Northbeam is able to identify New and Returning visitors and orders. We offer three different kinds of New and Returning data:

First-Time and Returning Visitors
First-Time and Returning Customers
First-Time and Recurring Subscriptions

Type	How we define	Example Associated Metrics
First-Time and Returning Visitors	Northbeam Pixel and Device Graph	New Visits, Visits
First-Time and Returning Customers	Customer ID	Transactions (1st Time), Transactions (Returning), Attributed Revenue (1st Time), Attributed Revenue (Returning)
First-Time and Recurring Subscriptions	Order Tags	Subscriptions (1st Time), Subscriptions (Recurring)

First-Time vs Returning Visitors

Our Northbeam Pixel uses a variety of inputs to create user profiles and track customer journeys across various devices and households. All of this information feeds into our backend device graph.

First-Time Visitor - The Northbeam Pixel did not recognize any previous events from this user
Returning Visitor - The Northbeam Pixel recognized previous event(s) from this user

First-Time and Returning Customers

New and Returning Customers are based on Customer IDs and timestamps associated to each order.

First-Time Customer - When an order has a Customer ID that doesn't exist on a historical order in Northbeam
Returning Customer - When an order has a Customer ID that exists on a historical order in Northbeam

Order Number	Date of Order	Customer ID	Customer Type	Reasoning for Customer Type
01	Jan 1, 2024	1000	First Time	ID doesn't exist on a previous order.
02	Jan 1, 2024	1001	First Time	ID doesn't exist on a previous order.
03	Jan 2, 2024	1000	Returning	ID exists on a previous order (Order 01).
04	Jan 3, 2024	1002	First Time	ID doesn't exist on a previous order.
05	Jan 4, 2024	1001	Returning	ID exists on a previous order (Order 02).

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For the most accurate New and Returning data...

Backfill Historical Order Data - It's important to backfill as much order data as possible so we have your entire customer base, along with their IDs.

Note: This is primarily relevant for customers who are on a Custom setup (Shopify customers should already have historical data pulled in).

Consistent Customer ID formats - Ensure that all of your Customer IDs are in a consistent format. This way could properly identify New and Returning Customers, or IDs.

Note: Also primarily relevant for customers on a Custom setup (i.e. Shopify customers have Customer IDs automatically pulled in).

First-Time and Recurring Subscriptions

These are based on Order Tags. To learn more, reference Subscription Analytics.