Four hours, not thirty days

Ad platforms will happily credit a click with a purchase made four weeks later. For a local business that's not a window, it's a wish.

The walk-in is the constraint

A reel about a new single-origin does one thing: it puts a café in someone's head while they're within walking distance and in a position to act. That effect decays in hours, not weeks. If we credited a sale thirty days out, we'd be crediting the post for a customer who lives on the street and comes in every day anyway.

So the default window is the four hours after a post goes live, extended to the end of that trading day for posts published near closing time.

What this costs us

Honesty about the trade: a short window undercounts. Someone who sees a reel on Thursday and visits on Saturday is real, and Numal will not credit that post. The attributed figure in a Numal report is therefore a floor, not a ceiling — and the report says so in as many words.

We chose that direction on purpose. A number that is probably a little low survives an argument with a skeptical owner. A number that is probably a little high does not survive it twice.

When we widen it

Businesses with a booking step — salons, studios, anything where you reserve now and pay later — run on a longer window, matched to the booking rather than the POS. That's set per business at connection, and the window in use is printed on every report.