Guide

How to automate new customers reporting

The formula, the data sources, the pitfalls — and how to keep new customers current across platforms without rebuilding it every week.

The single most important definition in your whole report — the activation event that turns an install into a customer.

new customers at a glance
Formulanew customers = first qualifying conversions (purchase / first purchase / purchase)
Inputs fromMMP in-app events or your back end.
Report atchannel, market and cohort grain

Why new customers reports go stale

new customers pulls from multiple platforms, each with its own definition and refresh lag. The moment you finish the report it's out of date — so it gets rebuilt next week. The fix is to automate the inputs and the write-back, not just the chart on top.

How to compute new customers across platforms

  1. Pull the inputs — mmp in-app events or your back end.
  2. Apply your new customers / purchases definition at the grain you report on (channel, market, cohort)
  3. Append the result to your existing report — formulas preserved, append-only
  4. Schedule the refresh and route a summary to Slack or email, flagging anything off target

A worked example

Illustrative. 1,910 first transactions attributed this week against 12,480 installs — reporting installs as 'customers' would overstate the real number by more than 6×.

The pitfall to avoid

Watch out

Counting installs as customers, or letting attribution-window changes silently move the count between reports.

How Opera automates it

Opera pulls the inputs across AppsFlyer and your ad platforms, applies your new customers / purchases definition, reconciles the sources, and appends the result to your existing report — append-only, formulas preserved — then schedules it and posts a summary.

"Refresh the new customers report with this week's numbers by channel, and flag anything off target."

Related: CAC · retention

QA before you trust it

new customers QA checklist
Tie out spend against each platform's UI for the same range (expect small FX/timezone deltas, not surprises)
Recompute one row by hand — the formula on real inputs, matched to the sheet's output
Check the date boundary — the period starts and ends exactly where the report says it does
Confirm the denominator definition — the event or conversion being counted is the one your team means

When not to automate it

Skip automation while the new customers / purchases definition is still being argued about, while the report's structure changes weekly, or for one-off analyses. Automation pays on stable, recurring reports — lock the definition first, then put it on a schedule.

Keeping it trustworthy

Opera is built to touch production reports and live ad accounts without breaking anything:

  • No destructive writes. Updates are append-only by default — your existing data and formulas are never overwritten.
  • Preview before execution. You see exactly what Opera will change before a single cell is written.
  • Campaigns paused by default. New campaigns are created paused, with approvals required before any spend.
  • Full audit logs and client-level isolation. Every action is logged, and each client's data and rules stay separate.

See this running on your own reports.A 45-minute workflow audit maps your current process and shows exactly what Opera automates — step by step.

Frequently asked questions

What's the new customers formula?
new customers = first qualifying conversions (purchase / first purchase / purchase). Opera applies your exact definition, not a generic one.
What's the most common new customers mistake?
Counting installs as customers, or letting attribution-window changes silently move the count between reports.
Which platforms does it cover?
AppsFlyer, Adjust, Google Ads, Meta Ads, TikTok Ads, Snapchat Ads and Apple Search Ads.
Will it overwrite my report?
No — updates are append-only and formulas are preserved.

Put a number on the reporting tax.

Estimate the hours and fully-loaded labor cost your team spends on recurring reports — and what Opera gives back.