Attribution & Conversion Counting

28-Day Click Attribution vs View-Through Conversions: Which Gets Credit

In short: Both settings decide whether a sale, lead, or signup gets credited to an ad after the fact rather than in the same session. 28-day click attribution stretches how long a click itself stays eligible for credit, letting a slow-moving buyer still get tied back to the ad that started things. View-through conversions do not touch the click window at all - they credit an impression that was never clicked, inside a separate and usually much shorter window. One answers how patient to be with people who engaged; the other answers whether to credit people who never engaged in the first place. If you are deciding how long a click should count, adjust the click window; if you are deciding whether an unclicked ad deserves credit, that is the view-through question.

By the AdFlint research team · Fact-checked against current Google and Meta platform behavior · Last reviewed July 2026

28-Day Click Attribution

Counts a conversion occurring up to 28 days after a click, capturing longer consideration cycles that shorter windows leave unreported.

The widest of Meta's click settings, removed in 2021 alongside the iOS tracking changes and later reintroduced as a selectable option. Google Ads handles the same idea through a configurable click-through window that can run out to 90 days. Reach for it with high-consideration or high-ticket purchases. The mistake is comparing a 28-day figure against a 7-day figure from another platform and calling the gap a channel difference.

Full definition

View-Through Conversions

Counts people who were served your ad, never clicked it, and converted later within the view attribution window.

Both Google and Meta report these separately from click conversions, and both apply a shorter default window to views than to clicks. They matter most for display, video, and upper-funnel social, where the ad is seen far more often than it is clicked. The persistent error is adding view-through conversions straight into blended ROAS; without a holdout or lift test you have no evidence the impression caused anything.

Full definition

Side by side.

The differences that actually change what happens in your account.

	28-Day Click Attribution	View-Through Conversions
What triggers eligibility	A recorded click on the ad - the person is tied to the ad through direct action.	An impression served to the person, with no click recorded at all.
Window length	Configurable click window, up to 28 days on Meta or up to 90 days on Google Ads.	Shorter default, commonly around 1 day on Meta or 1-30 days configurable on Google.
Where it lives in the account	The click attribution setting on the campaign or ad account, controlling only the click side.	A separate attribution setting and reporting segment, distinct from the click window entirely.
How Smart/Advantage+ bidding treats it	Counted like any other click conversion - the bidder trusts it as a real engagement signal.	Reported apart from click conversions and often excluded from or down-weighted in what the bidder optimizes toward.
Reporting behavior	Rolls into the standard conversions total once attributed, without a separate flag in most dashboards.	Broken out into its own column or segment so it stays visible apart from click conversions.
What it costs you when wrong	Too long a window can credit a click for a conversion that a later, unrelated touch actually drove.	Folding it into blended ROAS without a holdout or lift test overstates the ad's real causal effect.
Fits best with	High-consideration or high-ticket purchases where evaluation drags out over weeks.	Display, video, and upper-funnel social, where impressions vastly outnumber clicks.

What actually separates them.

28-day click attribution only extends credit for people who actually clicked; view-through conversions credit people who never clicked at all.

Google Ads lets you push the click-through window out to 90 days, while Meta's click option tops out at 28 days - the two platforms don't share a ceiling.

View-through windows default shorter than click windows on both platforms, because an impression that was never clicked is a weaker signal platforms are less willing to credit for long.

Smart Bidding and Advantage+ campaigns lean on click conversions as a primary training signal; view-through conversions are usually reported separately and often excluded from what the bidder optimizes toward.

Extending the click window reattributes conversions that were already happening; turning on view-through conversions can add conversions to your total that click attribution would never have counted at all.

Which one should you use?

Use 28-Day Click Attribution when

Your product is a big purchase - furniture, a vehicle, enterprise software - where someone clicks an ad early and buys weeks later.
Meta's shorter click default is undercounting purchases you can verify happened from that same visitor through your own CRM or backend data.
You run search ads for something with a long research phase, like B2B software evaluation, and want Google's click window pushed past the default.
You're trying to reconcile why the platform shows fewer conversions than your CRM for a slow-moving funnel.

Use View-Through Conversions when

You run display, YouTube, or Meta feed and story ads meant for awareness and want to know if being seen preceded a later direct visit and conversion.
You're testing whether an upper-funnel campaign is contributing conversions that never touched the ad through a click.
Your click volume is small relative to impression volume and you want unclicked-but-served conversions reported apart from clicked ones.
You're running a holdout or lift test and need the raw view-through number as one input to test causation properly.

Common questions.

Should I add view-through conversions to my ROAS?

Not by default. Without a holdout or lift test you have no evidence the impression caused anything, so blending it in overstates return. If you do include it, keep it in a labeled column you can strip back out for a cleaner number.

Why does Google let me set a 90-day click window but Meta only goes to 28 days?

Each platform sets its own ceiling and default for how long a click stays eligible for credit. Google's click-through window applies broadly across Search, Display, and Shopping with a longer max, while Meta's click attribution options top out at 28 days.

Can I use both a long click window and view-through conversions at once?

Yes, they're independent settings. The click window controls how long a click stays eligible for credit, and the view-through setting is a separate toggle and column for unclicked impressions - turning on one does not change the other.

Will extending my click window change the conversions I'm already counting?

Yes. A longer window can pull in conversions that happened after the previous cutoff, reattributing them to a click that would not have qualified under the old setting. Your conversion counts can shift retroactively after the change, so hold the window steady if you're comparing periods like-for-like.

Or stop choosing between them.

AdFlint picks the setting, writes the ads, and keeps optimizing inside the Google and Meta accounts you already own.

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