Meta attribution setting: 7-day click vs 1-day view, and which to choose

What 7-day click, 1-day view means

7-day click, 1-day view is a Meta attribution setting. It tells Ads Manager to credit your ad with a purchase, lead or other website conversion if the person clicked a link in the ad and converted within 7 days, or saw the ad without clicking and converted within 1 day. Meta uses the same setting to decide who to show the ad to, so it shapes delivery as well as reporting.

Our recommendation for most Australian ecommerce and lead generation accounts: keep 7-day click and 1-day view on prospecting and sales ad sets, then judge profit on the 7-day click number in the Compare attribution settings columns. If an ad set only clears your break-even ROAS once view-through sales are added, treat it as unproven until a test or your store's own numbers back it up.

The rest of this guide covers the three kinds of credit Meta now uses, what changed in 2026, which setting to pick for your business, a worked AUD example with GST, and when incremental attribution is the better choice.

The three kinds of credit Meta now counts

When you build an ad set with a website conversion location, Meta's standard attribution lets you choose up to three kinds of credit. These are the definitions from Meta's own help page, checked in November 2026:

What changed

Click-through used to count any click on the ad. Meta now limits it to link clicks and has moved every other interaction, plus video plays, into the new engage-through bucket. Engage-through replaces the older "1-day engaged-view" option, which only covered video plays. Meta notes that some accounts still run the previous versions while the change rolls out, so check what your own ad set screen shows.

The practical effect: if your account has moved to the new version, a 7-day click number can look a little lower than it did, because likes and saves no longer count as clicks. That is cleaner data, not worse performance. Compare periods only when both sit on the same version.

Engage-through is available on all placements except Facebook in-stream video ads that cannot be skipped, and it shows nothing on campaigns without video unless people interact with the ad in other ways.

Why the setting changes who sees your ads

Meta states that standard attribution "optimises delivery for selected time windows and user behaviours". In plain terms, the delivery system looks for people likely to convert in the way you have told it to count. Three consequences follow:

• 1-day click is the strictest choice. Meta hunts for people who click and buy fast. Delivery can suit impulse products and cheap offers, and it will usually look worse in reporting because it counts less.
• Adding view-through widens the net. Meta gets credit for people who scroll past and buy within a day. That can find more buyers, and it can also reward ads shown to people who were already going to buy, such as returning customers.
• Engage-through rewards attention. It suits video-led brands whose buyers watch, save and come back later rather than clicking on the spot.

Because the setting shapes delivery, pick it when you create the ad set and leave it alone while the ad set learns. If you want to try a different setting, duplicate the ad set and run the two side by side instead of editing the live one, so you never mix two counting rules in one ad set's history. Our guide to Meta's learning phase covers which edits reset learning.

Which attribution setting to choose

Whatever you choose, use the same setting across ad sets you want to compare. Meta warns that ad sets on different attribution models cannot be compared in the campaign table, and the same logic applies to different windows inside the standard model.

Read Compare attribution settings: a worked example in AUD

In Ads Manager, open Columns and choose Compare attribution settings. Tick 1-day click, 7-day click and 1-day view (and 1-day engage-through if you run video). The first column stays on your ad set's own setting; the others show the same conversions counted under each window. One conversion is credited once, so engage-through and view-through columns overlap and the columns do not simply add up. Meta's own example shows 5 click-through, 15 view-through and 3 engage-through conversions reported as 20 results.

Here is how we read it for an invented Shopify store selling homewares, spending $6,000 in a month on one sales campaign set to 7-day click and 1-day view:

The store's margin after product cost, shipping and payment fees gives a break-even ROAS of 2.20 on GST-exclusive revenue (our break-even ROAS guide shows how to work yours out).

1. Strip GST. The Shopify pixel usually sends prices including GST. $18,000 divided by 1.1 is $16,364, so the headline ROAS is really 2.73. The 7-day click figure becomes $13,200 / 1.1 = $12,000, a ROAS of exactly 2.00.
2. Check the view-through share. 40 of 150 purchases (27%) are view-through. That is the part most likely to include people who would have bought anyway.
3. Decide on the click number. On 7-day click and ex-GST revenue the campaign sits at 2.00 against a 2.20 break-even: slightly under water. The headline 3.00 hides that.
4. Cross-check the store. If Shopify's total orders rise when spend rises, the view-through sales are probably partly real. If total orders stay flat, they are mostly credit for sales you already had.

The action in this example is not to switch off the campaign. It is to fix the offer or creative until the 7-day click ROAS clears break-even on its own, and to keep any view-through upside as a bonus. If your pixel sends GST-inclusive values and you are unsure, our Meta pixel and Conversions API guide for Shopify shows where to check.

Standard or incremental attribution

Meta now offers two attribution models in the ad set (a third, custom attribution, lets businesses with their own analytics tool share that data with Meta):

• Standard credits conversions inside the click, view and engage windows you choose.
• Incremental optimises and reports on conversions that Meta's machine learning models predict were caused by the ad, rather than every conversion that happened after an ad was seen or clicked.

To use incremental attribution, choose the Sales, Engagement or Leads objective, set the conversion location to Website or Website and app, choose Maximise number of conversions or Maximise value of conversions, click Show more options and pick Incremental under Attribution model. Two limits matter:

• You cannot use bid controls (bid cap, cost per result goal or ROAS goal) with incremental attribution. If your account depends on those, read our bid cap and cost cap guide first.
• You cannot change the attribution model after you publish. To switch, build a new campaign.

Incremental results will look smaller than standard results, because they leave out sales the model thinks would have happened anyway. Compare the two only through Compare attribution settings or your store's own sales, never ad set against ad set in the main table. We trial it on established accounts that already have steady weekly purchase volume, running it as a separate campaign beside the existing one for at least four weeks.

Why Meta's number never matches Shopify or GA4

Each platform uses its own credit rules. Meta counts view-through and engage-through conversions that Google Analytics never sees, because GA4 only knows about sessions that reached your site. GA4 shares credit across every channel in the path, and Shopify records orders, not ad credit. Two platforms can both claim the same order.

So a gap between Meta and Shopify is normal; a change in the gap is the signal. Our guide to why marketing revenue reports disagree walks through reconciling them, and the attribution gap diagnostic helps you work out whether a gap is a tracking fault or just different counting. If you would rather hand the setup and the weekly read to someone, this is the kind of work we do every week for Australian brands.

A five-minute weekly attribution check

1. Open your saved Compare attribution settings view for the last 7 days.
2. Note the 7-day click ROAS or cost per lead, ex GST, for each live campaign.
3. Note the view-through share of results. Flag any campaign where it jumps by 10 points or more week on week.
4. Compare total Meta-credited purchases with Shopify's total orders for the same week.
5. Make budget decisions on the click number and the store trend, not the headline Results column.

Pair this with a check on ad frequency: a rising view-through share alongside rising frequency usually means the same people are being shown the ad again and again.

Questions we get about Meta's attribution setting

What does 7-day click, 1-day view mean?

Meta credits your ad with a conversion if someone clicked a link in the ad and converted within 7 days, or saw the ad without clicking and converted within 1 day. Meta also uses the setting to decide who to show the ad to.

Is 7-day click or 1-day click better?

For most ecommerce and lead generation accounts, 7-day click gives Meta more conversions to learn from and captures people who take a few days to decide. 1-day click suits impulse offers and accounts that want the strictest possible count.

Should I include view-through attribution?

Usually yes for prospecting, because it helps delivery find buyers. Judge profit on the 7-day click column, and be sceptical of any campaign that only looks profitable once view-through sales are added.

What is engage-through attribution in Meta ads?

Engage-through counts a conversion within 1 day after someone interacts with your ad without clicking a link, such as saving or liking it, or after a video ad plays for at least 5 seconds (97% of its length if shorter). It replaces the older 1-day engaged-view option.

Can I change the attribution setting after publishing?

Meta does not let you change the attribution model, standard or incremental, after publishing. For a different window inside the standard model, we duplicate the ad set rather than edit a live one, so one ad set never mixes two counting rules.

What is incremental attribution in Meta?

An attribution model that optimises and reports on conversions Meta's models predict were caused by the ad. It works with the Sales, Engagement and Leads objectives on website conversions, cannot use bid controls and cannot be changed after the campaign is published.

Sources

• Meta Business Help Centre: About attribution models and attribution settings
• Meta Business Help Centre: Set up engage-through in Meta Ads Manager
• Meta Business Help Centre: About incremental attribution
• Meta Business Help Centre: How to use incremental attribution in Meta Ads Manager
• Meta Business Help Centre: About actions attributed to your ad