TL;DR Summary of Google Ads Experimenting with New Customer Value in Acquisition Campaigns
Optimixed’s Overview: Understanding Google Ads’ New Customer Value Experiment and Its Impact on Advertisers
What’s Happening with New Customer Value in Google Ads?
Google Ads is currently running an experiment where it sets a New Customer Value automatically within New Customer Acquisition (NCA) campaigns. This setting helps the platform optimize campaigns by attributing a specific value to new customers, which can enhance targeting and increase the ratio of new customer acquisitions.
Advertiser Concerns and Reporting Impacts
- Confusion: Some advertisers have noticed unexpected values applied without prior notice and have found it difficult to remove these values.
- Artificial Revenue Inflation: The assigned values can cause reported revenue figures to appear higher than actual, affecting performance metrics.
- Conversion Tracking Issues: Despite the value assignment, many conversions remain listed as ‘unknown,’ complicating accurate reporting.
Google’s Official Explanation and Recommendations
According to Google’s Ads Liaison, this experiment is designed to help advertisers by suggesting or automatically applying a New Customer Value based on historical data or a recommended multiplier of the average order value. Key points include:
- If unsure about what value to assign, Google may suggest a default or recommend testing with twice the average order value.
- Advertisers can toggle the New Customer Acquisition setting on or off to manage reporting needs and concerns.
- Upcoming improvements will introduce dedicated new customer reporting across all purchase conversion campaigns.
What Advertisers Should Do
Advertisers should closely monitor the impact of this experiment on their campaign data and reporting. They can adjust or disable the New Customer Value setting if it adversely affects their performance analysis. Staying informed about Google’s forthcoming reporting updates will also be essential for accurate measurement of new customer acquisition success.