarketing.

If you’re targeting current customers or subscribers, you should strongly consider removing 1-day view — regardless of whether you’re going for a purchase or lead. At the very least, know that your results will likely be significantly inflated, and make note of conversions that came from a view.

LISTEN: Should You Count View Through Conversions?

Engaged-View Attribution

Meta introduced engaged-view attribution in 2023. Frankly, I find Meta’s inclusion of Engaged-View with click and view attribution in the attribution setting confusing.

Engaged-view works like this: It counts how often someone watched your video for at least 10 seconds (or at least 97% of your video if it’s shorter than 10 seconds) prior to converting within a day.

That’s all reasonable. It’s helpful for understanding the impact of your video ad.

But engaged-view isn’t an option you’d choose instead of click or view-through. It’s a segment of both. For example, someone who clicked your ad may have watched the video for 10 seconds prior to converting; or they may have viewed the ad without clicking and watched your video for 10 seconds prior to converting. An engaged-view is counted in either case.

There’s no need to overthink this. If you’re running ads that include videos, select 1-day engaged-view (it’s on by default). Use it when comparing attribution settings to get deeper insights into how many of your conversions resulted after someone watched at least 10 seconds of your video.

First Conversion Reporting

Meta introduced First Conversion reporting in 2024. This is a way to cut away the fluff when viewing your reporting in Ads Manager.

When comparing attribution settings, you will see these options…

Let’s assume for a moment that you’re running a Sales campaign where the conversion event you’ve selected for optimization in the ad set is Purchase. You’re promoting a glass cleaner. By default, Meta will report on all purchases that a customer makes within seven days of clicking or one day of viewing your ad.

So, that customer may click your ad and make an immediate purchase. Three days later, they may decide that they want another bottle since the one they purchased will run out. They make a second purchase.

Also note that it’s not important that the customer bought the same thing each time. They don’t even need to purchase the product featured in your ad. All that matters is that purchases were made.

Since both purchases fall within the attribution settings windows, both will be reported in Ads Manager by default.

But you can get a better sense of unique customers by using First Conversion. When selected, Meta will only report the first conversion (not surprisingly) that happened.

This is actually a great tool and it’s helped me solve reporting problems when Meta reports more conversions than I’m seeing on the back-end. This discrepancy is often resolved by using First Conversion reporting.

Understand that the default reporting isn’t necessarily inflated. It’s reporting on the total number of conversions that happened after someone clicked or viewed your ad. But that information can be misleading, particularly when you’re trying to account for total number of unique customers.

Incremental vs. Standard Attribution

It appears Meta makes a major update to attribution once per year. Incremental Attribution was the most recent contribution.

By default, Standard Attribution is used. This is what allows you to further refine your attribution setting by click and view options.

Standard Attribution is focused on volume. Meta will find whatever conversions it can that fit within the definitions you’ve provided using the attribution setting. That, of course, can lead to fuzzy reporting and potentially inflated results.

Incremental Attribution uses “sophisticated models” to focus on conversions that were directly caused by your ads. In other words, it attempts to cut out the extra conversions that often lead to that fuzzy reporting. It’s likely to more closely align with third-party and internal reporting.

You can use Incremental Attribution either within the attribution setting in the ad set or your reporting. By defining delivery as “incremental,” the algorithm will focus on higher quality results.

Meta isn’t particularly clear about what goes into these “sophisticated models,” but we can assume that less emphasis will be put on view-through conversions and remarketing. These are cases when it’s easiest to question whether the ad actually drove the results.

Expect incremental results to be less than standard results. But when optimized this way, you may see greater long-term value.

The Attribution Story

When it comes to attribution, several factors and settings contribute to whether Meta gives credit to an ad for a conversion. There isn’t necessarily a “right” or “wrong” attribution. But it’s important that you understand everything that goes into telling the attribution story.

Where necessary, make adjustments to the attribution setting in the ad set. Know why you’re making that adjustment and how that will impact results.

Also use the tools available to you within the Compare Attribution Settings feature to get a full understanding of what happened. Segment results to understand where they came from, and uncover results that you didn’t know happened using the default reporting.

The bottom line is that the attribution story is far more complicated than the default reporting. It’s your job to tell that story accurately.

Other Resources

This post is a nice summary of the basics of attribution, but we could certainly keep on digging into this complex topic. I’ve written several posts and recorded podcast episodes over the years on attribution, and here are a few of the most relevant:

• First Conversion vs. All Conversions for Meta Ads Attribution
• Meta Ads Attribution Setting: A Complete Guide
• Conversions for Meta Advertising Checklist
• Meta Ads Conversion Results: A Guide
• Uncovering the Reality of Meta Click Attribution
• The Best Advertisers Compare Attribution Settings
• Should You Count View Through Conversions?
• The Truth About Meta’s Click Attribution
• What You Don’t Know About Meta Attribution

Your Turn

What is your approach to attribution?

Let me know in the comments below!

The post A Complete Guide to Meta Ads Attribution appeared first on Jon Loomer Digital.