How long after the last ad do your customers actually buy? A lot of retargeting
By Andrew Bailiff · November 8, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
How long after the last ad do your customers actually buy?
A lot of retargeting windows are a guess. I check mine in AMC first. It takes one report.
The retargeting window check, in 3 steps:
➡️ Run the time to conversion template. It measures the gap between a shopper's last ad interaction and their purchase.
➡️ Stretch the buckets. The template stops at 7 days. I have AI rewrite it out to 60 days (or longer depending on your product sales cycle), with a few time buckets in between.
➡️ Read where purchases stop, and set your retargeting lookback inside that.
On one account, about half the purchases happened within the first 30 minutes of the last ad interaction. A real share came in between 1 and 30 days later. Past 30 days, next to nothing.
So that became the window. Long enough to reach the 1 to 30 day buyers again. After that, the report showed almost no one converting.
Your number will look different. That's why it's worth checking, and customizing your lookbacks to the lifecylce of your specific customers.