7-Day Click Attribution

A 7-day click attribution window counts a conversion that happens within seven days after someone clicked your ad. On Meta, 7-day click is one of the available windows, and Meta's developer announcement from October 2025 says it remains available for actions, conversions, and results. A shopper who clicks on Monday and buys the next Sunday is counted; one who buys eight days later is not. Advertisers often use 7-day click, sometimes paired with 1-day view, but the setting is chosen per ad set, so check your own. It is a good fit for most online stores, where people browse, think it over, and return within a week.

The effect on reporting is easy to miss. Because conversions can arrive up to seven days after the click, results for the most recent days keep growing as late buyers convert. Depending on how the report is set to count, yesterday's number may look small today and larger next week. So a campaign judged after two days is being judged on a fraction of what it will eventually record. Google's help page makes a related point: changes to a window apply only going forward, so you should note when you change one. The settling delay is the practical thing to remember. A report run on Tuesday for last Wednesday is still incomplete, and a report run next Wednesday is the closer to final.

The window affects bidding and comparison. If your ad set optimizes for purchases, the delivery system learns from conversions inside the window, so a longer window gives it more events to learn from, but also more delay before they show. When you compare Meta with Google, remember the platforms use different default windows: Google's click-through window defaults to 30 days, adjustable, while Meta's click windows are shorter. A like-for-like comparison needs both set to the same length, or the platform with the longer window will look better. Because Meta and Google count differently, a customer who clicked a Meta ad and later a Google ad can be claimed by both, so the platforms' totals usually add up to more than your actual sales.

The mistake is judging early. Pausing an ad set on day two because it shows few purchases ignores that some of its sales have not happened yet. A second mistake is assuming 7 days suits everything. A $12 impulse buy converts in hours and 7-day click adds little; a $4,000 renovation takes longer and 7-day click misses sales. A third is comparing a 7-day click figure with a 1-day click figure from last month's report, then blaming the creative for the gap. If you run limited-time promotions shorter than seven days, the window can reach past the end of the sale, so check the dates before comparing.

To use it, keep a simple habit: judge results only for days that have fully closed their window. Looking at Friday's report, the last fully settled day is the one eight days back. This week, add a 'days since click' note to your reporting, and lock in weekly numbers on the eighth day. Compare your 7-day click total with the 1-day click total for the same period to see how much you gain from the longer window, and decide whether seven days is long or short for your customers. Write the window into your dashboard title so anyone looking at it knows how to read the most recent days. If you run a promotion that lasts only three days, notice that the window keeps running after it ends, so some sales will be credited to clicks from the sale days even if they arrive later at full price.