Customer Acquisition in Performance Max: Bidding Equally vs Prioritising New Customers

I received a great question recently from someone in an Ecommerce community. Their agency told them to bid equally for new and existing customers in Performance Max, saying it was a "new feature" and the better approach. But they weren't convinced.

Neither am I, frankly.

Let me walk you through the 3 different approaches to handling new customer acquisition in PMax, why your revenue reporting changes with some of them, and which option I actually prefer (spoiler: it's probably not what your agency recommends).

Does Bidding for New Customers Actually Help?

Short answer: Yes.

We've found that specifically targeting new customers does help increase acquisition rates. The question isn't whether to do it, but how to do it in a way that doesn't create a reporting nightmare for you.

When you choose the option to bid for new customers within your existing campaign, you have to assign a value to a new customer. Google then adds this value into your revenue ("Conv. Value") column in Google Ads. This is where things become contentious.

Some people call this "fake revenue" and argue it makes your Google Ads data "no longer true." They have a point, but I think they're missing something important about how we should think about data in the first place.

Option 1: Bid for New Customers in Your Existing Campaign

This is the most straightforward approach. You simply toggle on the new customer acquisition setting in your existing PMax campaign and assign a value to new customers.

The upside? It's simple. One campaign, one setting, done.

The downside? Your revenue figures in Google Ads will now include this extra assigned value. If you set new customers as worth an extra $50, every new customer conversion will show $50 more in your Conv. Value column than the actual transaction value.

Here's something important though: this extra revenue can be segmented out in your reports. If you want to bid for new customers but still see reports on revenue and ROAS that look just like they did before, you can do this. It makes the reports a bit more fiddly to set up, but it's entirely possible.

Option 2: Create a Duplicate Campaign for New Customers Only

The second approach is to duplicate your existing PMax campaign and set the duplicate to bid only for new customers. This gives you the benefit of being able to bid more aggressively for new customers without changing your revenue data in Google Ads at all.

Here's how to implement it:

1. Create a copy of your current PMax campaign

2. Set the new campaign to focus solely on new customer acquisition

3. Give the new campaign a lower ROAS target so it can bid more aggressively

This keeps your data clean. Your original campaign continues tracking revenue as it always has, while your new customer campaign operates with its own distinct metrics.

There's a catch though. This approach only makes sense if your existing PMax campaign receives at least a few hundred conversions per 30 days. Much less than that and you probably don't have enough conversion data to make a duplicated new customers campaign worthwhile. Google's machine learning needs sufficient data to optimise effectively, and splitting an already thin data set across two campaigns can hurt performance rather than help it.

Option 3: My Preferred Approach (The Unpopular One)

This is an unpopular opinion, but I actually think the best option is to bid for new customers in the existing campaign and assign them a higher value. This assumes you have a good estimate of how much more a new customer is worth to you versus a returning one.

Yes, I know. This is the option that adds "fake revenue" to Google Ads and supposedly makes your data "not true" anymore.

But here's my take on that:

There is no "true" number.

What you have are multiple different stories you can tell about the data, and each number is "true" for the story it tells.

Understanding Data as Storytelling

Let me give you an example. Google Ads conversion tracking, when using the Google Ads website conversion pixel (not GA4 importing), tracks every conversion where Google Ads was a touchpoint anywhere within the customer journey. By default, the story it's telling is: "This is how much revenue there was where Google Ads contributed at least one click to the overall customer journey."

On the other hand, a third-party tracking tool that tracks all your digital marketing, when it reports how much revenue was due to Google Ads, might be using last-click attribution. That tells a different story: "This is how much revenue there was where Google Ads contributed the last click in the overall customer journey."

Neither of these is "wrong." They're just telling different stories about the same data.

When you add a new customer value to the revenue column, you're not making it wrong (again, assuming you have good data on how much a new customer is worth to you above a returning one). Instead, you're just changing the story. The new story becomes: "This is how much value there was where Google Ads contributed to the customer journey, factoring in the long-term value of acquiring new customers."

If you can wrap your head around this new story, then I think doing this is the optimal way to optimise for new customers in PMax.

Which Option Should You Choose?

It really comes down to two factors:

Your comfort with rethinking data interpretation: If you're comfortable understanding that your Google Ads revenue figures now tell a different story (one that includes customer lifetime value considerations), then Option 3, integrating new customer value directly, is the most effective approach.

Your need for simplicity: If you prefer a straightforward approach where your Google Ads data looks exactly like it always has, then Option 2, creating a duplicate campaign, achieves much of the same benefit. You can bid more aggressively for new customers by giving that campaign a lower ROAS target, without having to completely rethink how you look at your data.

What I wouldn't recommend is simply bidding equally for new and existing customers and calling it a day. Your agency might be right that it's a newer feature, but "newer" doesn't mean "better left alone."

New customers are almost certainly worth more to your business than returning ones when you factor in their lifetime value. Your bidding strategy should reflect that reality.

The Bottom Line

If you have strong data on what a new customer is worth to your business over time, use it. Either assign that value directly in your existing campaign (my preference) or create a duplicate campaign with more aggressive bidding targets.

Just make sure, if you're going the duplicate route, that you have enough conversion volume to support two campaigns. A few hundred conversions per month is the minimum I'd recommend before splitting your efforts.

And remember: whichever approach you choose, you can always segment your reports to see the data presented in different ways. The goal is to optimise for what actually matters to your business, not to keep your Google Ads dashboard looking tidy.

Conclusion

To summarise the key points from this newsletter:

• Bidding specifically for new customers in Performance Max does help increase acquisition rates

• Option 1: Bid for new customers in your existing campaign. Simple but changes your revenue reporting (which can be segmented out)

• Option 2: Create a duplicate campaign for new customers only. Keeps data clean but requires sufficient conversion volume (a few hundred per month minimum)

• Option 3: My preferred approach is to assign a higher value to new customers in your existing campaign. This changes the "story" your data tells but is the most effective method if you understand the new narrative

• There is no single "true" number in data. Different tracking methods and attribution models tell different stories, all of which can be valid

• Your bidding strategy should reflect the reality that new customers are typically worth more than returning ones when factoring in lifetime value