New-to-brand

New-to-brand (NTB) is a retail media metric that counts ad-exposed shoppers who bought a brand without having bought it from the same retailer during a set lookback period, often 12 months.

Retail media networks report NTB because brands pay a premium to win new customers rather than to reach loyal ones. The IAB/MRC Retail Media Measurement Guidelines define a new-to-brand shopper as one who has not bought any product from the brand within a time frame, and they require the retailer to disclose that time frame. New-to-category works the same way for the category (IAB/MRC Retail Media Measurement Guidelines, January 2024, page 47).

Walmart Connect, for example, counts a buyer as new to brand after 12 months without buying the advertised products on Walmart's site and app. Amazon reports new-to-brand metrics for first-time customers of a brand, and its Full-Funnel Campaigns optimise toward them. NTB has limits. It is specific to one retailer, so a loyal customer who switched stores counts as new. Lookbacks differ between networks. A new buyer is not necessarily an incremental one.

Example: Walmart Connect says its CTV campaigns delivered a median of 44% new-to-brand buyers in fiscal 2026, a company claim (Walmart Connect, accessed 9 November 2026). The figure covers campaigns from 1 February 2025 to 31 January 2026.

Related terms: closed-loop measurement, attribution window, iROAS, retail media network, customer lifetime value, incrementality.

Authoritative source: IAB and MRC, "Retail Media Measurement Guidelines" (January 2024), metric "New-to-Brand / New-to-Category".

Read the full guide: Retail media measurement standards explained.