Activate the new customer acquisition goal

This article explains how to set up the new customer acquisition goal. While activation steps are the same for store goals advertisers, there are differences with features such as bidding. Learn more about Using the new customer acquisition goal with store goals.

On this page

• Upload existing customer lists through Customer Match
• Configure your new customer acquisition goal
• Activate new customer acquisition in your campaign
• Monitor your campaign performance

Instructions

Step 1 of 4: Upload existing customer lists through Customer Match

You can upload your customer lists so that Google designates new customers with the accurate information. Learn more about how to Create a customer list.

Step 2 of 4: Configure your new customer acquisition goal

Having a "Purchase" conversion action is required to be able to optimize campaigns to acquire new customers. Only conversion actions that are set up using the manual implementation method are eligible for new customer acquisition goals. You can set up a new "Purchase" conversion action, or if you’ve already set up your conversion action, ensure you set the goal type to “Purchase” with Website as conversion source and conversion action set to Primary.

If you haven’t configured your new customer acquisition goal yet, use the following steps to set it up. If you use cross-account conversion tracking, configure your new customer acquisition goal from the main account where conversion tracking is set up.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
2. Click the Conversions drop down in the section menu.
3. Click Summary.
4. Under the “Customer acquisition” panel, click Set Up.
5. Define existing customers by choosing one or more audience lists.
   Important: Verify all of your existing customer lists so that Google's new customer detection is as accurate as possible. Without this information, Google Ads won't be able to identify which customers are new or returning. If you use a manager account (MCC), ensure automatic sharing is on.
6. Set the value assigned to customer acquisition. This is used only in the New customer value mode. This is added to a new customer’s first purchase conversion, which will reflect in the reporting, but would also help Smart Bidding to optimize towards new customers. The higher this value is, the more the campaign will be optimized towards new customers. This value will be used by default in all campaigns that optimize to new customer acquisition.
   • You might want to set the customer acquisition value to be equal to the expected future organic revenue of a new customer.
     Example: If customers spend an average of $120 USD per purchase, and 2 out of 3 customers buy annually for 2 years, the recommended new customer value would be $120 USD * ⅔ * 2 = $160 USD.
   • If you’re unsure what your new customer acquisition value should be, you can use the recommended value that’s suggested when you select the new customer goal. This recommended value is based on your average order value across your prior campaigns.

Step 3 of 4: Activate new customer acquisition in your campaign

7. Select Adjust your bidding to help you gain new customers.
   • Choose whether you want to:
     • Bid higher for new customers rather than existing customers (recommended)
       • This option lets you optimize for new customer acquisition, while helping you drive overall sales by targeting all customers.
       • You can select whether to use account level customer acquisition settings or use settings for just this campaign (if you’re using account settings, you’re all done).
       • If you’re using unique settings only for this campaign, enter an incremental conversion value to attribute to new customers.
       • (Feature in beta): You can toggle New customers (high) value ON, and enter an additional value to be attributed to high value new customers.
       • Note: This is only available for max conversion value / target ROAS bid strategies.
     • Only bid for new customers
       • This option limits your ads to only new customers, regardless of your bid strategy. Note that this may limit the reach of your campaign and be detrimental to performance.
8. This will pull values from your customer acquisition goal at the account level. If you need to make adjustments to that, click Edit account level settings and you’ll be taken to your account customer acquisition goal settings.

Step 4 of 4: Monitor your campaign performance

You can monitor the number of new customers you’re driving with the new customer acquisition goal activated, and calculate key metrics such as customer acquisition cost (number of new customers/cost).

Where to view performance reporting

1. In the “Campaigns table”, add the following columns to review the count of new customers and the total value adjustment of new customer acquisition, respectively:
   • New Customers: The number of new customers you have acquired from the campaign.
   • New Customer Lifetime value: The conversion value adjustment corresponding to acquisition conversions (first purchase conversions determined to be from new customers).
     Example: If customers spend an average of $120 USD per purchase, and 2 out of 3 customers buy annually for 2 years, the recommended new customer value would be $120 USD * ⅔ * 2= $160 USD.
2. In the “Campaigns table”, you can segment by "Conversions" or "New vs. returning customers". This segments your conversions and conversion value into 3 customer categories:
   • New: People who purchased something online from your website or app for the first time. New customers are identified when they fulfill one or more of the following:
     • They haven't made a purchase within the last 540 days (this applies when using Google autodetection system).
     • They're not included in the existing customer list you specified in account level customer acquisition settings.
     • They've been identified as new customers using the new customer reporting tag.
   • New Customers - High Value (beta): The number of high value new customers who purchased something online from your website or app for the first time.
     • They haven't made a purchase within the last 540 days (this applies when using Google autodetection system).
     • They're not included in the existing customer list you specified in account level customer acquisition settings.
     • They've been identified as new customers using the new customer reporting tag.
     • Note: This is only available if you’ve selected to bid higher for high value new customers (beta).
   • Returning: People who purchased something online from your website or app previously. Returning customers are identified when they fulfill one or more of the following:
     • They've made a purchase within the last 540 days (this applies when using Google autodetection system).
     • They're included in the existing customer list you specified in account-level conversion settings.
     • They've been identified as existing customers using the new customer reporting tag.
   • Unknown: Customers who we can’t report about due to policies around legally or culturally sensitive categories or conversions we cannot identify to be new or existing due to personalization settings.
     Note: If you use new customer acquisition with the Google tag, Google Tag Manager, or Firebase, we use the values provided in the tag for “new”, “returning”, or “unknown" customers instead of Google autodetection.