Activate customer lifecycle goals

Customer lifecycle goals are a suite of goals designed to reach your customers at every stage of their purchase journey within Google's Performance Max, Search and Shopping campaigns to help you grow lifetime value. There are several configuration options depending on whether your objective is to acquire new customers, retain your highest-value customers, reach lapsed customers or all of the above.

This article explains how to set up different types of customer lifecycle goals to achieve your business objective.

On this page

• Define your customer lists
• Configure your lifecycle goals
• Activate lifecycle goals in your campaign
• Set up new vs returning customer reporting in your Google tag (optional, but recommended)
• Monitor your campaign performance

Instructions

Step 1 of 5: Define your customer lists

We strongly recommend implementing durable first-party data with Customer Match lists (via lists powered by Google Ads Data Manager, GA4 audiences, conversion-based customer lists, and/or direct uploads) for all lifecycle goals for the most durable and accurate setup and existing customer detection. Customer Match lists supplement Google auto-detection by capturing conversions that auto-detection cannot, such as offline conversions, and allowing for further segmentation of your customers (e.g. high value and lapsed).

All the lifecycle goal modes below can be used together with the exception of New Customer Only mode which is not compatible with other modes.

If you use a manager account (MCC) and are using any of the lifecycle goals, make sure continuous audience sharing is on. If you don’t turn on continuous sharing, your campaign will likely not serve.

*Note that high-value win-back mode and high-value new customer mode both use the same customer list, i.e. ‘High-value existing customers’. As a result, if you’ve already set up one of these modes, your high-value existing customers list will be automatically applied to the other mode as well, once enabled. This is because both modes rely on a list of high-value existing customers to reach the desired customer segment, although the list is used differently in each mode. In high-value new customer mode we use your high-value existing customer list to predict which new customers are likely to be high value, whereas in high value win-back mode we use your high value existing customer list, in combination with your ‘Lapsed customers’ list, to understand which lapsed customers are high value.

Learn more about all of the ways in which you can create a customer list using Customer Match and use audience customer types.

Step 2 of 5: Configure your lifecycle goals

Having a 'Purchase' conversion goal is required to optimise campaigns to all lifecycle goals, except New Customer Only mode which can be used with non-purchase conversion goals:

Depending on what type of conversion goals you have, there are two options:

• Configure lifecycle goals using purchase conversion goals
• Configure New Customer Only mode

Option 1: Configure lifecycle goals using purchase conversions

If applicable, you can set up a new 'Purchase' conversion action or if you’ve already set up your conversion action, ensure that you set the goal type to 'Purchase' with Website as the conversion source and the conversion action set to Primary.

If you haven’t configured your lifecycle goal yet, use the following steps to set it up. If you use cross-account conversion tracking, configure your lifecycle goal from the main account where conversion tracking is set up.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
2. Click the Conversions drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Summary.
4. Under the 'Customer acquisition' panel, click Set up.
5. Depending on which modes you have access to (some modes are still in beta) you’ll find one or more of the following options:
   • New customers
   • New customers (high value) – Beta
   • Lapsed customers – Beta
   • Lapsed customers (high value) – Beta
6. For each mode that you wish to use, add the relevant audience lists as detailed in the table in Step 1. Your audience lists may include:
   • Existing customers
   • High-value customers
   • Lapsed customers

The definitions for each customer segment are business-specific, so use your own definitions to organise your first-party data into each of these customer segments.

7. Set the value assigned to your customer segment. This is used only in the New Customer Value mode. This is used in the New Customer Value mode, high-value new customer mode, win-back mode and high-value win-back mode. It is added to a customer's purchase conversion if they fall into one of your defined segments, which is reflected in reporting, but also helps Smart Bidding to optimise towards your desired customer segments. The higher this value is, the more the campaign will be optimised towards your specified customers. This value will be used by default in all campaigns that optimise to new customer acquisition or retention goals. Review the table below for our value-setting guidance.
   • If you’re unsure what your customer value should be, you can use the recommended value that’s suggested when you select the lifecycle goal. This recommended value is based on your average order value across your prior campaigns. Or, use the value-setting guidelines below.
8. Proceed to the next step.

We recommend setting values for your customer segments according to the guidelines below as a starting point and adjusting as needed based on performance.

The values set for each customer segment are business-specific, so the above guidance is directional to help you set the right values for your business.

Option 2: Configure New Customer Only mode

If you are tracking conversions other than Purchases, you can enable New Customer Only mode to optimise towards new customers. If you use cross-account conversion tracking, configure your new customer acquisition goal from the main account where conversion tracking is set up.

1. In your Google Ads account, click the Goals icon .
2. Click the Conversions drop-down in the section menu.
3. Click Summary.
4. Under the 'Customer acquisition' panel, click Set up.
5. Define your existing customers by choosing one or more audience lists that include your existing customers. This will be used to identify which customers are new.

Step 3 of 5: Activate lifecycle goals in your campaign

7. Values used in New Customer Value mode and win-back mode are configured in your lifecycle goal settings at the account level. If you need to make adjustments, click Change value and you’ll be taken to your account goal settings.
   1. Note If you want to optimise towards lapsed and high-value lapsed customers, you’ll need to ensure both modes are toggled in UI

Step 4 of 5: Set up new vs returning customer reporting in your Google tag (optional, but recommended)

In order to accurately report on new vs returning customers in your campaign reporting, we strongly recommend setting up the new vs returning customer parameter in your Google tag. Refer to this article on how to set it up.

Note: Lifecycle goals do not require that you set up this tag parameter, but doing so will greatly improve the accuracy of your reporting.

Step 5 of 5: Monitor your campaign performance

Refer to measuring your lifecycle goals campaigns to learn more about how to view reporting and assess performance.