Google Ads Attribution Window Settings Explained: Click-Through, View-Through, and Engaged-View Conversion Windows

An attribution window is the lookback period that decides whether a conversion can still be credited to an ad interaction, and in Google Ads you set it per conversion action, not for the whole account. Change it and your reported conversions change, even though no more people actually bought or signed up. This guide covers the google ads attribution window settings you'll actually find, what each one does to your numbers, and how to pick values that fit how long your customers take to decide.

One caution up front: Google changes defaults, ranges, and menu labels from time to time. The values below reflect Google Ads Help as I understand it for 2026, so confirm them in your own account before you rely on them for client reporting.

What an Attribution Window Does to Your Conversion Data

The window is a countdown that starts at the ad interaction, meaning the click (or, for some formats, the view). It does not start when the visitor lands on your site, and it does not start at the conversion. If the window is 30 days and someone clicks today, any conversion that happens within the next 30 days is eligible to be credited to that click. On day 31, it is not.

Take an illustrative example. A lead clicks your ad on day 1, leaves, and comes back through a direct visit on day 40 to submit a form. With a 30-day click-through window, that form fill is not credited to the ad. With a 60-day window, it is. Same person, same behavior, different report.

Why this is not cosmetic

Conversion data does two jobs. It feeds your reports, and it feeds Smart Bidding, which learns from the conversions it can see. A longer window generally credits more conversions to your ads, and a shorter one credits fewer. That shifts your reported cost per conversion and ROAS, and it changes the signal your bid strategy trains on. If your numbers already look off, it's worth reading why a Google Ads campaign might not be converting before assuming the window is the culprit.

Window versus attribution model

People often treat these as one setting. They are not. The window decides whether a conversion can be credited to your ads at all. The attribution model decides which interaction gets the credit when several ads were involved. Google Ads now centers on data-driven attribution for most accounts, but that choice does not alter how far back the lookback reaches. You can change either one without touching the other.

Keep one more distinction in mind. A longer window does not produce more real customers. It only widens the net for deciding which of them your ads get credit for.

The Windows You Can Set in Google Ads

There are three window types, and which ones you see depends on the conversion action and the campaign types feeding it.

• Click-through conversion window: counts conversions that follow a click on your ad. The default is 30 days, and the range is 1 to 90 days.
• View-through conversion window: counts conversions that follow an impression where the person saw the ad but did not click. It applies to Display and Video formats. The default is 1 day, and you can extend it up to 30 days.
• Engaged-view conversion window: applies to YouTube video ads. It credits a conversion when someone watched a defined portion of the ad (the engaged view) and then converted without clicking. The default is 3 days.

Here is how they compare at a glance:

1. Click-through: applies to clicks on Search, Shopping, Display, Video, and other click-based formats. Default 30 days. Typical use: match to your real click-to-conversion lag.
2. View-through: applies to Display and Video impressions. Default 1 day. Typical use: keep short, since a view is a weak signal compared with a click.
3. Engaged-view: applies to YouTube video ads. Default 3 days. Typical use: leave at default unless video is a major channel with a known lag.

Not every conversion action offers every option. Conversion types differ, so calls from ads, imported conversions, and app actions can expose different choices or ranges. Check the settings screen for the specific action instead of assuming the numbers above apply everywhere.

For a Search-focused account, the click-through window is the one that matters. View-through and engaged-view settings only come into play if you run Display or YouTube campaigns, and even then, treat them as secondary signals. They credit an ad that was seen rather than acted on, so a generous view-through window can inflate results for those campaigns quickly.

How to Find and Change the Setting in Your Account

The window lives on the conversion action itself. The path, as of 2026, runs roughly like this:

1. Open Goals in the left-hand menu.
2. Go to Conversions, then Summary.
3. Click the name of the conversion action you want to change.
4. Choose Edit settings.
5. Open the section for more settings, adjust the click-through window (and view-through or engaged-view windows if shown), and save.

Menu labels move around, so if you don't see these exact words, look for the conversion action's settings page rather than a global account setting. There isn't one.

What happens to past data

Treat edits as applying going forward to how the action is evaluated, and expect your reports to look different afterward. I'd avoid assuming that Google rewrites or fully restates history, and I'd check Google Ads Help for the current behavior before promising a client that old numbers will or won't change. The safest approach is to record the date and compare periods with that in mind.

Two habits that save headaches

First, be careful editing a window on an action that live Smart Bidding campaigns optimize toward. Reported volume can shift, and the bid strategy may take time to adjust to the new signal, so don't make the change in the middle of a launch or a seasonal peak. Add an annotation in Google Ads on the day you change it so anyone reading the trend later knows why the line moved.

Second, if you run multiple client accounts, keep a simple record per account: conversion action name, click-through window, view-through window, engaged-view window, and the date of any change. When a client asks why this quarter's conversions differ from last quarter's, that sheet answers it in seconds. It also helps you improve Google Ads performance metrics with a clean baseline to compare against.

Choosing a Window That Matches Your Sales Cycle

Start from how long your customers actually take, not from a round number. Impulse ecommerce buyers often convert within a day or two of clicking. High-consideration B2B services, home services quotes, and SaaS trials that turn into paid plans can stretch across weeks.

To measure it, look at the time lag information in Google Ads. The attribution reports have historically included path and time lag views that show how many days pass between first interaction and conversion. Availability and naming change, so confirm where it sits in your account. If it isn't there, export conversions with their click dates and conversion dates from your CRM or analytics and work out the distribution yourself.

Then read the distribution, not the average. If 90 percent of your conversions land within 14 days, a 90-day window mostly adds a thin tail of conversions where the ad was a distant memory. Extending past what your data supports tends to hand credit to old clicks without telling you anything new.

Two illustrative scenarios

A 3-day purchase cycle. Suppose a store selling low-priced accessories sees nearly all purchases within three days of the click. A 7 to 14 day click-through window captures the real behavior with room to spare. Keeping the 30-day default isn't harmful, but it means recent data stays "open" longer than it needs to.

A 60-day lead-to-close cycle. Suppose a B2B software company counts a qualified opportunity as its conversion, and opportunities typically form five to eight weeks after the first click. A 30-day window would drop many of them. A window of 60 to 90 days fits better, and you should plan to judge performance with a delay.

Offline conversion imports

If you import offline conversions, such as closed deals uploaded from a CRM, the timing has its own constraint: the conversion needs to be tied to an ad interaction that still falls inside the window when it's imported. Verify the current import limits in Google Ads Help, and upload on a regular schedule so late closes don't age out.

Why Your Numbers Don't Match: Windows, Reporting Dates, and Other Platforms

Most "the numbers are wrong" complaints trace back to a few causes, and the window is only one of them. If something still feels broken after you check the settings, diagnosing what is wrong with your Google Ads campaign is a good next step.

Interaction date versus conversion date

By default, the standard Conversions column in Google Ads attributes a conversion to the date of the ad interaction, not the date the conversion happened. Google also offers "by conversion time" columns that report on the date the conversion occurred. Column names change, so look for the by-conversion-time variants in the column picker. A report built on one and compared against a report built on the other will not agree, and neither is wrong.

Recent days look weak

Because conversions are credited back to the click date, yesterday's clicks are still inside their open window and may convert later. On accounts with long lag, the last several days will always look low and then climb. Don't cut bids or pause campaigns based on a short recent slice when your conversion lag is measured in weeks.

Other platforms use other rules

Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads use different attribution defaults and different window settings, and Meta uses its own. Totals will not reconcile, and they were never designed to. Rather than quoting numbers from memory, check each platform's help documentation for its current default windows and counting rules, and compare trends within one platform instead of forcing the totals to match.

The misconception that causes the most trouble

Extending a window does not create conversions. If your reported conversions rise after you move from 30 to 90 days, the same customers simply started counting toward your ads. Celebrating that as improved performance, or reporting it that way to a client, is a mistake. Your actual revenue did not change. A grounded view of what counts as a well-performing Google Ads campaign helps keep reporting honest.

Using Windows Alongside Search Term Cleanup

Conversion data feeds bidding, and it also colors how the Search Terms report looks. A search term is the actual query someone typed; a keyword is what you bid on (see search terms vs keywords in Google Ads for the full distinction). When you review search terms, "converted" or "didn't convert" depends on what your window has credited so far.

That matters most on long sales cycles. A search term with 40 clicks and zero conversions might look like a clear negative keyword candidate, but if your typical lag is five weeks, some of those clicks may still be inside their window and could convert. Add the term as a negative too early and you cut off traffic that was about to pay off. Our guide to negative keyword strategies covers how to weigh those decisions.

A workable rule: for long-lag accounts, wait until the clicks you're judging are older than your window (or at least older than most of your observed lag) before treating zero conversions as meaningful. Obvious junk is the exception. Queries that are plainly irrelevant, like job seekers on a product campaign or the wrong service entirely, don't need to wait.

Once you've decided which terms to act on, Keywordme handles the clicking. It's a Chrome extension that works inside the Search Terms report, so you can add negative keywords, add positive keywords, and apply match types without leaving Google Ads. It doesn't touch attribution settings or conversion windows, and the judgment about which terms to add or exclude stays with you. If the report volume is the bottleneck, see how to review the Google Ads search terms report faster.

Set the Window from Your Data, Then Give It Time to Fill

Pick each conversion action's window from the lag you actually observe, write down the change date, and hold off on judging search terms until their clicks have had the full window to convert. Those three habits clear up most of the confusion around shifting numbers.

When you reach the cleanup step, Keywordme keeps it quick. Optimize Google Ads Campaigns 10X Faster. Without Leaving Your Account. Keywordme lets you remove junk search terms, build high-intent keyword lists, and apply match types instantly, right inside Google Ads. No spreadsheets, no switching tabs, just quick, seamless optimization. Start your free 7-day trial (then just $12/month) and take your Google Ads game to the next level.