Google Ads Conversion Window: How Many Days to Set

The conversion window is the number of days after someone clicks your ad during which Google Ads still records a conversion, such as a lead, a call, or a purchase. If you change nothing, Search and Display campaigns use 30 days. In the conversion action the setting is labeled “Click-through conversion window”.

Pick the number by how many days pass between a click and money in your business, and pick it separately for a lead and for a sale. Below you will find a table, an example from one account, and the steps. The overall tracking setup is covered in the article on Google Ads conversion tracking setup. This one is about a single option.

Which windows exist and what the defaults are

Every conversion action has three separate windows. For ordinary search ads the first one does the work: a person clicks, then takes an action on your site.

Google recommends a click-through window of at least 7 days, because it gives you a richer set of conversion data. View-through conversions mostly feed reports only and stay out of the “Conversions” column. They are a tool for Display and video campaigns. More on that in the article about view-through conversions.

How to choose: leads and sales run on different clocks

In a two-step funnel the fast signal and the money arrive on different clocks. In one of the accounts I analyze, over one half-year, 68.8% of lead events landed on the day of the click against 22.4% of orders, while 35.6% of orders arrived more than two weeks later and 20.0% more than a month later. That is one account, not a law. The mechanics still apply to you.

The default 30 days would have cut off about one order in five in that account. The window works on each conversion action separately, so a lead action and an order action can have different periods.

To find your own number, open the time lag report in your attribution reports. It shows how many days pass between an ad interaction and a conversion. Google gives this example: if 75% of conversions happen between the 25th and the 30th day, set a window at least that long, or you may miss recording conversions. The report covers only interactions on google.com. Clicks on the Google Display Network and on search partners do not show up in it.

Smart Bidding strategies such as Target CPA and Target ROAS count and optimize conversions for any window you choose. The window changes which conversions the strategy gets to see.

Steps: where to change the window and what to avoid

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon.
2. In the section menu, open the Conversions drop-down and select Summary.
3. Find the conversion action you want to change and select Edit settings.
4. On the Settings tab, expand Click-through conversion window and pick the period from the drop-down.
5. Click Save, then Done. The steps are described in Google’s help page about conversion windows.

Three mistakes business owners make:

• Shortening the window so a report looks cleaner. A conversion that happens after the window is not recorded and does not appear in your reports. The time lag report is capped at the same window, so you stop seeing how many conversions came later.
• Expecting a new value to fix the past. If you move from 30 days to 10, the 10-day window applies only to conversions recorded from that day forward.
• Using one window for both leads and sales. Each conversion action has its own period.

When this does not apply

A window does not create conversions that are not there. If your tag fails to pass the lead, a longer window changes nothing, so check the tracking status first. A changed window also does not bring back conversions that already fell outside the old one.

For Google Analytics conversions, where you change the window depends on your attribution settings. With “Google paid channels” you change it directly in Google Ads. With “Paid and organic channels” you change it in Google Analytics. Changes made in Analytics show up in Google Ads only on the “Change history” page.

The time lag report cannot see clicks on the Display Network or on search partners. If most of your traffic comes from there, the number in that report is incomplete.

Questions and answers

What window should I set for a contact form lead?

Google does not give one number. A starting point is the default 30 days, and never below 7. Then read the time lag report for that exact action and adjust. In the account described above most leads arrived on the day of the click while orders stretched over weeks. That is why the actions get separate windows.

Will a new window change conversions already recorded?

No. It applies to conversions recorded from the day of the change. Earlier ones stay as they were, and the ones that fell outside do not come back.

Do I need a view-through window for search ads?

Usually not. View-through conversions are for judging Display and video campaigns. They mostly feed reports only and stay out of the “Conversions” column.

The step-by-step version is in my book on Google Ads for business owners. It shows how to set the window together with the rest of conversion tracking in an account.