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If Google Ads tells you 90% of your conversions are from new customers—you’re probably being misled.

In this episode, Eric sits down with Pilothouse’s Dougie, who exposes one of the biggest attribution errors in digital marketing: Google’s cookie‑based misreporting that makes you believe you’re crushing new customer acquisition when you're actually…not.

This episode is a must‑listen if you're spending on Google Ads and think you're scaling. You may just be paying full price to reacquire your own customers.

What we expose in this episode:

Why Google thinks nearly everyone is a new customer—and why that’s false

How cookie-based tracking is sabotaging your incrementality

Why server‑side tracking (via Elevar) is the fix—and how to set it up

The real cost of bad data: wasted CAC, poor ROAS, and misaligned goals

How to audit your own account to uncover the truth

If you're not feeding the right data to Google, you're training the algorithm to do the wrong thing. This is the fix—revealed.

Timestamps:

00:00 – Why Google's new customer data is misleading

02:00 – The impact of server-side tracking on attribution

04:00 – How Google misidentifies returning customers as new

06:00 – Training the Google Ads algorithm with quality data

08:00 – Using Elevar for accurate net new conversion tracking

10:00 – Aligning campaign goals with business outcomes

12:00 – Auditing new vs returning customer data

14:00 – LTV, cookie policies, and the future of tracking

16:00 – Why server-side tracking improves data fidelity

18:00 – The rise of AI summaries and their SEO impact

20:00 – Optimizing for ChatGPT and the future of AI search

Hashtags:

#GoogleAds #CustomerAcquisition #ConversionTracking #ServerSideTracking #Elevar #DigitalMarketing #DTCMarketing #PerformanceMarketing #AIsearch #EcommerceGrowth

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Ep 534: Google’s 90% “New Customer” Illusion: How To See What Your Ads Are Really Doing | AKNF

DTC Podcast

Ep 534: Google’s 90% “New Customer” Illusion: How To See What Your Ads Are Really Doing | AKNF