The new customer acquisition goal uses Performance Max or search campaigns to help you gain new customers. You can choose to optimise the campaign to bid higher for new customers or to bid for new customers exclusively.
This article explains how to set up the new customer acquisition goal. While the activation steps are the same for shop goals advertisers, there are differences with features such as bidding. Learn more about using the new customer acquisition goal with shop 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 Google designates new customers from 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 optimise 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 that you set the goal type to 'Purchase' with Website as the conversion source and the 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.
- In your Google Ads account, click the goals icon
.
- Click the Conversions drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Summary.
- Under the 'Customer acquisition' panel, click Set Up.
- 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.
- Set the value assigned to customer acquisition. This is used only in the New Customer Value mode. It is added to a new customer’s first purchase conversion, which is reflected in reporting, but also helps Smart Bidding to optimise towards new customers. The higher this value is, the more the campaign will be optimised towards new customers. This value will be used by default in all campaigns that optimise to new customer acquisition.
- You might want to set the customer acquisition value to equal 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.
- You might want to set the customer acquisition value to equal the expected future organic revenue of a new customer.
Step 3 of 4: Activate new customer acquisition in your campaign
- In your Google Ads account, click the Campaigns icon
.
- Click the Campaigns drop-down in the section menu.
- Click Campaigns.
- Go to the Google Ads campaign that you want to enable new customer conversions for (currently available for Performance Max and search campaigns).
- Click the gear icon
beside the campaign name to open the 'Settings' panel.
- Expand the 'Customer acquisition' row.
- Select Optimise campaign for acquiring new customers.
- Choose whether you want to:
- Bid higher for new customers rather than existing customers (recommended)
- This option lets you optimise for new customer acquisition while helping you drive overall sales by targeting all 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.
- Bid higher for new customers rather than existing customers (recommended)
- Choose whether you want to:
- This pulls values from your customer acquisition goal at the account level. If you need to make adjustments, click Change value 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 that you’re driving with the new customer acquisition goal activated and calculate key metrics such as customer acquisition cost (the number of new customers/cost).
Where to view performance reporting
- 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 that 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.
- 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 fulfil one or more of the following conditions:
- They haven't made a purchase within the last 540 days (this applies when using the Google auto-detection system).
- They're not included in the existing customer list that you specified in account level customer acquisition settings.
- They've been identified as new customers using the new customer reporting tag.
- Returning: People who purchased something online from your website or app previously. Returning customers are identified when they fulfil one or more of the following conditions:
- They've made a purchase within the last 540 days (this applies when using the Google auto-detection system).
- They're included in the existing customer list that you specified in account-level conversion settings.
- They've been identified as existing customers using the new customer reporting tag.
- Unknown: Customers we can’t report about due to policies around legally or culturally sensitive categories or conversions we cannot identify as new or existing due to personalisation 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 auto-detection.
- New: People who purchased something online from your website or app for the first time. New customers are identified when they fulfil one or more of the following conditions:
