At a glance
Number of customers whose first-ever order in the system fell within the 30-day window. The acquisition headline. Pairs with Repeat Customer Rate (retention) and Customer Trend (cumulative growth).
| What it counts | CARDINALITY(customer_email WHERE first_ever_order_date IN window). The “first_ever” determination uses the customer’s earliest order across all time, not just within the window. A customer who ordered for the first time 18 months ago and then again last week is NOT counted as new. |
| API field | customer_id, customer_email, created_at from GET /rest/V1/orders. The “first ever” timestamp is computed by aggregating all orders per customer and taking the minimum created_at. |
| Why this is the right definition (not “first order in the period”) | A “first order in the period” definition would count anyone who reactivated after dormancy as new, which is misleading. A proper “new customer” is someone who never ordered before, anywhere. Vortex IQ uses this stricter definition. |
| B2B Companies | A Company entity is “new” if any of its buyers placed the Company’s first ever order in the window. So a new Company can be triggered by either a new Company entity in Adobe or by a buyer being added to an existing Company. The card respects the toggle. |
| Guests | Aggregated by customer_email. A guest who used a new email is counted as new even if they’re the same physical person who ordered before with a different email. Source of inflation. |
| VAT / tax / shipping / discounts | n/a, this is a customer count. |
| Refunds | A new customer who immediately refunded is still counted (they were a customer). |
| Cancelled orders | Included by default. A customer whose only order was cancelled before capture is still counted; toggle to exclude for “captured-only new customers”. |
| Currency | Unitless. |
| Multi-store scope | All Store Views by default. A customer whose first order was on UK and second on US is “new” once (on the UK first-order date). Same email across Store Views is the same customer. |
| Time window | 30D vsP (rolling 30-day, compared to prior 30-day window). |
| Alert trigger | None on this card directly. Acquisition is a top-of-funnel target with merchant-specific goals. |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Worked example
A B2B+DTC apparel merchant on Adobe Commerce 2.4.7. UK base. Period: 14 Apr 26 to 13 May 26. New customer aggregates:| Slice | New customer count | First-order revenue (grand_total) |
|---|---|---|
| All new customers | 1,420 | £218,000 |
| DTC consumers | 1,360 | £164,000 |
| New B2B Companies (genuinely new entity) | 12 | £42,000 |
| New buyers added to existing Companies (counted only if the Company itself is new) | 0 (excluded) | n/a |
| Welcome-coupon (WELCOME10) redeemed on first order | 1,120 | £128,000 |
| Acquired via guest checkout | 480 | £48,000 |
| Acquired via account-creation checkout | 940 | £170,000 |
| Window | New customers | First-order revenue | New CAC implied |
|---|---|---|---|
| 14 Apr to 13 May 26 | 1,420 | £218,000 | (calc against marketing spend) |
| 15 Mar to 13 Apr 26 | 1,180 | £172,000 | |
| Change | +20.3% | +26.7% |
- 1,420 new customers in 30 days, +20% vs prior. Strong acquisition. Cross-link with
google_analytics.ga_new_usersfor traffic-side context; new customers / new users = checkout-conversion rate among new visitors. - First-order revenue per new customer = £153. Reasonable for apparel DTC. Compare to LTV target (90-day LTV / new customer count from prior 90 days) for retention economics.
- 12 new B2B Companies in 30 days is a healthy B2B acquisition rate. New Companies are typically Sales-led (not self-service); cross-link with the merchant’s CRM (Salesforce, HubSpot) to verify rep-attributed accounts.
- WELCOME10 redemption rate among new customers = 1,120 / 1,420 = 79%. High; confirms the welcome flow is reaching most new buyers. The 21% who didn’t use WELCOME10 either shopped sale items (where coupons stack disabled) or came in via marketplace channels with their own pricing.
- Account-creation cohort has higher first-order revenue (£181 avg) than guest cohort (£100 avg). Account-creation buyers self-select for higher commitment; they convert better on subsequent emails too. Use this in the acquisition CTAs (“Create account, save £X”).
- Action queue: (a) compute new-customer CAC against marketing spend in the period; (b) ensure WELCOME10 doesn’t apply to already-discounted SPRING25 orders (margin-stacking); (c) Sales follow-up on the 12 new Companies for white-glove onboarding.
Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why pair it with New Customers |
|---|---|
| Customer Count | Total customers; new is a subset. |
| Customer Trend | Cumulative customer growth. |
| Repeat Customer Rate | The retention complement; together they form the acquisition-retention story. |
| Customer Order Frequency | New customers are mostly in the “1 order” bucket. |
| Total Revenue | First-order revenue is a slice of total. |
| Total Discount | Welcome coupons drive new-customer discount expense. |
google_analytics.ga_new_users | Traffic-side new users; pair to compute new-user-to-new-customer conversion. |
klaviyo.welcome_flow_signups | Email signup velocity. |
Reconciling against the vendor’s own dashboard
Where to look in Adobe Commerce Admin:Customers > All Customers with “Created At” filter set to the period; count rows. Note: this counts customer registrations, not first-order placement. A user can register and never order; this card excludes those. Conversely, a guest order does not register a customer; this card includes guest first-orders.For a true “first order” view:
Sales > Orders with Customer Group filter set to your “first-time” segment if you have one set up in Magento. Otherwise, no native first-order filter exists.
Why our number may legitimately differ from a manual Admin computation:
| Reason | Direction of divergence |
|---|---|
| Registration vs first-order. Admin’s customer-creation date counts when the customer registered, this card counts when they first ordered. A customer might register today and not order for 6 months; in that case, this card counts them on order day, Admin counts them on registration day. | Different dates |
Guest customers. Adobe doesn’t create customer records for guests (customer_id IS NULL); they don’t appear in Customers grid. This card includes them by email. | Card higher |
| B2B Company aggregation. Card optionally aggregates to Company; Admin doesn’t. | Configuration-dependent |
| Time-zone, sync lag. Standard. | Minor |
| Email duplication. A customer who deleted their account and re-registered with the same email is “old” here (first ever order), but might appear “new” if Admin treats account creation as the start. | Card under-counts re-registrations |
| Card | Expected relationship | What divergence tells you |
|---|---|---|
google_analytics.ga_new_users | GA4 new-users count is sessions-based, much higher than this card (most new users don’t buy) | Don’t reconcile; useful as a funnel ratio (new-users → new-customers conversion). |
klaviyo.welcome_flow_signups | Klaviyo welcome-flow entrants ≈ this card if every new customer enters the flow | If Klaviyo lower, the welcome-flow trigger is misconfigured; some new customers aren’t entering. |
stripe.stripe_new_customers | Stripe new-customer count for Stripe-paid orders only | Should match Stripe-paid subset of this card. |
Known limitations / merchant FAQs
A customer registered last year but didn’t order until this month, are they new? Yes. The card counts first-order date, not registration date. The customer’s “first ever order” landed in the window, so they’re a new customer. A customer ordered once 18 months ago and again this month, are they new? No. They have prior order history (the 18-month-old order). They are reactivated, not new. To track reactivation, use a separate cohort card; reactivation has different acquisition economics from genuinely-new customers. Guest customers using a new email, are they new? Yes per the card’s logic. The email has no prior order history. Even if the same physical person used a different email before, the card has no way to know. This inflates the new-customer count by 5-15% for most merchants. B2B Companies: when is a Company “new”? When the Company’s first ever order in the system falls within the window. Adobe Commerce can pre-create Company entities (the Sales rep adds the Company; orders come later). The card uses first-order timestamp, not Company-creation timestamp. Why doesn’t Reports > Customers match? Reports > Customers > New Accounts uses registration date. This card uses first-order date. They are different metrics; both useful but not directly comparable. Welcome-coupon redemption rate, why isn’t it 100%? Three causes: (1) some customers shop sale items where coupon-stacking is disabled; (2) some come via marketplaces or B2B portals that bypass the welcome flow; (3) some new customers don’t sign up for emails and never see the coupon. 70-85% is healthy. Multi-store, can a customer be “new” twice (once per Store View)? No. The card aggregates across Store Views bycustomer_email. A customer who first ordered on UK and later on US is “new” once (UK first-order date).
B2B account ABC has 5 buyers; one new buyer placed first order this month, is the Company “new”?
Depends on toggle. With Company aggregation: the Company isn’t new (it had prior orders from other buyers). Without Company aggregation: the new buyer is new. Most merchants use Company aggregation for B2B context.
Why is today’s new-customer count low?
Today is incomplete; the day-to-date number is necessarily lower than a full day’s count. If the card’s headline shows the 30-day rolling, today’s contribution is small relative to the window.
Refunded customers, are they still counted?
Yes; first-order placement is what matters, refund is a downstream event. A new customer who immediately refunds is still counted as new (and contributes negatively to LTV; this is a fraud-watch signal).