Attribution Setting

The attribution setting is the window of time you give Meta to take credit: how long after a click, or after a view, a sale can still be counted as caused by your ad.

Every sale Meta reports is really a sale plus a rule, and the attribution setting is that rule. The default is a 7-day click and a 1-day view window, which means a purchase counts if it happens within seven days of someone clicking your ad, or within one day of them seeing it. Widen the window and Meta scoops up more sales into your reported number. Narrow it and the number drops, not because your ads got worse, but because you gave the rule less room to reach. Nothing about the actual buying changed. Only the counting did.

This matters most in 2026 because Meta has been actively changing what windows you are even allowed to pick. The longer view windows that used to inflate reports, the 7-day and 28-day view, were pulled during the year, so the widest setting available now is that 7-day click and 1-day view default. Many advertisers watched their reported conversions fall the day that changed and assumed something broke, when all that happened was the ruler got shorter.

The real danger is comparing numbers built on different rules. A campaign on a 7-day click window will always look stronger than one on a 1-day click window, and if you judge them side by side without noticing the setting, you will back the wrong horse. Check what window each number was measured on before you trust any comparison, and because Meta keeps moving this in 2026, check what yours is set to right now rather than what it was last year.

The attribution setting does not change what you sold, only what Meta is allowed to claim it sold for you.