Facebook attribution settings: 7-day click, 1-day view in 2026

Every media buyer eventually gets the message: "Ads Manager says 140 purchases, Shopify says 90, GA4 says 40. Which one is lying?" Usually none of them. They are counting different things, and the attribution setting on your ad sets decides a large part of what Meta counts.

Meta changed those settings twice in the first quarter of 2026, so a lot of saved reports and dashboards now compare numbers that are no longer like for like. Here is what the windows are today, what each one credits, and how to read Ads Manager next to your other tools.

What an attribution setting is

The attribution setting tells Meta which conversions to credit to an ad, based on how the person interacted with it and how long before converting. It has up to three parts:

Click-through: the person clicked a link in the ad and converted within 1 or 7 days.
Engage-through: the person engaged with the ad without a link click (a like, share, save, comment, profile visit, or a video engaged view) and converted within 1 day.
View-through: the person saw the ad, did not interact, and converted within 1 day.

It does two jobs: it defines which conversions show in your default columns, and it is part of what the ad set optimizes toward. That is why it lives on the ad set, not in a report.

The 2026 changes

January 12, 2026: long view windows removed. Meta stopped returning 7-day view and 28-day view data. What remains: 1-day click, 7-day click, 28-day click, 1-day engaged view, and 1-day view. A report or connector still asking for the removed windows comes back empty, which looks like a sudden drop in conversions.
March 2026: click means link click. Meta announced on March 3, 2026 that click-through attribution for website and in-store conversions now counts only link clicks (a click that takes someone to a website, app, lead form or other destination). Non-link interactions that used to count as clicks moved into a new engage-through bucket, which replaced engaged-view attribution. The video threshold for an engaged view also dropped from 10 seconds to 5 seconds.

Click-through now lines up better with click-based tools like GA4. If your click numbers fell in March, check whether engage-through picked them up before assuming performance changed.

Available windows in 2026

Setting	What it credits	Good fit for
7-day click, 1-day engage-through, 1-day view (default)	All three interaction types	Most ecommerce and lead-gen accounts
7-day click, 1-day engage-through	Same without view-through	Accounts that do not trust view-through credit
7-day click only	Link-click conversions within 7 days	Direct-response accounts reconciling closely with GA4
1-day click	Link-click conversions within 1 day	Impulse purchases, short consideration, strict reporting
28-day click (reporting only)	Link-click conversions within 28 days	Comparison columns for long sales cycles; not an optimization setting

Engage-through is on by default for website and in-store conversion goals and can be set to none. Exact options differ by objective and conversion location, so check what the ad set offers.

Why Ads Manager, GA4 and Shopify disagree

Three parallel timelines of the same customer journey, each with a different window bracket highlighting a different touchpoint as the credited one

The gaps come from structural causes:

View-through and engage-through. Meta credits conversions after a view or a non-link engagement. GA4 and Shopify's last-click reports only see sessions, so they never credit an ad the person did not click.
Cross-channel credit. GA4 assigns credit across every channel; Meta only knows about Meta. A shopper who clicked a Reel, then returned through a branded Google search, is a Meta conversion in Ads Manager and a Google one in GA4. Both are "right".
Date of credit. Ads Manager reports a conversion on the date of the ad click or view by default, not the date of the purchase. A Monday click that buys on Thursday shows up on Monday in Meta and Thursday in Shopify.
Cross-device. Meta can connect a phone click to a laptop purchase for logged-in users. GA4 often sees two strangers.
Modeled conversions. Where Meta cannot observe a conversion directly (opted-out iOS users, for example), it adds modeled estimates. GA4 and Shopify count only what they observe.
Tracking gaps. A broken pixel or deduplication errors make Meta over- or under-count. A weak event match quality score is often the quiet cause.

The fix is not picking a winner. Pick one source of truth per decision: Meta's numbers to compare ads and ad sets against each other, your backend (Shopify, your CRM) for actual revenue and blended efficiency, and GA4 for cross-channel paths.

Using the Compare attribution settings column

In Ads Manager, open Columns, then Compare attribution settings. You can show several windows side by side, such as 1-day click, 7-day click, 1-day engage-through and 1-day view, next to your default result.

How much of your result is view-through. Purchases mostly from 1-day view can mean the ad set reaches people who were buying anyway, common in retargeting.
How dependent a creative is on engagement credit. A video with a large engage-through share and weak click-through may be driving attention more than traffic.
Whether a longer consideration cycle is hiding. A big gap between 1-day and 7-day click (or 28-day click) means buyers take time, and 1-day numbers undervalue those ads.

Changing columns changes the report, not how the ad set optimizes.

The same menu offers incremental attribution, Meta's model of the conversions an ad actually caused rather than all that followed it. It is a useful sanity check on retargeting and view-heavy results.

Choosing a setting

Stay on the default unless you have a reason. It gives the delivery system the most signal and is what most ROAS benchmarks you read assume.
Move to click-only when a finance team needs Meta to reconcile closely with GA4 or your backend and you accept less optimization signal.
Use 1-day click for fast, impulse purchases where anything longer is mostly noise.
Never compare ROAS across ad sets, weeks or agencies without checking they use the same setting. It is the most common cause of fake wins in client reporting.
Decide before launch. Meta may not let you edit the attribution setting once an ad set is published, and the usual workaround (duplicating the ad set) starts the learning phase from scratch.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best attribution setting for Facebook ads?

For most accounts, the default of 7-day click, 1-day engage-through and 1-day view, because it gives Meta the most signal to optimize with. Switch to click-only or 1-day click when you need numbers that reconcile closely with GA4 or your backend.

Is 28-day attribution still available on Facebook?

Only as 28-day click for reporting and comparison. Meta removed the 7-day view and 28-day view windows on January 12, 2026, and 28-day click is not available as an ad set attribution setting.

What is engage-through attribution on Meta?

Engage-through credits a conversion within 1 day after someone engaged with an ad without clicking a link, such as liking, sharing, saving, commenting or watching a video for at least 5 seconds. Meta introduced it in March 2026, replacing engaged-view attribution, when click-through was narrowed to link clicks only.

Why does Facebook report more conversions than Google Analytics?

Meta counts view-through and engage-through conversions, connects devices for logged-in users, adds modeled conversions, and credits the ad date. GA4 sees only sessions, splits credit across every channel, and credits the purchase date. The two will rarely match, and neither is wrong.

Attribution fights are easier when the whole team looks at the same numbers. upload.ad puts Meta and TikTok reporting next to the creatives that produced it, so the conversation starts from shared data. Start free.