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Card class: Non-HeroCategory: Ecommerce Platform

At a glance

Daily distinct-customer count over trailing 90 days. The trend chart for Customer Count, with optional new-vs-returning split. Adobe Commerce merchants often see a 7-day weekly pattern (B2B procurement-heavy weekday peaks, consumer weekend dips) plus monthly cycles (B2B end-of-month PO clustering).
What it countsDaily CARDINALITY(customer_email) over 90 days. Each day is one bucket showing distinct customers who placed at least one order that day. Optional decomposition: new (first-ever order) vs returning.
API fieldcustomer_email, created_at, optional customer_id from GET /rest/V1/orders. New-vs-returning detection via per-customer created_at history.
VAT / tax treatmentn/a, count metric.
Shipping inclusionn/a.
Discountsn/a.
Credit Memo refund treatmentA customer who later got a full refund still counts on the original-order day.
state machine inclusionAll states except canceled.
pending_payment quirkIncluded.
Multi-currency grand_total vs base_grand_totaln/a for the count.
Store View scope (store_id)All Store Views; same email across Store Views deduped per day.
Time window90D daily granularity. 7-day moving average overlay typical.
Alert triggerNone by default.
Rolesowner, marketing

Calculation

DATE_HISTOGRAM CARDINALITY(customer_email)
  WHERE date BETWEEN [period_start, period_end]

Worked example

A homewares brand on Adobe Commerce 2.4.6, US/UK/B2B Store Views. 90-day window ending Monday 4 May 26. 90-day overview:
MetricValue
Total distinct customers (90D)11,420
Average daily distinct customers320
Standard deviation65
Highest single-day count542 (after Mother’s Day push)
Lowest single-day count184 (Christmas Day)
Weekly pattern (median day-of-week):
DayMedian customers
Mon380
Tue410
Wed405
Thu395
Fri350
Sat240
Sun220
New-vs-returning split (90D total):
CohortCustomers% of total
New (first-ever order)4,64040.6%
Returning6,78059.4%
What this is telling marketing:
  1. Weekday-heavy customer pattern. Tuesday and Wednesday are peak; weekend dips reflect B2B-mix dominance (B2B is overwhelmingly weekday).
  2. 40.6% new customer rate over 90 days is a healthy acquisition cadence. Consumer-side; on B2B it’s typically <5%.
  3. The Mother’s Day spike (542 on the peak day, ~70% above 7-day moving average) is a campaign-driven event. Useful to see how the cohort acquired performs over the next 90 days for ROAS attribution.
  4. The Christmas Day trough (184) is the lowest single day. Expected: most B2B and consumer activity pauses Christmas Day. Use this baseline rather than the moving average for “is the business operating normally” detection on holidays.
  5. Cross-checking New Customers trend: new-customer rate has been stable at ~40% for 6 of the 12 weeks; rose to ~50% in weeks 8 and 9 (Mother’s Day campaign push) then receded. The campaign created a transient lift in new-customer share.
  6. Cross-checking Repeat Customer Rate: 59.4% returning over 90 days is in the healthy range; well-retained brands run 55-70%, struggling ones below 50%.
  7. Strategic question: should the merchant invest in a Saturday-Sunday weekend campaign to lift weekend customer count? The 40% weekday-vs-weekend gap is a B2B effect; converting consumer weekend traffic better could close the gap. Cross-check with paid-traffic conversion rates by day-of-week.

Sibling cards merchants should reference together

CardWhy pair it with Customer Trend
Customer CountSingle-period summary; this card is its trend chart.
New CustomersThe first-time-orderer subset.
Repeat Customer RateThe returning subset.
Daily Order TrendsSibling chart at the order level (not deduped to customer).
Revenue Over TimeThe dollar-weighted view of the same period.
Customer SegmentsPer-cohort rollup.
google_analytics.ga_users_over_timeTop-of-funnel comparison.
shopify.customer_trendCross-platform peer.

Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard

Where to look in Adobe Commerce Admin:
Reports > Customers > Customers by Number of Orders with a date range gives the per-customer activity, not a daily trend. Manual aggregation needed for the daily series.
Sales > Orders with date filter, group by date manually via export.
Dashboard > Last Orders is real-time but only shows the last 5 orders.
For B2B (Adobe Commerce paid edition):
Customers > Companies with order history, manual per-Company timeline.
Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual Admin computation:
ReasonDirection of divergence
Time-zone. Admin in Store View timezone; card UTC. Day boundaries shift.±1 day per bucket
Email vs customer_id. Card uses email which captures both registered and guests; Admin’s customer-grid is registered only.Card count higher
Multi-Store-View dedup. Card dedupes the same email across Store Views.Card slightly lower than Store-View-summed manual
canceled exclusion. Card excludes; Admin includes unless filtered.Card count slightly lower
Cross-connector reconciliation (when these connectors are connected for this merchant):
PairExpected relationshipWhat divergence tells you
google_analytics.ga_users_over_timeGA4 users with purchase event ≈ Adobe customer trend × (1 - tracking gap)Material divergence indicates GA4 tag-fire issues at checkout.
ESP active-recipient daily countESP “active” definition varies; usually broaderTrend correlation more useful than absolute alignment.

Known limitations / merchant FAQs

Why does my customer count drop on weekends? Adobe Commerce stores typically run B2B-heavy or B2B-mixed; B2B procurement is weekday-only. The weekend dip reflects the weekday-weekend B2B/consumer split. Pure-DTC consumer brands without B2B see weekend peaks instead. The card shows 320/day average but my CRM shows 5,000 active customers, contradiction? No. 320/day average means about 320 distinct customers order on a typical day; over 90 days that aggregates to ~11,400 distinct customers (because most are repeat). Both numbers are correct; they answer different questions. Adobe Commerce vs Magento Open Source: any difference? None at the calculation. The card runs identically. My multi-store Adobe Commerce, can I see per-Store-View trends? Yes, configure per-Store-View variants. Useful for spotting region-specific patterns (US Memorial Day spike, UK Bank Holiday dip). A specific day shows zero customers, what happened? Two causes: (a) actual zero-business day (Christmas, New Year on certain configurations), (b) data sync gap (the OpenSearch index missed orders for that day, usually self-resolves at next sync). The shape of the surrounding days disambiguates. The new-vs-returning split shows 40% new, but my acquisition spend isn’t growing, sustainable? 40% new on 90-day window means new acquisition is keeping up with churn-and-growth. If acquisition spend is flat but new-customer share is rising, your acquisition efficiency is improving. If new share is rising AND retention is dropping, you’re acquiring faster than you’re retaining (a leaky bucket). Why doesn’t this card show acquisition channel? Acquisition channel attribution requires marketing-platform integration (Google Ads, Meta) cross-tabbed with Adobe order data. This card is the count view; for channel attribution see GA4-side and ad-platform-side cards. B2B Companies cross weekday peaks but my consumer side is steady, normal? Yes. The aggregate trend has both signals; per-segment trends look very different. B2B mid-week spikes (Tue, Wed) and consumer Saturday peak balance out the blended view.

Tracked live in Vortex IQ Nerve Centre

Customer Acquisition Trend is one of hundreds of KPI pulses Vortex IQ tracks across Adobe Commerce and 70+ other ecommerce connectors. Nerve Centre runs the detection layer; Vortex Mind investigates the cause when something moves; Ask Viq lets you interrogate any number in plain English. Start for free or book a demo to see this metric running on your own data.