Your shopping cart is empty!
Google Ads: New Customer Report
Publication date: 12.09.2026
Before: to understand how many new customers a campaign brought in, advertisers had to game the system — switch on "bid higher for new customers" and enter a token value of 0.01. Technically that already affected bidding, even if the effect was negligible. Now: Google Ads has a separate "new customer acquisition reporting" setting that measures acquisition without touching the bidding algorithm at all.
What exactly appeared
Paid search specialist Thomas Eccel spotted the option first. It lives in Customer Acquisition settings: flip the switch and two columns open up in reports — "New customers" and "New customer value". What used to be an unofficial hack is now a standard feature, as Search Engine Land reports.
| Parameter | The 0.01 hack | Native reporting |
|---|---|---|
| Where it is enabled | "bid higher for new customers" | a separate reporting toggle |
| Effect on bidding | yes, however small | none |
| What reports show | indirectly, via conversion value | two dedicated columns |
| Data cleanliness | distorted by an artificial value | clean |
What changes in practice
- measurement is separated from optimisation: you see new customers without distorting bids;
- reports gain "New customers" and "New customer value" columns;
- the 0.01 token trick is no longer needed — the data becomes clean;
- it is easy to track the share of new buyers and their value alongside LTV.
For advertisers this is a small but welcome tidy-up. Google keeps pushing long-term customer value, and now you can honestly assess how many new buyers each campaign brings compared with your existing base — with no side effects on bidding.
Why it matters for Ukrainian accounts
At low conversion volumes every artificial value in the data is expensive: the algorithm is already short of signals, and the 0.01 hack added noise exactly where it could least be afforded. The smaller the account, the more it gains from measurement no longer touching bids.
The second reason is demand structure. In most Ukrainian niches repeat buyers and first-timers have different economics: the first purchase may be deliberately unprofitable, with margin arriving on the second or third. Without a separate "New customers" column those two stories merge into one CPA, and the campaign looks worse or better than it is. How to connect this data with on-site behaviour is covered in the guide on Google Analytics 4 for SEO.
There is a third, seasonal reason. The share of new buyers usually dips before holidays and rises after them, and without a dedicated column that movement hides inside the blended CPA. Seeing it separately makes it easier to tell when a campaign genuinely lost efficiency and when the audience mix simply changed.
How to check your own account
- open Customer Acquisition settings in every sales campaign;
- if the bid-boost mode is set with a 0.01 value, switch to reporting mode and note the date of the change;
- add both new columns to your saved report view so you see them next to CPA and conversion value;
- compare the share of new customers between brand and non-brand campaigns — the gap usually explains half the questions about performance;
- after two or three weeks, reconcile the numbers with actual new buyers in your CRM or order database.
If you kept the 0.01 hack around just in case, this is the moment to switch to proper reporting: the numbers get clearer and budget decisions better grounded.
