Reachoz MediaAn attribution window is how long a click stays credited to the publisher who sent it. Click a link, don't buy immediately, come back three days later and complete the purchase — does that redemption still belong to the publisher? The answer depends entirely on the window the campaign set, and getting that window wrong costs someone money either way.
Why one window doesn't fit every category
People don't take the same amount of time to decide across categories. A 24-hour window is generous for a food delivery order and far too short for a flight booking.
| Category | Typical decision time | Reasonable window |
|---|---|---|
| Food delivery | Minutes | Same day |
| Fashion & footwear | Hours to a few days | 3–7 days |
| Electronics | Days, often across a sale event | 7–14 days |
| Travel & hotels | Days to weeks | 14–30 days |
| Subscriptions & SaaS | Days to weeks, trial-dependent | 14–30 days |
Set the window too short for the category, and publishers lose credit for redemptions their content genuinely drove — someone who read a comparison post on day one and booked on day four still came from that post. Set it too long, and the campaign ends up crediting a click that had nothing to do with the eventual purchase, which advertisers reasonably push back on.
Last-click, and why it matters here
Most performance networks, including this one, attribute on a last-qualifying-click basis: if a visitor clicks through two different publishers' links within the window, the more recent one gets credit. This matters for deal publishers specifically, because deal-comparison behaviour — checking two or three coupon sites before buying — is common. A campaign's window length directly affects how often your earlier click gets overwritten by someone else's later one.
What to check, on either side
As an advertiser, set the window to match your actual sales cycle, not a default. A window that's too short doesn't save you money — it just makes your campaign look worse to publishers who did the work and didn't get credited, which shows up as lower publisher interest over time.
As a publisher, check a campaign's attribution window before you place high-effort content against it — a long-form buying guide for a travel deal is wasted on a same-day window; a same-day window is exactly right for a food delivery code post going out that morning.
The takeaway
Attribution windows aren't a technical footnote — they're one of the few campaign terms that directly determines whether the work a publisher does actually gets paid for. Matching the window to how long people genuinely take to decide in that category is worth getting right before launch, not after the first dispute.