Meta ads attribution settings explained: what the numbers in Ads Manager count

What an attribution setting is

Some results happen on the ad itself, such as a link click or a video play, and Ads Manager simply counts them. Results that happen somewhere else, such as a purchase on your website, have to be connected back to an ad. Meta's help page on actions attributed to your ad says these are credited to the ad if they happen within a certain number of days after someone viewed or clicked it, and that by default the report follows the attribution setting chosen on the ad set.

There are two layers. Meta's Business Help Centre page on attribution models and settings describes an attribution model, chosen per ad set, which informs delivery and determines how conversions can be credited. Under the standard model you then pick attribution settings: which kinds of interaction can earn credit, and over what period.

• Standard. Delivery is optimised for the time windows and behaviours you select. This is the model the windows below belong to.
• Incremental. Delivery is optimised for conversions that Meta's models predict were caused by the ad. Covered in its own section below.
• Custom. You send Meta attribution data from your own analytics tool and delivery optimises towards that. Meta's page on custom attribution says it may not be available to every advertiser yet and can only be enabled on a new campaign.

The windows Meta offers now, and what each counts

These are the standard settings Meta's help page lists for website and in-store conversions as of 9 October 2026.

Two caveats from the same page. Some accounts may still be on earlier versions of click-through and engage-through while the current definitions roll out. And not every setting is available for every campaign: app campaigns for iOS 14 and later are limited to fewer windows or to Apple's SKAdNetwork reporting.

Meta's engage-through setup page places the choice in the ad set's Conversion section, under Show more options. This post does not state a default combination, because none of the Meta pages we read names one. Open that panel on your own ad set to see what it is using.

What Meta changed in 2025 and 2026

• 12 January 2026: longer view windows removed from the API. In a developer blog post dated 16 October 2025, Meta said that from 12 January 2026 its Ads Insights API would stop returning the 7-day view and 28-day view windows. It said 1-day click, 7-day click, 28-day click, 1-day engaged view and 1-day view would remain, in line with Ads Manager. This matters if you pull Meta data into a spreadsheet or dashboard.
• 3 March 2026: click-through narrowed to link clicks. In a newsroom post dated 3 March 2026 (we read the Portuguese edition), Meta said click-through attribution for website and in-store conversions would count link clicks only. Before that, it counted shares, saves and likes as clicks too. Conversions that follow those other interactions moved to engage-through, the new name for what was engaged-view. The video threshold dropped from 10 seconds to 5. Meta said the rollout would start later that month, would reach advertisers at different times, and would not change how advertisers are billed.

In practice that means a campaign's click-through total can fall across March 2026 with no change in what customers did. The conversions were relabelled, not lost. Be careful comparing click-through figures from before and after the date your account switched.

It changes delivery, not only the report

It is easy to treat the setting as a reporting filter. Meta's help page describes it as more than that: the model informs ad delivery, and standard attribution optimises delivery for the windows and behaviours you select. In practice that suggests a 1-day click setting asks the system for people likely to convert soon after clicking, and adding view-through asks it to also value people who convert after only seeing the ad.

So two ad sets with different settings are not running the same campaign with different labels. They may reach different people. Meta's page warns that results cannot be compared in the campaign table across ad sets that use different attribution models, because each counts differently.

What incremental attribution is

Meta's page about incremental attribution describes it as a model that optimises delivery for incremental conversions, using machine learning to predict whether the ad caused the conversion. Meta first described it on 14 August 2024, as an opt-in setting it planned to introduce later that half-year, for conversions it believed would not have happened without the ad. Meta's help pages do not give a launch date. They do say that incremental results are not available for date ranges before 1 April 2025.

Meta's setup page lists it for the Sales, Engagement and Leads objectives, with Website or Website and app as the conversion location and a maximise-conversions or maximise-value goal. Bid controls cannot be used with it, and the attribution model cannot be changed after the campaign is published.

The number it reports is smaller by design. Meta's page on viewing incremental results gives the example of a campaign with 100 conversions of which Meta considers 70 incremental: the Results column shows 70 under incremental and 100 under standard. It is a modelled estimate, not a controlled experiment. Meta's March 2026 post calls incrementality experiments such as Conversion Lift the best way to answer what an ad caused.

How to compare attribution settings

You can see how the same results look under other windows without changing what the ad set optimises for. Meta's page on comparing attribution settings in Ads Reporting gives these steps.

1. 01

   Open the comparison

   In Meta Ads Reporting, click Customise at the top right of the table. Click Options beside the search bar, then Select attribution settings.
2. 02

   Tick the windows to compare

   Meta lists 1-day view, 1-day click, 7-day click and 28-day click. The 28-day click window appears here for comparison even though it is not among the settings an ad set can choose.
3. 03

   Choose the conversion count

   All conversions counts every measurable conversion after a click or view. First conversion counts only the first one.
4. 04

   Apply, and read across the row

   Each window gets its own column. A campaign that has run for less than 28 days shows only partial 28-day click figures.

In Ads Manager itself, Meta's incremental results page gives the path as the Columns menu, then Compare attribution models, then Incremental. Meta recommends comparing campaigns within one setting, not judging one campaign's incremental figure against another's standard figure.

Why Ads Manager does not match your analytics tool

The two are counting different things. Meta's page on conversion count differences with third-party tools lists the main reasons.

• Meta measures by logged-in account across devices. Cookie-based tools can lose someone who sees an ad on a phone and buys on a laptop.
• Meta can credit a conversion to an impression with no click. Many analytics tools cannot.
• An ad blocker can stop the Meta pixel firing, so Meta may report fewer conversions than your own records.
• Tools that rely on the referrer lose it when someone comes back later in a new tab.
• The same metric name can be defined differently in each tool.

On the Google side, Google's help page on attribution models says its paid and organic last click model gives all the credit to the last channel the customer clicked through before converting, ignoring direct visits. Google's attribution settings page gives a default lookback of 90 days for most key events. Put together, this suggests a sale Meta counts as view-through will usually be credited to another channel in Google Analytics, and a sale Meta shares with a later search click will go to search. That is our reading of the two sets of rules, not a statement from either company.

Meta's troubleshooting page suggests checking three things before anything else: that the attribution windows match, that both tools use the same time zone, and that both date a conversion the same way. Ads Reporting can date a conversion by when it happened or by when the ad was shown.

How to choose a setting

There is no setting that is right for every account. These questions decide it.

• How long do your customers take to decide? If most people buy the same day, a 1-day click window captures them. If they think for several days, a 1-day window will miss sales that a 7-day window counts.
• What does the number need to agree with? If you report to someone who trusts a click-based analytics tool, click-through columns will sit closest to it. Meta said the March 2026 change was meant to narrow that gap.
• Do you believe views and engagement drive sales for you? If so, including them tells delivery to value those people. If you are unsure, compare the columns first.
• Can you keep it constant? Whatever you choose, use the same setting across the ad sets you intend to compare, and through a whole creative test.

If you are setting up a campaign for the first time, the guide to publishing ads on Meta covers the rest of the ad set. This is general information about how the reports work, not advice on where to put your budget.

Sources

• Meta Business Help Centre: About attribution models and attribution settings (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: About actions attributed to your ad (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: Set up engage-through in Meta Ads Manager (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: About custom attribution (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: About incremental attribution (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: How to use incremental attribution in Meta Ads Manager (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: How to view results for incremental attribution (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: Compare attribution settings in Meta Ads Reporting (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: About conversion count differences between Meta Ads Reporting and third-party reporting tools (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta Business Help Centre: Troubleshoot common reporting differences with third-party reporting tools (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Meta for Business: Campaign Optimization Updates to Improve Advertiser Performance (14 August 2024)
• Meta for Developers: Ads Insights API metric availability updates (16 October 2025)
• Meta Newsroom, Brazil edition: Simplificando a mensuração de anúncios para um mundo social-first (3 March 2026, in Portuguese)
• Google Analytics Help: Get started with attribution (undated, read 9 October 2026)
• Google Analytics Help: Select attribution settings (undated, read 9 October 2026)