New-to-brand (NTB) shows whether an ad-driven purchase came from a customer who hasn’t bought from your brand in the past 12 months. It’s reported for Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brands Video, Display and Amazon DSP, but not Sponsored Products. Your first move: add NTB columns in Campaign Manager and start measuring cost per new customer today.
TL;DR:
- Sponsored Brands Video campaigns typically generate higher new-to-brand orders and more effective discovery than static formats, making them ideal for modest budgets.
- Target non-branded keywords and competitor product pages to attract genuinely new shoppers, while Store-linked Sponsored Brands outperform product-only links for acquisition.
- Raising bids by 100% or more on new-to-brand shoppers can roughly double NTB orders, especially when combined with targeted audience adjustments.
- Tracking NTB cost per new customer weekly and comparing it to customer lifetime value helps assess when acquisition campaigns are cost-effective.
- Using tools to automate NTB metric gathering and profit analysis ensures consistent monitoring and prevents campaign waste before it impacts growth.
Table of Contents
- What new-to-brand metrics measure and how Amazon defines them
- Where to find NTB data in the advertising console and reports
- Key NTB metrics and how to calculate acquisition-focused KPIs
- Which formats drive the most new-to-brand customers and when to use each
- Practical optimisation tactics to increase NTB acquisition
- Reporting cadence and using NTB to guide budget decisions
- Quick setup checklist: your first 7 steps to start tracking NTB
- Making NTB actually usable inside a seller’s day-to-day dashboard
- Sources
What new-to-brand metrics measure and how Amazon defines them
Amazon’s new-to-brand metrics use a rolling 12-month lookback. If a shopper bought your product 13 months ago and buys again today, that order counts as new-to-brand. It sounds generous, and it is, but it also means the metric measures reactivation as much as genuine first-time discovery.
Three figures matter here, and they’re easy to confuse:
- NTB orders: purchases from customers who meet the 12-month rule.
- NTB sales: the revenue those orders generated.
- NTB detail page views: page visits from NTB shoppers, useful for gauging discovery even before a sale happens.
To access any of this, you generally need Brand Registry enrolment, and the ad format matters. Sponsored Brands, Sponsored Brands Video, Display and DSP all report NTB data; Sponsored Products does not. That’s not a technical limitation Amazon plans to fix. Sponsored Products targets are typically bottom-of-funnel and Amazon treats them as a conversion tool, not an acquisition one.
Where to find NTB data in the advertising console and reports
NTB numbers sit inside Campaign Manager, but they’re hidden by default. Here’s how to surface them:
- Open your Sponsored Brands or DSP campaign in Campaign Manager.
- Click the column selector (usually a gear or “columns” icon above the performance table).
- Add New-to-Brand Orders, New-to-Brand Order Rate, and New-to-Brand Cost Per Order.
- For bid-boost performance, open the Bid Adjustments tab and cross-reference with the Audience Report.
- Download the full report if you want keyword or ASIN-level detail, or need long-term sales figures, which appear in the same export rather than the main dashboard view.
Pro Tip: Export your NTB report weekly and keep a running spreadsheet by keyword and ASIN. Amazon’s dashboard only shows a snapshot; trend lines are where you’ll spot which search terms are genuinely bringing in first-time buyers.
Key NTB metrics and how to calculate acquisition-focused KPIs
Two formulas do most of the work once you’ve got the columns switched on:
- NTB order rate = NTB orders ÷ total orders
- NTB cost per new customer = ad spend ÷ NTB orders
NTB cost per new customer matters more than ACoS alone when you’re running acquisition campaigns, because ACoS punishes spend that hasn’t converted yet at the price point a repeat-purchase campaign would demand. A campaign built to find new customers will almost always carry a higher ACoS than a retargeting campaign, and judging it by the same yardstick kills good acquisition spend before it has time to work.
Worked example: Say you spend £450 on a Sponsored Brands Video campaign in a week and generate 30 orders, 18 of which are NTB. Your NTB order rate is 60% (18 ÷ 30). Your NTB cost per new customer is £25 (£450 ÷ 18). If your average customer reorders within three months and your margin per unit covers that £25 within one to two repeat purchases, the campaign is working, even if standalone ACoS looks uncomfortable.
Practitioner guides on NTB acquisition strategy recommend running this calculation weekly rather than relying on Amazon’s default reporting windows.
Which formats drive the most new-to-brand customers and when to use each
Not every ad type earns its acquisition keep equally, and budget size should decide where you start.
- Sponsored Brands Video (SBV) tends to post higher NTB order rates than static formats, largely because video catches research-phase shoppers scrolling search results before they’ve decided on a brand. It suits modest budgets well; you don’t need DSP-level spend to test it.
- Sponsored Brands linked to your Brand Store generally outperforms Sponsored Brands linked straight to a single product page for NTB acquisition. Amazon’s own Sponsored Brands guidance recommends Store destinations specifically because they let shoppers browse your full range, which builds brand recognition rather than a one-off transaction.
- Amazon DSP produces very high NTB rates but demands a larger budget and considerably more setup, including creative variations and audience segmentation most small sellers haven’t built out yet. Treat it as a stage-two acquisition channel once SBV and Store-linked Sponsored Brands have proven the concept.
- Sponsored Products shows the lowest NTB share of the four, and that’s by design. It’s a conversion and retention tool, not a discovery one, so don’t expect it to move your acquisition numbers much no matter how you structure it.
Pro Tip: If your Store isn’t built out yet, don’t launch Store-linked Sponsored Brands. A thin or generic Store page will waste the discovery traffic you’re paying to attract. Build the Store subpages first.
If you’re producing video creative for SBV in-house, Sponsored Brands Video guidance covers format specifics worth knowing before you brief anything, and outside creators can help too. Platforms that connect brands with vetted UGC creators are increasingly used to supply the kind of authentic first-frame footage that stops a scroll.
Practical optimisation tactics to increase NTB acquisition
Getting NTB numbers moving takes structural changes, not just a bigger budget.
- Split campaigns by objective. Keep acquisition campaigns (SBV, Store-linked Sponsored Brands) entirely separate from efficiency campaigns judged on ACoS. Mixing them muddies both.
- Allocate a defined budget slice to acquisition. A common practitioner rule of thumb is starting around 15 to 20% of total ad spend on NTB-focused formats, then adjusting based on cost per new customer.
- Apply NTB bid boosts. Amazon reports that advertisers who raised bids by 100% or more on the NTB Shoppers audience saw roughly double the NTB orders. Watch the Audience Report to see whether the uplift holds for your category.
- Target selectively, not broadly. Non-branded category keywords and select competitor product detail pages tend to bring in genuinely new shoppers, rather than your own branded terms, which mostly attract existing buyers.
- Design creative for discovery. Lead SBV with your strongest first frame, pick a Store subpage that shows range rather than one hero product, and write CTAs around exploring rather than buying immediately.
Pro Tip: Review your Audience Report every week during the first month of any NTB bid-boost test. Early swings in bid performance often reverse once Amazon’s algorithm has more data to work with.
Reporting cadence and using NTB to guide budget decisions
Check NTB order rate and detail page views weekly. These are early signals, and a sudden drop usually flags a creative or targeting problem before it shows up in sales.
Save the cost-per-new-customer calculation for monthly reviews, since a week of data is rarely enough to judge properly. When you report to stakeholders, present NTB cost per new customer alongside ACoS rather than instead of it. One shows efficiency, the other shows growth, and a campaign can look poor on ACoS while doing exactly what it’s meant to on NTB.
Before scaling any acquisition campaign, weigh NTB cost per new customer against your estimated customer lifetime value or repeat-purchase rate. A £25 cost per new customer is cheap if buyers reorder within three months and expensive if they never come back.
Quick setup checklist: your first 7 steps to start tracking NTB
- Confirm Brand Registry enrolment and Buy Box eligibility.
- Add NTB columns in Campaign Manager and export a baseline report.
- Launch a Store-linked Sponsored Brands or SBV campaign against non-branded category keywords.
- Apply an NTB bid boost, set a fixed test budget, and let the campaign run at least two weeks before judging it.
- Review NTB rates at keyword and ASIN level, then calculate cost per new customer.
- Decide whether to scale, adjust creative, or pause, based on that figure against your target.
- Document what worked and repeat the test on a new keyword set.
Making NTB actually usable inside a seller’s day-to-day dashboard
Most sellers I speak with track NTB for a week or two after reading about it, then quietly stop, because pulling weekly exports and rebuilding formulas in a spreadsheet gets tedious fast. That’s the real gap between the metric and the habit.
Osellpa was built to close that gap. It pulls Amazon’s advertising and profit data together automatically, so you can see NTB cost per new customer sitting next to actual margin, not just ad spend, which is what determines whether an acquisition campaign is genuinely worth scaling. Sellers using Osellpa’s profit tracking and PPC optimisation tools have reported sales increases of up to 20%, largely by catching wasted acquisition spend before it compounds.
— Harry
If you want a faster route into this without building the tracking yourself, Osellpa’s free Amazon PPC audit report reviews your existing campaigns and flags where acquisition spend is and isn’t earning its keep. For sellers ready to run NTB optimisation properly, the PPC advertising and reporting tools automate the bid boosts and column tracking covered above, so you’re not rebuilding the same spreadsheet every Monday morning.
