What an Inactivity Window Is
An inactivity window is a guardrail for retargeting measurement. It sets how long a user must have been away from the app before a campaign can claim their return. A user who opened the app yesterday and opens it again today through a retargeting ad has not really been brought back; they were already engaged. A user who has not opened the app in a month and returns through the same ad has.
The window draws that line. Returns from users inside the window stay with their existing attribution. Returns from users outside it can be re-attributed or recorded as re-engagements for the campaign.
How It Works
When a user opens the app through a campaign link or reinstalls through a campaign, the attribution platform looks up their last activity, usually the last app open. It compares the time since then with the inactivity window:
- Last open more recent than the window: the user is treated as active. The campaign does not get credit for a return.
- Last open older than the window: the user is treated as lapsed. The campaign is credited, and events in the re-engagement window count toward it.
For example, with a 7-day window, a user whose last open was 3 days ago does not qualify, while one whose last open was 10 days ago does.
How It Relates to Other Windows
The inactivity window is one of several time settings in attribution, and they are easy to confuse:
- Lookback window: how far back from an install the platform searches for a click or impression to credit.
- Inactivity window: how long a user must be inactive before a return can be re-attributed.
- Re-attribution window: the maximum gap between uninstall and reinstall for the reinstall to count as a return rather than a new install.
- Re-engagement window: how long after a re-engagement the user's events are credited to the retargeting campaign.
Choosing a Window
The right setting depends on how often your users normally return.
- Daily-use apps such as games, social, news or messaging can use short windows of a few days, because a week away is a real lapse.
- Weekly-use apps such as food delivery or fitness often use one to two weeks.
- Occasional-use apps such as travel, insurance or big-ticket shopping need longer windows, sometimes a month or more, so normal gaps between visits are not counted as lapses.
A good check is your own retention data: look at the typical gap between sessions for active users, and set the window above it.
Trade-offs
A short window credits retargeting with more returns, which makes campaigns look better and is useful if you mainly want to measure deep link traffic. It also lets campaigns claim users who would have returned anyway.
A long window credits only users who had truly lapsed. Retargeting looks smaller but more honest, and is easier to defend in a budget review.
Neither window proves that retargeting caused the return. For that, compare retargeted users with a holdout group that was not shown the campaign.
Inactivity Window in Linkrunner
In Linkrunner, the inactivity window defaults to 0 days and is based on the user's last app open. A user who meets it and returns through a Linkrunner deep link, or reinstalls within the 90-day re-attribution window through a campaign, is credited to that campaign. The Retargeting view on the Campaigns page shows reinstalls and re-engagements per campaign. Re-engagements are free; re-attributed installs are billed like any attributed install. See retargeting.