Yes, if you set a new-customer value bonus. Google adds that bonus to reported conversion value, so your reported efficiency rises without any change in actual revenue. Your order system will not agree, and it is right.

On this page

• What does bid higher for new customers actually do?
• Should I turn on new-customer bidding anyway?
• Which attribution model should I report Demand Gen on?
• Why won't bid tuning move my new-customer cost?

What does bid higher for new customers actually do?

Two modes, and they behave differently.

Value new customers adds an extra value to each new-customer conversion so the bidder weights them higher. That extra value is reported. It is a bidding instruction, not revenue.

New customers only restricts serving rather than adding value.

If you are running the first mode, every efficiency number in the interface includes money that does not exist in your bank account.

Should I turn on new-customer bidding anyway?

Because without it, a total-value bidder has no way to prefer new customers, and a target ROAS floor steers actively against them.

Measured on a supplements brand running a natural A/B for 2.5 months, same account, same setup: the campaign carrying a 2.75 floor showed new-customer share of revenue at 17.7% against 39.3% for the campaign with no floor — with zero new-customer improvement, $161 versus $162 CAC.

The floor bought total-efficiency optics by finding repeat buyers.

Which attribution model should I report Demand Gen on?

Report new-customer cost against your order system, not platform ROAS. Once a value bonus is on, platform efficiency is a bidding artifact and is no longer comparable to the period before you enabled it.

Note the date you turned it on. Any trend spanning that date is measuring two different things — the same class of error as an added conversion action, which on one account went from 0.1% of counted value at introduction to 6.1% eighteen months later.

Why won't bid tuning move my new-customer cost?

If every bid lever optimises a metric that does not contain new customers, no amount of bid tuning will move new-customer cost. Ten weeks of pauses, budget cuts and target changes on that supplements account moved it from $158 to $170.

Check what the bidder can see before you spend weeks tuning it.

Related questions

Can I use target ROAS to get Google to find new customers instead of repeat buyers?

No, and it usually does the opposite. If your bidder optimises a total purchase value, a target ROAS floor structurally rewards repeat-buyer traffic and penalises new-customer traffic — it is not neutral, it is directionally harmful. Read the full answer.

If Google only matches about 60% of my offline conversions, is my real target ROAS higher than the number I set?

Yes. Your real requirement is your target divided by your match rate. Read the full answer.

Why does my Google Ads ROAS swing so much from week to week?

Before assuming the account is unstable, check whether the measuring instrument changed underneath the series. Every published answer says "wait for more data" or "widen the window." None raise the possibility that the ruler moved. Read the full answer.

Written by Usama Khan, who runs Google Ads for e-commerce brands and home-services companies at AdventurAds. Figures are from accounts under active management and are anonymised. Last reviewed 2026-08-26.