As an ecommerce marketer, new customer acquisition and retention are always at the forefront of my Google Ads strategy.
I’ve found Performance Max (PMax) is a key driver of both. It allows me to reach high-intent audiences across multiple placements while leveraging Google’s automation to optimize for purchases.
New customer acquisition goals in Performance Max
Google rolled out customer acquisition goals within campaign settings in 2022.
Since then, it has continued to improve the feature with additional tools, such as high-value audiences and, more recently, customer retention goals.
Like any new Google automated change, it can be good to be a bit skeptical at first, especially when reporting transparency is limited.
But, you should always be open to testing new features, especially when they align with clients’ goals – new customer acquisition and audience retention.
High-value new customer acquisition
Performance Max campaigns were the first to roll out new customer acquisition goals, though these settings are now available in Shopping and Search campaigns.
However, the “high-value” new customer option is exclusive to Performance Max. If you navigate to your campaign settings, you will find the option to set this up:
Once you turn this setting on, you have two options:
- Bid higher for new customers: This will allow you to bid higher for new customers while still driving purchases from all customers.
- Only bid for new customers: This will limit the campaign (Google’s words, not mine) to only new customers, regardless of bid strategy. This option will only be as good as the data being passed into Google Ads.
How Google determines new vs. existing customers
By default, Google uses automatic detection to distinguish between new and existing customers.
It analyzes your account’s conversion data from the past 540 days to build an audience list of returning customers. Anyone who hasn’t purchased during that time is considered new.
Dig deeper: How to use the new customer acquisition goal in Google Ads
How the ‘high-value’ setting works
This setting tells Google that certain new customers are worth more to your business, typically those with higher purchase value or better long-term retention.
Here’s how Google identifies these customers accurately:
- You provide a Customer Match list containing your past purchasers.
- Google matches users on the list to people across the Search, YouTube, Gmail, etc. networks.
- Google cross-references this list in real time. If a user matches the list, they’re treated as an existing customer and:
- Excluded from “new customer only” conversion tracking.
- Or assigned a lower conversion value if you’re using the “New customer with high value” setting (depending on your setup).
- If a user does not match the Customer Match list and hasn’t converted in your account in the last 540 days, they’re treated as a new customer.
Once you provide Google with your customer list, you need to assign a monetary value to these new “high-value” customers.
Google then adds this incremental value to their actual purchase to prioritize them in bidding.
In this example, I am telling Google that each new customer has an incremental conversion value of $250.
This is applied on top of the actual conversion value when they make a purchase.
If a customer makes a purchase valued at $852.71 and they fall outside of my high-value audience, Google reports on a conversion value of $852.71.
However, if this user is identified as a “high-value customer,” then Google reports on the conversion value at $1,102.71.
Here’s a breakdown of how to analyze your conversion value with new customers (high value) turned on:
Important: This can inflate your reported ROAS and conversion value unless you account for it properly in your reporting.
This is where the New customer column comes into play:
This column reports on the number of purchase conversions attributed to new customers.
Using this data, we can back out the incremental value and get this campaign’s true conversion value. Here’s how it works:
- 362.17 (new customer purchases) x $250 (high-value assigned) = $90,542.50 (new customer assigned conversion value)
- $1,571,406.87 (platform conversion value) – $90,542.50 = $1,480,864.37 (true conversion value)
When not to use this strategy
Avoid using this strategy if you need to break out spend between new customers and existing customers.
Skip the high-value setting. Instead, use:
- The Only bid for new customers option.
- A separate remarketing campaign for returning users, with its own budget.
While this isn’t foolproof (you will still get purchases from returning customers), this approach to PMax drives a majority of new customer purchases and offers cleaner reporting without inflated ROAS.
Performance Max customer retention goals
Within the last few months, customer retention goals have fully rolled out to all accounts and are only eligible for Performance Max.
These allow you to target lapsed customers, or those who haven’t purchased in a defined time window (typically 60–540 days).
You’ll upload two lists:
- A list of lapsed customers.
- A list of past purchasers (to help Google distinguish between the two).
Then you assign a value to your lapsed customers, similar to how you do for new customers.
High-value lapsed customer retention
You can take it one step further and also input Lapsed customers (high-value).
This segment is similar to the above, but it is filtered to include only customers who had high LTV, high AOV, or frequent purchases in the past.
This narrows the audience segment further while also allowing you to set a higher value.
- Lapsed customers: Past customers who haven’t purchased in a set timeframe.
- Lapsed customers (high value): A subset of lapsed customers with high LTV, AOV, or frequent purchases.
Google will start populating the Win-back customers column in your campaign reporting once this is active.
Again, you will need to subtract your assigned value to get a true picture of your actual conversion value.
Using my example above:
- 5.97 (win-back customer purchases) x $500 = $2,985 (win-back customer assigned conversion value)
- $138,118.23 (total conversion value) x $2,985 = $135,133.23 (actual conversion value)
Experiment
I have been testing this feature in my own accounts and have seen strong results from it.
I ran a customer retention test for one of my clients from May 13 to June 14, with the goal of winning back lapsed customers.
We used a list of 167,540 customers who made a single purchase between 2020 and 2023 and have not repurchased since.
I added a $500 incremental conversion value to help Google prioritize these users and uploaded a list of all past purchasers for a stronger frame of reference.
The results
During the test period, we:
- Spent $15,980.81.
- Drove 578 total conversions.
- Saw 30 win-back conversions (orders from users on the lapsed customer list).
- Reported $408,995.17 in conversion value (including the $500 adjustment).
- Adjusted conversion value (excluding the $500 boost): $393,955.17.
On the client’s side, they reviewed data within their ecommerce platform and found that 748 lapsed customers rebought, placing a total of 970 orders. This is a very large discrepancy compared to what we are seeing in the ad platform.
Of these orders, we can say at least 30 were directly attributed to Google Ads.
This is expected because Google only attributes conversions it can tie directly to ad interactions, so the remaining conversions were likely assisted by other marketing channels or interactions outside Google’s attribution window.
The real question is: Would these 748 people have repurchased anyway? Probably not all of them. Our campaign may have reminded them, re-engaged them, or tipped the scale.
Takeaway
Thanks to the variety of PMax channels, the campaign directly influenced 30 win-backs and likely contributed to many more indirectly.
The fact that 748 from the lapsed list repurchased, while the campaign was running, is a strong indicator that the campaign contributed to driving these repurchases, even if it doesn’t get full credit in the platform.
The reporting is a little muddy, but the timing and scale of repurchases suggest the campaign had a meaningful impact beyond what’s reflected in the attribution data.
Final thoughts
Performance Max continues to evolve, and with high-value acquisition and retention goals, Google is giving us more ways to align campaigns with real business goals.
Yes, reporting can get muddy if you’re not careful, but if you understand how the value layering works and structure your campaigns intentionally, the payoff is there.
This isn’t a hands-off solution. PMax performs best when paired with clean data, smart segmentation, and clear goals.
While it takes a lot of work and needs to be executed properly, it can be a valuable tool in driving both new and returning customers, helping you unlock long-term business growth.