Attribution Windows and Facebook

Attribution Windows and Facebook

An attribution window is the maximum amount of time between an initial action (click or impression) and a conversion event (install or open) for which you attribute that conversion event as occurring because of that initial action.

Example with 3 day view attribution window: If a user views your ad and 2 days later installs your app, that install would be attributed to that ad view. However if the user views your ad and 4 days later installs the app, that install would be considered an organic install and would NOT be attributed to that ad view. You can read more in our documentation here

If one of your attribution windows on the Branch dashboard is different than the corresponding window on the Facebook dashboard, the data between the two will not align. You can mitigate this by changing one of more of your attribution windows on the Branch dashboard, or changing your Facebook dashboard for the given ad account.

There are four Branch attribution windows, and two Facebook attribution windows. This chart shows which Facebook window name each Branch window name corresponds to:

Change your Facebook attribution windows

In order to update your Facebook Attribution window for a particular ad account, you can go to https://business.facebook.com/ads/manager/account_settings/information. Choose the account in the dropdown in the upper-left corner. As long as you're an admin on that account, you should see a section 'Attribution' at the top-right, and an ability to edit the Click or View window or both.

Change your Branch attribution windows

Alternatively or in addition, you could update any of your four Branch attribution windows. To do so go to the Link Settings section of the Branch dashboard, and scroll down to the 'Attribution Windows' section and expand it. Alter any of the four windows listed in the chart above to match the corresponding Facebook window, and then save at the bottom of the page.

Reporting based on time of impression or time of conversion

Facebook and Branch may report the same install as occurring on different days, if the impression is on one day but the install is on another day.

Background:

Facebook by defaults reports installs based on the day that the impression occurred. They also allow you to see reports based on the day that the install occurred.

Branch always reports installs based on the date of install, never the date of impression.

Let's illustrate this with a scenario:

User views an ad on April 1, clicks it, then installs the app on April 2.

By default, Facebook reports the install as occurring on April 1. However, when pulling data from the insights API, you can specify option action_report_time=conversion. This causes Facebook to report that the install occurred on April 2.

Branch will always report the install as having occurred on April 2.