What Is An Attribution Window?
The term attribution window, aka conversion window, is the period during which an ad publisher can claim credit for a click or an impression that eventually leads to an app installation by a user. It’s like a time limit to trace the source of the app download.
For example, if the attribution window is set to five days, the ad publisher gets credit if a user instals the app within five days after clicking their ad.
Simply put, the attribution window acts like a timer that starts when a user clicks on the ad. Upon clicking it, the website displaying the ad gets credit for showing the brand’s ad, but there’s a time limit to claim this credit.
Why Is Attribution Window Important In Marketing?
Attribution windows are essential because people don’t always become customers right after seeing an ad. It takes time and multiple interactions with the brand before they engage. The attribution window helps marketers understand which ad or marketing version gets credit for a conversion, even if the conversion happens later.
Attribution window allows marketers to fine-tune their marketing efforts for better results and understand which advertising and SEO strategies turn potential customers into actual buyers.
How Is The Attribution Window Calculated?
According to Meta, the attribution window is calculated as the defined period between a conversion, such as a purchase or a sign-up, and a touchpoint like an ad view or click, in 24-hour increments. This means that the window is calculated in blocks of 24 hours.
For instance, if a conversion occurs three days after a touchpoint, the attribution window would be 72 hours (3 days x 24 hours per day). This helps marketers understand the time gap between the customer’s interaction with the ad and their ultimate conversion.
What Are The Uses Of The Attribution Window?
Attribution windows help advertisers understand how their ads work and how they can be made better. Sometimes, users on a website see an ad but don’t take action right away.
They might wait a few days before buying the product – this can lead advertisers to believe that their ad was not seen by the users. Hence, attribution windows allow advertisers to consider the delay in user action and give credit to the ad for the eventual action. Further, advertisers can measure their ads’ impact correctly and improve their strategies to get more customers.
What Are The Benefits Of Attribution Window?
- It helps in identifying valuable users by helping marketers track the source of user engagement and identify those users who are driving conversions.
- It helps in creating targeted campaigns to attract similar users and improve retention rates.
- Attribution windows prevent attributing organic (non-paid) traffic to paid channels, saving advertising costs.
- It helps track in-app events by tracking user behaviour in the app that is being used.
- Attribution window helps marketers focus on strategies to deliver good results based on attribution window data and improves the return on investment (RoI) of advertising campaigns.
What Is An Optimal Attribution Window?
An optimal attribution window depends on the unique goals of an ad campaign. The window should be long enough to capture conversion and not make an impression/click tracking difficult.
A shorter window is likely to give accurate results but chances are it might fail to track user behaviour data. Attribution windows are also helpful for testing different ad networks to compare their performance.
When To Use Short Attribution Windows?
Using short attribution windows helps marketers understand their immediate conversion impact and make informed decisions about resource allocation.
It helps in analysing the display ads’ performance when retargeting users who previously interacted with a website or product. It further helps to determine the best-performing ad.
What Are The Different Attribution Windows On Facebook?
Facebook majorly uses 28-day click and 1-day view default attribution that accounts for all conversions interacting with Facebook ads within 28 days of clicking or 1 day of viewing an ad.
What Are The Different Types Of Attribution Window Models On Google?
Last Click: This model gives all the credit for a conversion to the last ad a person clicked on before making a purchase or taking action, ignoring the previous ads they may have seen.
First Click: This model gives all the credit for a conversion to the first ad a person clicked on, ignoring the clicks after that.
Linear: This model shares the credit for a conversion equally among all the ads a person interacted with along the way, keeping into account all ads in the journey.
Time Decay: It gives more credit to the ads that a person clicked on closer to the time they made the conversion.
Position-Based: This model gives 40% of the credit to the first and last ads a person interacted with and the remaining 20% is shared among other ads in between.
Data-Driven: This model uses historical data from the user’s account to calculate the credit for each ad interaction based on its actual contribution to conversions. It provides a personalised attribution approach.
