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New Google Ads customer lifecycle goals: powerful, but only if you know what a client is worth

A new client is often worth more than a purchase from someone who would have returned anyway. Since October, Google Ads can account for this in more campaign types. But bidding is only as good as the client value you have taught it to use. That is where the work begins.

On 22 October, Google announced three Google Ads updates rolling out during October, in time for Christmas shopping. All three build on the value you already report to Google: they increase the value assigned to certain clients and adjust bidding accordingly. If that value is accurate, bidding becomes more effective. If it is not, the error gets bigger. So the first step is to make sure Google Ads knows what a client is worth to you. Only then should you choose a setting.

The short answer

Here is what is new:

  1. High value mode comes to Shopping. Campaigns can prioritise new clients who are expected to be particularly valuable. The feature was already available in Search and Performance Max.
  2. Modes for existing clients in Performance Max, Search and Shopping: one for clients who have not bought in a while, one for loyalty programme members and one for campaigns that should only reach existing clients.
  3. Percentages instead of fixed amounts. You can value a new client at between 1.1 and 5 times their purchase value, rather than adding a fixed amount in kronor. This applies to Search, Shopping, Performance Max and Demand Gen, in both Google Ads and Search Ads 360.

These updates are built for e-commerce. Campaigns that optimise for enquiries, calls or booked meetings will get little benefit from most of them.

What are customer lifecycle goals in Google Ads?

These settings, known as customer lifecycle goals in Google Ads, let campaigns distinguish between people based on their relationship with your business. A new client is often worth more than a purchase from someone who would have returned anyway. The feature has been available for new clients since 2022. The October update extends it across the full client journey and brings it to more campaign types.

Update 1: high-value new clients in Shopping too

High value mode lets a campaign bid higher for new clients Google expects to spend more over time, while continuing to reach everyone else. The mode was already available in Search and Performance Max and is now coming to standard Shopping campaigns.

The mode relies on a list of your most valuable existing clients, which Google uses to find similar new clients.

Update 2: modes for existing clients

Google is bringing several previously experimental features together under the name customer retention goals:

  • Re-engagement mode bids higher for clients who have not bought in a while, while the campaign continues to reach its usual audience. You decide who counts as a lapsed client and upload a list of them. Google's automatic detection does not work in this mode.
  • Loyalty mode targets members of your loyalty programme and can show member prices or delivery rates directly in the ad. These benefits need to be included in your product feed in Google Merchant Center.
  • Retention only mode turns the entire campaign into a campaign for existing clients. It only reaches the client groups you specify.

It is not yet entirely clear how these modes can be combined. One secondary source says you choose one mode per campaign, while Google's help page describes Re-engagement as a complement to the modes for new clients. Check what your account allows before planning your campaign structure.

Update 3: percentages that scale with purchase value

This update affects the most accounts. Previously, you could only assign a fixed amount of extra value to a new client. Say you add SEK 200 for every new client:

  • A SEK 500 purchase is valued at SEK 700: an increase of 40 per cent.
  • A SEK 5,000 purchase is valued at SEK 5,200: an increase of 4 per cent.

A fixed uplift therefore steers the campaign towards the smallest purchases. With a percentage, the uplift grows with the purchase. Using a multiplier of 1.2, SEK 500 becomes SEK 600 and SEK 5,000 becomes SEK 6,000. Both new clients receive the same proportional increase in value. For a product range where basket values vary widely, from accessories costing a few hundred kronor to products costing tens of thousands, this is a clear improvement.

Google allows multipliers of 1.1–5. We recommend starting low. A multiplier of 5 tells the campaign that a new client is worth five times their first purchase. That may be true for a subscription service, but rarely for a typical retailer.

Why this is not just a switch to turn on

The updates depend on three things. If any one is missing, the setting will not deliver the results you expect.

1. Google needs to know who your clients are

Google identifies new clients using four sources: client lists you upload (Customer Match), visitor lists from your website, a parameter in the purchase conversion that indicates whether the client is new, and Google's automatic detection.

Automatic detection uses up to 540 days of campaign activity and tracked purchases and only works if you already track purchases in Google Ads. Clients who bought in-store, through your newsletter, on marketplaces or further back in time do not appear there. Google counts them as new clients, and you pay extra to reach them.

An uploaded client list is therefore almost always necessary, and Google itself recommends supplementing automatic detection with client lists. A list needs at least 100 active members to be used with customer lifecycle goals. According to Google, a list with fewer than 1,000 members can make it harder for the campaign to reach new clients. The list also needs to be kept up to date. Membership of a client list lasts for a maximum of 540 days, and a list that is not updated turns this year's clients into new clients in Google's eyes.

Using client lists also requires your privacy policy to state that client data is shared with third parties. Lists must not be used to target ads based on sensitive categories such as health.

2. The campaign must optimise for purchases with a value

The modes that increase values rely on value-based bidding, meaning Target ROAS or Maximise conversion value, with purchases as the goal. According to Google's help page, this also applies to Re-engagement. However, the page has not been updated with the October changes, so this may change. A campaign that only counts conversions has no value to increase.

In practice, these are therefore e-commerce updates. For lead generation, there is currently one main relevant mode: New customer only, which excludes existing clients entirely and also works with Maximise conversions and Target CPA. Since automatic detection requires tracked purchases, this mode depends entirely on the client list you upload.

3. The value you report must reflect reality

This is where things most often fall short. In an account we reviewed this autumn, 83 of the 89 recorded conversions were page views. In other words, the campaigns were optimising for people looking at a page. Applying a multiplier of 1.5 to that value makes the campaign bid even more aggressively towards the same incorrect goal. A percentage amplifies the value already in the account. It can never replace accurate tracking.

What we recommend ahead of Christmas shopping

For an e-commerce business with reliable purchase tracking:

  1. Check your tracking first. Are purchases reporting the correct amounts, and is each purchase counted once? A conversion analysis will give you the answer.
  2. Upload an up-to-date client list and plan how to keep it updated, ideally through an integration with your e-commerce platform or CRM.
  3. Enable reporting mode for new clients if it is available in your account. It shows what share of purchases comes from new clients without affecting bidding, giving you a baseline.
  4. Test one thing at a time. Switch one campaign to a percentage-based multiplier of 1.2 and let it run for at least two weeks before assessing the results. If you change the list, multiplier and budget in the same week, you cannot know what made the difference.
  5. Measure using the original value. Google Ads has a column called Original conversion value, which shows the value before the uplift from customer lifecycle goals. Use it when comparing ROAS before and after, so the campaign does not look better simply because you have increased the value yourself.
  6. Win clients back through your own channels first. You can usually reach lapsed clients more cheaply through newsletters and direct communications. Use Re-engagement mode for those who do not respond there.

Black Friday falls on 27 November. To have a couple of weeks of data before then, your test should be running by early November.

For businesses that generate sales through enquiries, our advice is different. Do not spend time on these updates now. Instead, focus on assigning a realistic value to each enquiry and feeding back information on which enquiries became sales. You need that foundation before customer lifecycle goals can work for you, and it is central to our work with paid search.

What we cannot know yet

  • When the features will appear in your account. The rollout is happening in stages during October.
  • How the loyalty programme features work in Sweden. Member pricing in Shopping is available in a limited number of countries. Check in Merchant Center before building a campaign around it.
  • How well automatic identification of high-value new clients works in Swedish accounts with limited data. Google has its own performance figures. We are not reproducing them here because they tell you nothing about your specific account.

Questions and answers

Sources