Amazon New-to-Brand Metrics: How to Measure Whether Your Ads Win New Customers

Your Amazon ads are driving sales, but are they bringing you new customers or just charging you again for people who would have bought anyway? That question matters more than almost any other in Amazon advertising, and Amazon new-to-brand metrics are built to answer it. This guide explains what new-to-brand (NTB) means, which ad types report it, how to read the numbers and how to use them to grow your customer base instead of just recycling it.

What Are Amazon New-to-Brand Metrics?

A new-to-brand purchase is an order from a customer who has not bought any product from your brand on Amazon in the past 12 months. Amazon tracks this at the brand level, not the product level, so a shopper who bought a different product from your brand last spring is not counted as new.

The Core New-to-Brand Metrics

New-to-brand orders: the number of attributed orders that came from first-time buyers of your brand
New-to-brand sales: the sales value of those orders
% of orders new-to-brand: NTB orders divided by total attributed orders
New-to-brand units: the units sold in those orders
New-to-brand order rate: NTB orders compared with clicks, which shows how efficiently traffic turns into new customers

Exact metric names vary slightly between the Amazon Ads console, reports and the API, but they all measure the same idea: how many of your ad-driven orders came from new customers.

Which Amazon Ad Types Report New-to-Brand?

New-to-brand reporting is available on the ad types built for brand growth. You need to be enrolled in Amazon Brand Registry to access most of it.

Sponsored Brands: headline, video and Store spotlight campaigns all show NTB columns
Sponsored Display: audience and product targeting campaigns report NTB metrics
Amazon DSP: programmatic campaigns include NTB reporting and can be optimized toward new customers
Sponsored Products: NTB availability has expanded over time; check your campaign manager columns and reports to see what is available in your account

If you're not yet registered, our Amazon Brand Registry guide explains how to enroll and what else it unlocks.

Why New-to-Brand Matters

Standard metrics like ACoS and ROAS treat every sale the same. But a sale to a returning customer and a sale to a new one are not equal. The new customer can come back again and again, buy other products in your catalog and leave reviews that help everyone else decide.

It Shows Whether Ads Create Growth

If a campaign has a great ACoS but nearly all its orders come from existing customers, it may simply be capturing sales you would have earned organically. A campaign with a higher ACoS but a strong NTB share may be the one actually growing your brand.

It Justifies Upper-Funnel Spend

Awareness campaigns, video ads and category targeting rarely look efficient on ACoS alone. NTB data gives you a way to show that they bring in buyers your brand would not otherwise reach. Our guide to Sponsored Brands video ads covers one of the strongest formats for this.

It Supports Smarter Profit Math

When you know a customer's likely lifetime value, you can afford to pay more to acquire them. NTB metrics let you connect ad spend to acquisition cost instead of judging every campaign only on its first sale.

How to Read Your NTB Numbers

There is no single "good" NTB percentage. It depends on your category, how established your brand is and what the campaign is designed to do. Instead of chasing a benchmark, compare campaigns against each other and against their purpose.

What to Expect by Campaign Type

Branded keyword campaigns: low NTB share is normal, since people searching your brand often know you already
Generic and category keywords: should usually bring a higher share of new customers
Competitor targeting: often shows strong NTB, because you are winning shoppers from other brands
Retargeting audiences: mixed, depending on whether you target past viewers or past buyers

Track the trend, too. A falling NTB share across the account can mean your ads are slowly drifting toward branded and retargeting traffic and your growth is stalling.

How to Use New-to-Brand Data to Grow

Calculate a new-customer cost: divide campaign spend by NTB orders to see what each new customer costs you
Set different goals by campaign: judge branded campaigns on efficiency and prospecting campaigns on new customers
Shift budget toward acquisition winners: keywords and audiences with strong NTB and acceptable ACoS deserve more spend
Test new audiences: use Sponsored Display or DSP to reach in-market shoppers who have never bought from you
Pair NTB with TACoS: if NTB rises and total sales grow faster than ad spend, your ads are building the business

Our guide on ACoS vs TACoS explains how to measure whether advertising is lifting your total sales.

How to Build a Simple New-to-Brand Report

You don't need special software to start using NTB data. A monthly report built from your Amazon Ads campaign reports is enough for most brands.

Monthly NTB Report Steps

Step 1: Download campaign reports for Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Display and any other ad type that shows NTB columns
Step 2: Tag each campaign by purpose: branded, generic, competitor or retargeting
Step 3: For each group, total the spend, orders, sales and NTB orders
Step 4: Calculate NTB share of orders and cost per new-to-brand order
Step 5: Compare with the previous month and note which groups improved
Step 6: Move budget toward the groups that win new customers at a cost you can afford

To decide what "a cost you can afford" means, estimate how much profit an average customer brings over time, including repeat orders. Brands with consumable or replenishable products can usually afford to pay more for a new customer than brands selling a one-time purchase, because each new buyer is worth more over their lifetime. Keep the report simple at first. A clear monthly view that your team actually reads is worth more than a complex dashboard nobody opens.

Going Deeper With Amazon Marketing Cloud

Standard NTB reports tell you how many new customers each campaign brought in. Amazon Marketing Cloud (AMC) lets you go further: see which combinations of ads new customers saw before buying, how long it took them to convert and what they bought next. For brands with enough ad volume, this turns NTB from a reporting column into a full acquisition strategy. Learn more in our Amazon Marketing Cloud guide.

Common Mistakes With NTB Metrics

Judging branded campaigns on NTB share and pausing them
Chasing new customers at any cost without checking profitability
Looking at NTB for a few days instead of a full month or more
Ignoring repeat purchase behavior after the first order

Frequently Asked Questions

What counts as a new-to-brand customer on Amazon?

A shopper who has not purchased any product from your brand on Amazon during the previous 12 months. Purchases of any of your ASINs count, not just the advertised one.

Do I need Brand Registry to see NTB metrics?

For Sponsored Brands and Sponsored Display, yes. Brand Registry is required to run those ad types and see their brand-level metrics.

What is a good new-to-brand percentage?

It depends on the campaign. Prospecting and competitor campaigns should show a higher share than branded or retargeting campaigns. Compare campaigns by purpose rather than against a single target.

Can I optimize campaigns for new customers?

Yes. You can shift budget toward keywords and audiences with strong NTB results, and Amazon DSP offers options to focus delivery on new-to-brand audiences.

Final Thoughts

ACoS tells you how efficient your ads are. New-to-brand metrics tell you whether they are growing your business. Use both together, give each campaign the right goal and you'll know exactly how much you are paying to win each new customer.

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