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 guide explains how to set up different types of customer lifecycle goals to achieve your business objective.
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 autodetection by capturing conversions that autodetection 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 that continuous audience sharing is on. If you don’t turn on continuous sharing, your campaign will likely not serve.
| Lifecycle goal | Mode | Customer segment reached/prioritised | Customer list type | Customer lists options |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
New customer acquisition |
New Customer Value mode |
New customers | Existing customers |
Customer Match lists for existing customers:
Tag-based remarketing list (powered by Protected audience API)* Google Autodetection: Automatically activated when you optimise your campaign to new customer acquisition and if you’re already tracking Google Ads purchase conversions. |
|
High-value new customer mode |
High-value new customers | High-value existing customers |
Customer Match lists for high-value customers:
You can only upload lists via the methods above to identify customers in this segment. Autodetection and tag-based remarketing lists and other Customer Match options are not compatible with this mode. |
|
| New Customer Only mode | New customers | Existing customers |
Customer Match lists for existing customers:
Tag-based remarketing list (powered by Protected audience API)* Google Autodetection: Automatically activated when you optimise your campaign to 'new customer acquisition' and if you’re already tracking Google Ads purchase conversions. |
|
| Customer retention | Win-back mode (beta) | Lapsed customers | Lapsed customers |
Customer Match lists for lapsed customers:
You can only upload lists via the methods above to identify customers in this segment. Autodetection and tag-based remarketing lists and other Customer Match options are not compatible with this mode. |
| High-value win-back mode (beta) | High-value lapsed customers | High-value existing customers* |
Customer Match lists for lapsed customers:
You can only upload lists via the methods above to identify customers in this segment. Autodetection and tag-based remarketing lists and other Customer Match options are not compatible with this mode. |
*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 you can create a customer list using Customer Match and use audience customer types.
