Google Analytics now lets you set custom conversion windows in place of fixed presets, so the credit for a sale can match how long customers actually take to buy. The default windows quietly distorted marketing numbers, especially for slow considered purchases. Operators with longer sales cycles should set the window to their real buying cycle rather than accept the default.
The Take: Google Analytics just handed you control of something that has quietly bent marketing numbers for years, the window it uses to decide which ad gets credit for a sale. Most Australian businesses never noticed the default did not fit how their customers buy. Now that it can be fixed, ignoring it is a choice to keep measuring wrong.
The change: Google Analytics now lets you set your own conversion windows instead of its fixed presets. Engaged-view conversions can run anywhere from 1 to 30 days, up from a locked 3 days. Click-through conversions can be set anywhere from 1 to 90 days, replacing the old preset steps. The control sits under Advertising, then Conversion management.
The click-through conversion window you can now set in Google Analytics, in place of its old fixed presets
The fine print: A conversion window is how long an ad can still claim credit after someone sees or clicks it. Set it too short and a slow, considered purchase looks like it came from nowhere, so you starve the channel that started the sale. Set it too long and you hand credit to ads that did little. The old three-day view window was brutal for anything that is not an impulse buy.
What breaks: This matters most where the sale takes time. Across the Australian businesses we score, the ones with the longest sales cycles are also the weakest at conversion. Part of that is a measurement trap. A buyer who takes six weeks to choose a builder or a school gets credited to whatever they clicked last, while the ad that first put you in the running reads as a zero. Match the window to how people actually buy and the picture changes.
For Australian operators: Do not accept the default, set the window to your real buying cycle. First, work out how long a typical customer takes from first contact to purchase, then set the click window to cover it, whether that is a week for a cheap product or the full 90 days for a considered one. Second, change one window at a time and note the date, because your reported returns will shift and you need to know what caused it. The number was never neutral. Now that you can set it, owning that setting is the line between measuring your marketing and being misled by it.