What is an attribution window?
An attribution window is the number of days after an ad click or call during which a conversion can still be credited to that ad. Outside the window the ad gets nothing, however much it did to start the relationship.
Updated
The attribution window for gyms
Gym decisions take time. Someone clicks an ad on a Tuesday, thinks about it for two weeks, books a consult, shows the following week and pays at the end of the month. If the attribution window is seven days, the ad that started all that gets no credit, and the campaign looks like it failed.
Every platform has its own window, and most have several: one for clicks, a shorter one for views, and a different one again for each conversion action. The window is chosen by the platform, the defaults are generous to the platform, and the numbers in two ad accounts are never measuring the same span of time.
Where windows mislead: a longer window is not automatically more honest. Stretch it to ninety days and an ad from last quarter takes credit for a member who walked in off the street. The window should be about as long as your sales cycle, and the same across every source you compare. See the attribution model for the rule that picks the touch inside it.
How Adsu uses the attribution window
Adsu credits the last eligible touch inside the 30 days before the payment. Thirty days covers a gym’s decision cycle from click to first payment, and it is the same window for every ad platform, every campaign and every location, so a Google number and a Meta number are finally comparable. Adsu counts verified stages only: if a stage cannot be verified, it is not counted. Every report is one line per campaign per location.
If no eligible touch falls inside the window, the payment is still counted as revenue; it is just not credited to a campaign. Renewals are carried as recurring value for that member, credited to the click that started the relationship. Booked, showed and paid go back to Google as offline conversions and to Meta through the Conversions API.
Questions, answered.
Thirty days, applied to the last eligible touch before the payment. It is the same for Google, Meta and every other source, and the same at every location, so campaigns can be compared. A payment with no touch inside the window is still reported as revenue, without a campaign attached.
Each platform sets its own, and each has several, split by clicks, views and conversion action, and the platforms change them from time to time. The safe assumption is that the two are different from each other and that neither matches yours, which is why one window across every source is worth having.
Only as long as your sales cycle. If most members pay within a month of first contact, a 30-day window catches them. A much longer one lets old ads claim members they had nothing to do with, and a much shorter one strips credit from the ads that started a slow decision.
Related
An attribution model is the rule that decides which ad, click or call gets credit when someone joins after several touches. Four common models, and Adsu’s.
Last-click attributionLast-click attribution gives all the credit for a conversion to the last ad click or touch before it happened. What it misses, and how Adsu applies it.
Multi-touch attributionMulti-touch attribution splits the credit for a conversion across the ads and visits that came before it. Why Adsu does not weight touches.
GclidA gclid, Google click ID, is the unique code Google Ads adds to your landing URL when someone clicks an ad. Why the pixel must see it and how Adsu uses it.
The proof
- Net members
- +21
- Lifetime value added
- $67,000+
Bobby & Maria Gasdia, Big Day Fitness, 2 locations
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