What it costs to get one customer who has never bought from you before. That one
By Elizabeth Greene · October 14, 2026 · Curated by George's Blog
What it costs to get one customer who has never bought from you before.
That one number.
Most of the accounts I look at can't answer it.
The spend isn't separated.
Brand defense, ranking pushes, non-branded discovery, retargeting and low bid harvesting all sit in one pile with one number on top of it.
When it's mixed together like that, the account is hard to read and honestly harder to scale.
Two accounts can sit at the same ACoS and be in completely different positions.
The first one's spend is going to proven keywords and top converting products.
The second one's spend is going to loose match types and broad targeting that quietly drains the budget.
If it were my account, what I'd want to know is what portion of the spend went to someone who already knew the brand, and what portion went to someone finding it for the first time.
Then what each of those two groups actually cost.
I think the account was never set up to show it.
What's yours sitting at?
Or, more likely, could you even pull it right now if you wanted to?