Date and Time in Meta Ads
Correctly handling dates and times is critical for the accuracy of advertising analytics. The Meta Ads connector uses the ad account's time zone and standardized date formats.
Time Zones
Account Time Zone
All Meta Ads statistics data is tied to the ad account's time zone. The time zone is set when the account is created and cannot be changed.
The timezone_name field on the account entity contains the time zone in IANA format (e.g. Europe/Moscow, America/New_York).
Important: when analyzing data, account for the difference between the account's time zone and your local time.
Impact on Data
- Day boundaries: determined by the account's time zone
- "Today's" data: may be incomplete until the end of the day in the account's time zone
- Comparison with Ads Manager: Ads Manager also uses the account's time zone
Date Formats
Standard Format
All dates in the API and in LightLead use the YYYY-MM-DD format:
2026-07-25The date Field in Statistics
The date field in Insights is a string in YYYY-MM-DD format and corresponds to the day (in the account's time zone) for which the metrics were calculated.
Time Periods (date_preset)
Preset Periods
LightLead uses the resolveGraphDateRange function to convert preset periods into specific dates:
| Period | Description | Implementation |
|---|---|---|
today | Current day | since=today, until=today |
yesterday | Yesterday | since=yesterday, until=yesterday |
last_7d | Last 7 days | since=today-7d, until=today (not including today) |
last_30d | Last 30 days | since=today-30d, until=today (not including today) |
Custom Period (time_range)
An arbitrary date range via the time_range object:
{
"time_range": {
"since": "2026-07-01",
"until": "2026-07-25"
}
}Nuances:
since— start date, inclusiveuntil— end date, not included in the result- Maximum period: 37 months (Meta API limitation)
Time-Based Aggregation
By Default
Data is aggregated by day. Each statistics row corresponds to one day.
Hourly Statistics
Available via the hourly_stats_aggregated_by_advertiser_time_zone breakdown:
- Data is aggregated by hour in the account's time zone
- Useful for analyzing performance by time of day
- Available only for a limited period (usually 7-30 days)
Data Delay
Meta Ads data updates with a delay:
- Today's data: may be incomplete, updates throughout the day with a 15-60 minute delay
- Yesterday's data: usually complete by the following morning (account time)
- Historical data: stable and doesn't change
Attribution Delay
Conversions may be counted with a delay of up to 7 days after a click (depending on the attribution window). This means data for the last 7 days may change on a repeat request.
Recommendations
- Don't analyze "today": current-day data is incomplete
- Account for conversion delay: when analyzing ROAS for recent days, adjust for uncounted conversions
- Use yesterday for daily reports: yesterday's data is the most up-to-date and complete
- Compare periods of equal length: week-over-week, month-over-month