New vs Returning Customer
New vs Returning Customer Tracking
Tracklution tracks whether a converting visitor is a new or returning customer and makes this data available across your tracking setup. You can use it to enrich conversion signals sent to ad platforms, split events by customer type, build filtering logic, or forward the data to external systems like a CRM or affiliate network.
How new vs returning is determined
Tracklution looks at when the visitor was first seen in your server data. If the visitor ID was created within the last 2 days, the visitor is treated as a new customer. If it was created more than 2 days ago, they are treated as returning.
When you first go live with server-side tracking, visitor IDs only exist for people who have visited since your Tracklution tracking was activated. Visitors from before that date will be classified as new customers until they become returning. Accuracy improves automatically as your data accumulates over time.
Override with your own logic
If you have your own new vs returning customer data, for example from your CRM or order management system, you can override Tracklution’s automatic calculation by including the new_customer parameter in your tracking payload:
new_customer: true → New customer
new_customer: false → Returning customer
When this parameter is present, it always takes precedence over the automatic calculation.
Use cases
When ad platforms receive returning customer purchases as conversions, your reported cost-per-acquisition would be lower than reality. You’d be paying to “acquire” customers you already have, if new customers is the goal of a campaign, your bidding algorithms would be optimizing for the wrong thing. Separating new and returning customer signals lets you measure true new customer acquisition cost (nCAC) and teaches your campaigns to find net-new customers instead of rewarding repeat behavior.
Some ad platforms already support this in their settings if the data is included, but to help spark ideas on what can be achieved when you have full control over this data, we’ve put together some use cases.
Split events by customer type with Event Creation Rules
Event Creation Rules let you automatically create or transform events based on data arriving in Tracklution. You can use new vs returning customer data as a condition to split a single event into two separate events, for example, turning a Purchase event into either PurchaseNew or PurchaseReturning depending on who is converting.
Example: create a PurchaseNew event for new customers
- Trigger:
Purchase - Condition:
Is new customer - Output event:
PurchaseNew - Original event: keep
Example:
Add a second rule with the condition Is not new customer and output event PurchaseReturning to handle the returning side.
Event Creation Rules is a beta feature. Rules run in the live event pipeline and cannot be undone, test carefully before applying to production traffic. See the Event Creation Rules article for full setup instructions.
Weight new customer conversions higher
Use Event Creation Rules to create a PurchaseNew event with an adjusted value field. For example, multiplying the conversion value to reflect the expected lifetime value of a new customer. This lets you signal to ad platforms that new customers are worth more without changing your actual revenue data.
Block or reduce value for returning customers
Once you have split events into PurchaseNew and PurchaseReturning, you have two options for how ad platforms treat returning customer conversions:
Block them entirely: Use the event mapping table (Settings → [Standard and Custom Events]) to set PurchaseReturning to block for a specific connector. You still track returning customer purchases as a standalone event in your server data, but the platform receives no signal for returning customer purchases, training its algorithms to focus purely on new customer acquisition.
Reduce the reported value instead: Use Event Creation Rules to set a lower value on the PurchaseReturning event, for example, a fraction of the actual purchase value. This keeps returning customer conversions visible to the platform but down-weights them in bidding, shifting budget toward new customers without removing the signal entirely.
If you want PurchaseNew and PurchaseReturning to go to some connectors but not others, you can keep the original Purchase event for connectors that should receive all purchases (such as GA4 for full revenue reporting) and use block selectively for the split events.
Read more about changing event mappings here.
Affiliate commissions on new customers only
Set up the Custom / Affiliate Connector to trigger on PurchaseNew only. Returning customer purchases will never fire the webhook, so you avoid paying affiliate commissions on repeat orders.
Enroll new customers in a CRM or email flow
Use the Custom / Affiliate Connector to fire a webhook to a CRM or email platform when a PurchaseNew event is recorded, passing fields like {{EMAIL}}, {{VALUE}}, and {{EVENT_NAME}}. This automatically enrolls new customers into a welcome or onboarding sequence without any additional integration work.
Send split events to a BI tool or data warehouse
Trigger separate Custom Connector webhooks for PurchaseNew and PurchaseReturning to a BI tool or data warehouse endpoint. This gives you clean new vs returning revenue segmentation in your own reporting, outside of ad platforms.
Read more about the Custom / Affiliate Connector here.
Supported Connectors
Some ad platforms already support new vs returning customer in their settings if the data is included. While the use cases above let’s you expand on the function’s usability, below are the already supported connectors.
Google Ads
When Tracklution uploads a conversion to Google Ads, it includes a customer_type field that tells Google whether the converting visitor is a new or returning customer. Google uses this signal in bidding algorithms and reporting, for example, to support new customer acquisition strategies.
You do not need to configure anything. Tracklution calculates and sends this automatically with every Google Ads conversion.
Other connectors
Automatic inclusion of new vs returning customer signals is planned for all connectors that support this feature. This article will be updated as new connectors add support for it.
Data accumulation
If you notice known returning customers being reported as new in your Tracklution container, the most likely cause is that your Tracklution data is still accumulating. Visitor IDs only exist for visits recorded after your server-side tracking with Tracklution went live, so customers from before that point are not yet in the system. This resolves on its own over time, no action needed.
If the issue persists after your data has had time to build up, it may mean that returning visitors cannot be matched to their previous sessions. To improve matching accuracy, pass an external identifier, such as a logged-in user ID or user data (email, phone, etc.) in your tracking payload.
