Building a report that separates acquisition from remarketing

Build separate rows for acquisition, remarketing and work whose role cannot be verified. Assign spend from the audience settings and dates that applied during the reporting period. Show each row before the account total, so a strong remarketing ratio is not presented as the cost of reaching new people.

Classify campaigns from their setup

For each campaign or ad group, record its ID, purpose, audience source, inclusion and exclusion rules, and dates of material changes. Acquisition is work intended to reach eligible people outside defined warm or customer audiences. Remarketing is work directed at people with a specified observed interaction. These are campaign roles, not proof of each recipient’s customer status.

A missing customer match does not prove someone is new. Broad delivery or audience expansion can also make the split uncertain. Put spend that cannot be assigned confidently into mixed or unknown.

Check the account’s saved settings and audience availability rather than assuming a planned exclusion was active.

Steps to Accurately Classify Campaign Roles

Export comparable platform rows

Use the same dates, account time zone, currency, conversion event and attribution settings. Export at the level where the audience role was controlled, using the platform’s available dimensions and time breakdowns. A campaign total cannot separate two roles controlled in lower-level groups.

Calculate a row’s cost per attributed result by dividing that row’s spend by its attributed event count. Do not average group-level cost figures. If a row has no results, its cost per result is undefined; retain the spend and zero count.

Key Metrics for Acquisition and Remarketing Reporting

Add customer context separately

For a retailer, compare the report with confirmed first and repeat orders from its order records. If using a platform customer report, check its definitions and required order population before treating its figures as an order count.

Show business-wide customer mix separately from campaign rows unless a suitable, permitted connection supports allocating particular orders to them. Even then, state the matching method and unmatched share. Do not add platform purchases to store orders or assume their totals describe the same transactions.

If acquisition spend looks weak while the combined account ratio looks strong, inspect the customer mix and audience rules before changing that role’s budget. If much spend remains mixed, improve the classification before presenting a precise acquisition-versus-remarketing comparison.

Reporting Workflow: From Setup to Customer Context