An attribution window is the lookback period during which a marketing touch can receive credit for a deal. Set it to your own close-time curve. Every default value shipped by an ad platform or a marketing automation tool was calibrated for a purchase cycle far shorter than a B2B software deal.
Anchor the Window to Your Close Curve
ORM groups every opportunity with a machine learning model and predicts a close-time curve for each group. Those curves run from 1 to 80 weeks. Most of the expected close volume lands before week 12, and very few groups carry expectation past 52 weeks. That shape is a starting point for the two window lengths worth testing against your own touch-to-creation lag.
- 90 days is the shorter window to test, because most of ORM's predicted close volume lands before week 12. Use it for fast campaign feedback. - 12 months covers the long tail, so it is the right window for annual budget allocation and for enterprise segments.
Anything shorter than 90 days will report that your top-of-funnel programs produce nothing. Anything longer than 12 months mostly adds touches that had no bearing on the decision.
Build the Curve From Your Own Data
Pull every closed-won opportunity from the last two years. For each one, measure the days between the first recorded marketing touch on the account and the opportunity create date. Plot the distribution and find the point where the curve flattens. That flattening point is your window. If the answer differs sharply by segment, run separate windows per segment instead of averaging them into a number that fits neither.
Windows Interact With Pipeline Hygiene
A long window quietly rewards stale records. ORM applies a 12-month rule for most customers, treating an opportunity with no meaningful change as stale, and a typical customer carries 10% or more of pipeline in that state. Meaningful change means a change in stage, close date, or amount. If your attribution window credits touches on opportunities that have not moved in a year, the report is crediting channels for pipeline that will never convert. Exclude stale opportunities from attributed pipeline reporting the same way you exclude them from pipeline coverage math.
Close-date movement matters too. A deal that slips repeatedly stretches past your window and reappears in a later period under a different credited channel. Read deal slippage for how that movement distorts period-over-period comparisons, and sales velocity for the cycle-length measurement that sets the window in the first place.
Publish the Window With the Report
State the window on the face of every attribution report. Two teams reading the same dashboard with different assumed lookbacks will reach opposite conclusions and neither will know why.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is a reasonable default attribution window for B2B SaaS?
Ninety days for pipeline creation reporting and twelve months for closed-won reporting. The short window keeps campaign feedback fast, and the long window covers deals that take three or four quarters to close.
Can you use the ad platform's default window?
Ad platform defaults are built around short consumer purchase cycles. A 7-day or 28-day click window expires long before a B2B opportunity is created, so the platform records no conversion and the channel looks dead.
Should the window differ by segment?
Yes, if your segments have materially different cycle lengths. Enterprise deals that run three times longer than SMB deals need a longer lookback, otherwise enterprise-sourced programs are systematically under-credited.
Does a longer window always give a more complete picture?
No. Longer windows pull in touches that had no influence on the decision and inflate the credited channel count per deal. Past the point where your close-time curve flattens, extra window length adds noise rather than signal.
Put these metrics to work
ORM builds custom revenue forecast models that turn concepts like how long should an attribution window be? into prescriptive action for your team.
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