New Reach
The number of people an ad reached today who had never seen it before. It tells you whether your spend is still finding fresh audiences or circling back to the same people.
Lifetime reach is the unique people Meta reports for the ad from its first day of delivery. It is not a 30-day window.
What is New Reach?
Meta's Reach tells you how many unique people saw your ad in a date range. It doesn't tell you how many of them are seeing it for the first time. Someone who saw the ad on Monday and again on Tuesday counts in Monday's reach and again in Tuesday's.
New Reach isolates the first-timers. On any given day it counts only the people who had never been reached by that ad before. Add it up over the ad's life and you get its total unique reach, with no double counting.
How it's calculated from Meta's metrics
Meta never reports new people directly. What it does report is deduplicated reach for any date range you ask for. Ask for an ad's lifetime reach on two consecutive days and the difference is exactly the people added in between.
| Meta metric | Date range requested | What it gives us |
|---|---|---|
| reach | Ad's first delivery day → day D | Lifetime reach up to D |
| reach | Ad's first delivery day → day D−1 | Lifetime reach up to the day before (yesterday's snapshot) |
| reach | Day D only | Everyone reached that day, used for New Reach % |
| spend | Day D only | Cost per 1,000 new people |
| impressions | Ad's first delivery day → day D | Lifetime frequency (impressions ÷ lifetime reach) |
One practical note: Meta's reach is an estimate, so on quiet days the difference can come out slightly below zero. Treat anything negative as zero and read the trend rather than a single day.
Why it has to be computed every day
Reach is deduplicated. That means daily reach can't be added up, and a single lifetime number can't be split back into days. The only reliable way to get a daily New Reach series is to take a lifetime reach snapshot every day and subtract the one before it.
- 1Pull lifetime reachEvery day, for every live ad, ask Meta for reach from the ad's first delivery day up to the day that just ended, in the ad account's timezone.
- 2Store the snapshotSave that number against the date. It's the ad's running count of unique people.
- 3Subtract yesterday'sToday's snapshot minus yesterday's snapshot is that day's New Reach.
- 4Build the curveRepeat daily and the differences form a New Reach curve you can trend, compare across ads and alert on.
BooleanMaths runs this snapshot for every Meta ad, every day, so New Reach shows up as a ready-made column next to spend and true ROAS.
Worked examples
Example 1: One prospecting ad over its first week
A prospecting ad launches on 1 October with a steady budget of ₹20,000 a day. The first two columns are what Meta reports. Everything after that is computed.
| Day | Reach that day from Meta | Lifetime reach from Meta | New Reach | New Reach % | Cost per 1,000 new | Lifetime frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Oct | 1,00,000 | 1,00,000 | 1,00,000 | 100% | ₹200 | 1.20 |
| 2 Oct | 98,000 | 1,85,000 | 85,000 | 87% | ₹235 | 1.32 |
| 3 Oct | 96,000 | 2,60,000 | 75,000 | 78% | ₹267 | 1.44 |
| 4 Oct | 95,000 | 3,22,000 | 62,000 | 65% | ₹323 | 1.58 |
| 5 Oct | 92,000 | 3,68,000 | 46,000 | 50% | ₹435 | 1.77 |
| 6 Oct | 90,000 | 3,98,000 | 30,000 | 33% | ₹667 | 2.00 |
| 7 Oct | 88,000 | 4,16,000 | 18,000 | 20% | ₹1,111 | 2.27 |
- Days 1–3Three out of four people seeing the ad are new. It's still finding audience.
- Day 5Half of today's audience has already seen it. Cost per 1,000 new people has more than doubled, from ₹200 to ₹435.
- Day 7Only 1 in 5 viewers is new, and each new person costs over 5x what they did on day 1. Daily reach barely moved (1,00,000 to 88,000), so you would never spot this from Reach alone.
Example 2: Two ads, same ROAS, different stories
Two prospecting ads both show a ROAS of 2.4 over the last week. New Reach tells you which one is actually growing the brand.
Using New Reach to decide: fresh audience or fatigue?
New Reach works best as a trend, read alongside frequency, CTR and ROAS. Use these as starting thresholds for prospecting ads and tune them to your account.
Common mistakes
- Adding up daily reachRepeat viewers get counted once per day. Use lifetime reach, or sum New Reach.
- Using a rolling windowA 7 or 30-day window re-labels old viewers as new once they fall out of it.
- Comparing raw counts across budgetsA bigger budget always buys more people. Compare New Reach % or cost per 1,000 new.
- Judging retargeting on itLow New Reach is the point of retargeting. It's a prospecting health check.
- Reacting to one dayMeta's reach is estimated and noisy day to day. Read a 3-day trend.
Frequently asked questions
Is New Reach the same as new customers?
No. New Reach counts people seeing an ad for the first time. New customers counts people buying from the brand for the first time. An ad can have high New Reach and still convert mostly existing customers, so pair it with new customer ROAS.
Does it work at campaign or ad set level?
Yes, the same subtraction works at any level as long as lifetime reach is pulled at that level. A campaign's New Reach is not the sum of its ads' New Reach, because one person can see several ads in the same campaign.
Why is New Reach sometimes negative?
Meta estimates reach, and the estimate for a longer period can occasionally come out a touch lower than the previous day's. Treat negatives as zero and read the trend.
What is a good New Reach %?
For prospecting ads, above 60% means the ad is still finding fresh audiences. Below 30% for several days usually points to fatigue. Retargeting ads sit lower by design.
Related metrics
See New Reach for every ad, every day
BooleanMaths snapshots lifetime reach for all your Meta ads and turns it into a daily New Reach curve, right next to spend and true ROAS.
New Reach
The number of people an ad reached today who had never seen it before. It tells you whether your spend is still finding fresh audiences or circling back to the same people.
Lifetime reach is the unique people Meta reports for the ad from its first day of delivery. It is not a 30-day window.
What is New Reach?
Meta's Reach tells you how many unique people saw your ad in a date range. It doesn't tell you how many of them are seeing it for the first time. Someone who saw the ad on Monday and again on Tuesday counts in Monday's reach and again in Tuesday's.
New Reach isolates the first-timers. On any given day it counts only the people who had never been reached by that ad before. Add it up over the ad's life and you get its total unique reach, with no double counting.
How it's calculated from Meta's metrics
Meta never reports new people directly. What it does report is deduplicated reach for any date range you ask for. Ask for an ad's lifetime reach on two consecutive days and the difference is exactly the people added in between.
| Meta metric | Date range requested | What it gives us |
|---|---|---|
| reach | Ad's first delivery day → day D | Lifetime reach up to D |
| reach | Ad's first delivery day → day D−1 | Lifetime reach up to the day before (yesterday's snapshot) |
| reach | Day D only | Everyone reached that day, used for New Reach % |
| spend | Day D only | Cost per 1,000 new people |
| impressions | Ad's first delivery day → day D | Lifetime frequency (impressions ÷ lifetime reach) |
One practical note: Meta's reach is an estimate, so on quiet days the difference can come out slightly below zero. Treat anything negative as zero and read the trend rather than a single day.
Why it has to be computed every day
Reach is deduplicated. That means daily reach can't be added up, and a single lifetime number can't be split back into days. The only reliable way to get a daily New Reach series is to take a lifetime reach snapshot every day and subtract the one before it.
- 1Pull lifetime reachEvery day, for every live ad, ask Meta for reach from the ad's first delivery day up to the day that just ended, in the ad account's timezone.
- 2Store the snapshotSave that number against the date. It's the ad's running count of unique people.
- 3Subtract yesterday'sToday's snapshot minus yesterday's snapshot is that day's New Reach.
- 4Build the curveRepeat daily and the differences form a New Reach curve you can trend, compare across ads and alert on.
BooleanMaths runs this snapshot for every Meta ad, every day, so New Reach shows up as a ready-made column next to spend and true ROAS.
Worked examples
Example 1: One prospecting ad over its first week
A prospecting ad launches on 1 October with a steady budget of ₹20,000 a day. The first two columns are what Meta reports. Everything after that is computed.
| Day | Reach that day from Meta | Lifetime reach from Meta | New Reach | New Reach % | Cost per 1,000 new | Lifetime frequency |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 Oct | 1,00,000 | 1,00,000 | 1,00,000 | 100% | ₹200 | 1.20 |
| 2 Oct | 98,000 | 1,85,000 | 85,000 | 87% | ₹235 | 1.32 |
| 3 Oct | 96,000 | 2,60,000 | 75,000 | 78% | ₹267 | 1.44 |
| 4 Oct | 95,000 | 3,22,000 | 62,000 | 65% | ₹323 | 1.58 |
| 5 Oct | 92,000 | 3,68,000 | 46,000 | 50% | ₹435 | 1.77 |
| 6 Oct | 90,000 | 3,98,000 | 30,000 | 33% | ₹667 | 2.00 |
| 7 Oct | 88,000 | 4,16,000 | 18,000 | 20% | ₹1,111 | 2.27 |
- Days 1–3Three out of four people seeing the ad are new. It's still finding audience.
- Day 5Half of today's audience has already seen it. Cost per 1,000 new people has more than doubled, from ₹200 to ₹435.
- Day 7Only 1 in 5 viewers is new, and each new person costs over 5x what they did on day 1. Daily reach barely moved (1,00,000 to 88,000), so you would never spot this from Reach alone.
Example 2: Two ads, same ROAS, different stories
Two prospecting ads both show a ROAS of 2.4 over the last week. New Reach tells you which one is actually growing the brand.
Using New Reach to decide: fresh audience or fatigue?
New Reach works best as a trend, read alongside frequency, CTR and ROAS. Use these as starting thresholds for prospecting ads and tune them to your account.
Common mistakes
- Adding up daily reachRepeat viewers get counted once per day. Use lifetime reach, or sum New Reach.
- Using a rolling windowA 7 or 30-day window re-labels old viewers as new once they fall out of it.
- Comparing raw counts across budgetsA bigger budget always buys more people. Compare New Reach % or cost per 1,000 new.
- Judging retargeting on itLow New Reach is the point of retargeting. It's a prospecting health check.
- Reacting to one dayMeta's reach is estimated and noisy day to day. Read a 3-day trend.
Frequently asked questions
Is New Reach the same as new customers?
No. New Reach counts people seeing an ad for the first time. New customers counts people buying from the brand for the first time. An ad can have high New Reach and still convert mostly existing customers, so pair it with new customer ROAS.
Does it work at campaign or ad set level?
Yes, the same subtraction works at any level as long as lifetime reach is pulled at that level. A campaign's New Reach is not the sum of its ads' New Reach, because one person can see several ads in the same campaign.
Why is New Reach sometimes negative?
Meta estimates reach, and the estimate for a longer period can occasionally come out a touch lower than the previous day's. Treat negatives as zero and read the trend.
What is a good New Reach %?
For prospecting ads, above 60% means the ad is still finding fresh audiences. Below 30% for several days usually points to fatigue. Retargeting ads sit lower by design.
Related metrics
See New Reach for every ad, every day
BooleanMaths snapshots lifetime reach for all your Meta ads and turns it into a daily New Reach curve, right next to spend and true ROAS.