Facebook Attribution Settings – The Complete Guide for Beginners

In the fast-paced world of digital advertising, understanding the impact of your campaigns is like holding the keys to success. Welcome to a journey into the heart of Facebook Attribution Settings, the secret sauce behind successful Facebook advertising campaigns. In this blog post, we’ll unravel the mysteries of attribution, explore the changes in the system, and equip you with the knowledge to harness the full potential of Facebook Attribution for your business. Let’s get started! 

What are Facebook Attribution Settings?

When it comes to digital marketing, it’s absolutely crucial for businesses to analyze their data and assess the outcomes of their marketing activities. In this case, Facebook Attribution will act as a compass to help businesses navigate this intricate landscape by shedding light on the effectiveness of their Facebook advertising campaigns.

Now, Facebook attribution settings refer to the different settings of the Facebook Attribution feature. It is the period of time during which conversion credit can be attributed to your ads. The Facebook analytics system will use this data to optimize campaigns and improve ads performance. 

Facebook Conversion Window & Attribution Window

In order to fully understand the changes made to Facebook Attribution Settings. First, we need to understand these two features – Conversion Window and Attribution Window. Prior to January 2021, Facebook Attribution Settings were actually 2 separate features: Facebook Conversion Windows and Attribution Windows.

• The conversion window: refers to the period of time after a user clicked/ viewed your ad then took an action. This action could be anything from making a purchase to signing up to your newsletter. 
• The attribution window: refers to the period of time during which a conversion credit can be tracked and attributed to a particular ad set. 

Afterwards, they became into one unified attribution setting. These new attribution settings allow businesses to measure and analyze the effectiveness of their Facebook advertising campaigns across channels, publishers and devices. This feature is available at the ad set level when you edit an existing campaign or create a new one in Facebook Ads Manager (also known as Meta Ads Manager). The attribution settings that Facebook currently supports are:

Click-through

• 1-day click
• 7-day click

View-through

• 1-day view

Engaged-view (only available for video ad campaigns)

• 1-day engaged-view

To get a better grasp of what Facebook Attribution Settings is and how it works, let’s take a look at an example first. 

Example: Marvin intends to buy a new shirt for school. After looking around on the Internet, he scrolls on Facebook and clicks on Brand A’s targeted ad. He likes it, but ends up not buying it yet. After 1 day of thinking, he revisits Brand A’s website to purchase it. 

Assumption: Brand A’s Facebook Attribution Setting is 1-day click. 

In this case, the Facebook attribution setting is 1-day click. Because of this, after the 1-day period, Facebook will collect all the data on clicks, engagement and conversion. Then, Facebook will credit the conversion to the targeted ad Marvin clicked on the previous day. 

So, why is Facebook Attribution important? 

Measurement is inarguably one of the most important aspects of any digital marketing campaign. Especially with Facebook Attribution (also known as Meta Attribution), where it will directly affect your data and how you optimize your ad performance. Hence that’s why it is an irreplaceable part of any Facebook advertising campaign. 

Data-Driven Decision Making 

Facebook Attribution provides businesses with the data needed to make informed decisions regarding their marketing activities. It clearly displays how different touchpoints contribute to conversions, allowing marketers to identify the most effective ad campaigns. In addition, it also helps to allocate budgets more efficiently, while also helping to fine-tune ad creative, targeting, and messaging based on performance data.

Improved ROI

This seems like the goal for almost all businesses, and Facebook Attribution can help achieve this objective with ease. By analyzing performance data and pointing out which channels are bringing in the most conversion, Facebook Attribution can help businesses minimize wasteful ad spend on ineffective channels. Instead, funds will go to channels that are generating the most conversion. This will in turn enhance the business’s return on investment. 

In summary, Facebook Attribution (Meta Attribution) is essential because it empowers advertisers to make data-driven decisions, improve ROI, and enhance ad performance. By understanding the customer journey and the impact of each touchpoint, you can fine-tune your advertising strategies. Additionally, businesses can allocate resources more effectively, and ultimately achieve better results in this competitive market.

What’s changed in Facebook Attribution Settings

Over the last couple of years, Facebook Attribution Settings have gone through a lot of changes. With Apple’s App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and the launch of IOS 14 in 2021, now apps have to ask users for permission to track their behaviors prior to usage. 

If the user denies permission, apps will also no longer be able link the first-party data with third-party data for advertising purposes. This combined with increasing concerns over user privacy issues had led to Facebook implementing substantial changes to its attribution settings. 

As we have briefly mentioned above, one of the biggest changes regarding Facebook Attribution is the merge of the Attribution Window and Conversion Window features in 2021. This is now Facebook Attribution Settings. 

Apple’s app tracking transparency (ATT) & IOS 14.5

This is Apple’s user privacy framework, which requires apps to ask for user’s permission to track their behaviors in and across apps on their device. This feature was first introduced with Apple’s IOS 14.5 update in April 2021 due to increasing concerns over users’ data privacy abuse. 

After a user downloads an application, a pop-up prompt will appear, requesting the user’s permission to track their behaviors. If the request is denied, apps will no longer be able to follow the customers’ activities across apps and websites. Due to this, advertising platforms that traditionally leverage this information have suffered a big hit.  

Changes in Facebook reporting setting

The changes in Apple’s data collection policy and the launch of IOS 14.5 had also led to some significant changes. This is also prevalent in data reporting within Facebook Ads Manager. 

As you can see in the table above, both the conversion window and attribution window had been merged into the attribution setting. Moreover, Facebook no longer supports the 28-day click, 28-day view and 7-day view. And while the reporting window is now shorter, Facebook has claimed that this will cause issues to business’ advertising.

As of right September 2023, the default Facebook attribution setting is 7-day click and 1-day view. This means that any conversions that happen within 7 days of clicking or 1 day of viewing will be credited to your Facebook ad. However, you can still change this setting to any other available options when you edit your ad set. 

Where & how to change Attribution setting in Facebook Ads

As Facebook is constantly rolling out new updates, it can be quite difficult to navigate your way around Facebook Ads Manager. Here, we’ll give you a guide on how to change your attribution settings in Facebook Ads. 

In case you have already created and published your ad set, all you have to do is. 

• Step 1: Go to Facebook Ad Manager. Locate your ads set and click “Edit”. 

• Step 2: Locate the Optimization & Delivery section in the ad set level. Click on “Show More Options” to see the attribution setting options. 

• Step 3: Choose one of the available options in the dropdown for click-through, view-through and engaged-view if your ad creative is a video. 

And that’s all you have to do to edit your Facebook attribution settings. However, it’s worth noting for certain types of ad campaigns, not all attribution settings will be available. So do check your campaign type before making any adjustments to your attribution settings to yield the best possible results. 

The best attribution setting for Facebook Ads

As we have explained, businesses can utilize the data (clicks, view, etc.) generated from Facebook’s Attribution Settings to take the next step of their digital marketing campaign. But before we do that, we have to determine the best attribution settings for your business. This will generally vary based on each companies’ specific campaign goals, product purchase cycle, customer journey and the conversion type. 

• 1-day click: This setting can be used for cheap items which do not require much customer consideration upon buying. This can also be applied for cases of impulse buy. 
• 7-day click: This attribution window is suitable for B2B businesses that have a standard buying process which requires supervision or approval upon purchase. 
• 1-day click or view: This option is perfect for when businesses offer limited discounts or flash sales. This way, Facebook will take in all conversions within that day and use that data to optimize the ad campaign. Which will result in a surge in ads delivery to users within that day. 
• 7-day click or 1-day view: The last attribution setting are for higher value items, which requires more customer consideration upon buying. These may include high-end cosmetics or high value technological appliances. 

It is true that picking the best Facebook attribution setting for your business is not as easy as it seems. The perfect setting has to be one that aligns with your product, buying cycle and customer journey. However, at the end of the day, it really depends on your data and insights. If you have yet to decide, you can always experiment with different attribution settings before settling with the most suitable option for your industry. 

Optimize your digital advertising plan with NestAds

We can see that Facebook Attribution Settings, coupled with the power of the Facebook Pixel (Meta pixels), offer businesses a unique opportunity to gain valuable insights, optimize their campaigns, and drive better results. However, with Apple’s app tracking transparency policy and growing concerns over user’s data privacy, there have been certain limitations regarding Facebook attribution settings. At the moment, the longest attribution window is 7 days. This major drawback will pose a challenge for businesses when assessing their campaign effectiveness. Especially for brands with a longer buying cycle and more customer consideration upon purchase.  

However, there’s no need to worry. This is where NestAds comes in to save the day. With our flexible attribution window, you will get a more in-depth view into past ads performance to make the final decision. There are 5 different attribution window options, ranging from 7 up to 90 days. This feature will allow your business to look further into past data, get a better grasp of the extended customer journey, and make better decisions regarding your online advertising campaigns. Try NestAds for free today to take your marketing campaign to the next level!