New-to-Brand (NTB)

What new-to-brand measures

New-to-brand (NTB) is a metric that classifies a purchase as "new to brand" if the buyer had not purchased from that brand on the retailer's platform in the previous 12 months. It distinguishes two fundamentally different types of attributed sales: sales that expanded the brand's customer base, and sales that converted existing customers who would likely have bought anyway.

Amazon Ads introduced NTB reporting and the industry has since standardized around the concept. Most major retail media networks — Walmart Connect, Target Roundel, Kroger Precision Marketing, Instacart Ads — now include NTB metrics in campaign reporting.

The core formula:

NTB rate = NTB purchases ÷ Total attributed purchases × 100

A campaign that drove 1,000 attributed purchases, of which 250 were from buyers with no purchase history in the prior 12 months, has a 25% NTB rate.

Why NTB rate matters more than ROAS alone

ROAS measures revenue generated per dollar spent. A high ROAS is unambiguously good at driving revenue — but it doesn't indicate whether that revenue came from incremental demand or from customers who would have purchased without the ad.

The distinction matters for two reasons:

Long-term growth. Brands grow by acquiring new customers, not by repeatedly converting the same ones at higher efficiency. A 4× ROAS with 10% NTB rate means 90% of attributed sales were to existing customers — efficient retention, but not growth. A 3× ROAS with 40% NTB rate may be building a larger future customer base despite looking less efficient in the short term.

Spend rationalization. Commerce media algorithms tend to optimize toward the highest-probability conversion — existing customers with recent purchase history. Left unmanaged, campaigns drift toward heavy retargeting of already-loyal buyers. NTB rate is the signal that this drift has occurred and rebalancing toward acquisition is needed.

Industry benchmarks

NTB benchmarks vary by category, brand size, and the nature of the product:

Established brands with loyal customer bases and high repeat-purchase frequency naturally have lower NTB rates — not because their campaigns are failing, but because their customer base is large relative to the category. A 20% NTB rate for a brand with 30% market share is a different outcome than the same rate for a brand with 5% share.

Comparing NTB rate against the category average (obtainable from the retailer's media team) is more meaningful than comparing to an absolute threshold.

NTB metrics reported by retail media platforms

NTB purchases: Absolute count of attributed purchases by buyers with no prior 12-month purchase history.

NTB rate: NTB purchases divided by total attributed purchases. The primary health indicator for acquisition efficiency.

NTB revenue: Revenue from NTB purchases. Useful when average order values differ significantly between new and existing customers.

NTB ROAS: Revenue from NTB purchases divided by ad spend. Isolates return specifically from customer acquisition spending.

Average NTB order value: Can signal whether new customers are trialing entry-level products or adopting premium lines — which has implications for lifetime value forecasting.

Strategies to improve NTB rate

Low NTB rate typically indicates campaign targeting is skewed toward existing customers. Interventions:

1. Shift audience targeting. Most retail media platforms allow advertisers to target category shoppers (buyers in the category who have not purchased the advertised brand) or competitor brand buyers. These audiences skew heavily NTB. Exclusive emphasis on the brand's own retargeting pool optimizes ROAS at the cost of NTB rate.

2. Use upper-funnel placements. Home page, category landing page, and display placements reach broader audiences than product detail page retargeting. NTB rate on upper-funnel placements is typically higher because these placements expose the brand to buyers earlier in their category journey.

3. Test new product entry point products. Campaigns focused on lower-price-point SKUs or trial sizes can attract first-time buyers who are hesitant to commit to a full-size purchase. NTB rate on trial SKU campaigns is often 10–20 percentage points higher than on flagship SKUs.

4. In-store retail media. In-store placements adjacent to the category reach shoppers in the store at the moment of decision — a high proportion of these buyers may be first-time purchasers of the brand, particularly for new entrants.

5. Geographic expansion. Running campaigns in markets or regions where the brand has low distribution or awareness produces higher NTB rates because the brand is genuinely new to buyers in those markets.

NTB's relationship to incrementality

NTB rate is a closer proxy for incrementality than ROAS, but it is not the same as incrementality. A high NTB rate confirms that new customers were acquired; it does not confirm that the advertising was necessary to acquire them.

A consumer who searches for the brand name, clicks a sponsored product ad, and purchases is counted as NTB if it's their first purchase. But they might have found the product through organic search and purchased anyway without the ad. The NTB designation captures who bought, not whether the ad caused the purchase.

True incrementality measurement requires holdout testing — exposing a statistically equivalent group to no advertising and comparing their NTB purchase rates against the exposed group. This methodology is more resource-intensive but provides the causal evidence NTB rate alone cannot.

Most brands use NTB rate as a directional health metric and invest in incrementality testing for their largest retail media commitments.

Common mistakes

• Treating NTB rate as the only acquisition metric. NTB rate measures customer acquisition breadth, not customer quality. A buyer who purchased once and never returned is NTB; a buyer who becomes a loyal repeat customer is also NTB. Lifetime value tracking by acquisition cohort is needed to assess NTB purchase quality.
• Setting absolute NTB rate targets without category context. A 25% NTB rate is strong for a market leader in a staple FMCG category; it is weak for a new brand in the same category. Set targets relative to the category average and the brand's market share position.
• Ignoring NTB rate trends over time. A brand that had 35% NTB rate two years ago and 20% today is becoming more dependent on existing customers — a signal of a narrowing acquisition funnel. Trend direction matters as much as absolute level.

FAQ

Why is the lookback window 12 months and not shorter? Twelve months captures seasonal purchase cycles for most consumer categories — a buyer who purchased holiday gifts 11 months ago is meaningfully a past buyer, not a new one. Some categories (electronics, major appliances) extend this window to 18 or 24 months. The 12-month standard is a convention rather than a universal truth; for high-frequency categories like food and beverages, it is appropriate.

Can I report NTB outside of retail media? NTB as a metric requires the data infrastructure to track purchase history at the individual buyer level — which only platforms with first-party transaction data can provide. Standard digital advertising platforms (Google Ads, Meta) don't provide NTB metrics because they don't have access to purchase history across the advertisers they serve. Retail media networks are uniquely positioned to offer this metric.

Does NTB rate differ between on-site and off-site retail media? Generally, on-site sponsored search has lower NTB rates because it reaches buyers who are actively searching — often existing buyers running low on a product. Off-site audience extension to competitor category shoppers or lookalike audiences tends to produce higher NTB rates because it reaches buyers earlier in their category journey or not yet exposed to the brand. The mix of on-site and off-site influences program-level NTB rate.

How does a brand with 0% NTB rate improve? A 0% NTB rate is typically a sign that campaign targeting is set to retarget existing buyers only, or the brand's retail presence is so dominant that virtually all category buyers are already customers. In the former case, expanding audience targeting to category shoppers and competitor buyers is the immediate fix. In the latter case, the brand's growth vector is frequency and basket expansion rather than acquisition. See closed-loop measurement for how the underlying data infrastructure supports NTB reporting.

Is NTB relevant for B2B retail media? The concept applies wherever purchase history is tracked. Amazon Business and Walmart Business marketplace data support NTB tracking for B2B categories. The 12-month lookback is often adjusted for longer B2B purchase cycles — a business buyer who last purchased office supplies 11 months ago may be a regular buyer whose cycle happens to be annual.