How to tell what part of your marketing needs fixing
- Damon Walsh
- Jul 22
- 3 min read
Updated: Jul 22
Most business owners can't tell you whether their marketing is working. They can see sales. They can't see which part of the marketing is doing the work.
If you don't know which part of your marketing is working, the first metric you should be looking at is new versus returning customers.
A new customer is someone buying or booking from you for the first time. A returning customer has bought or booked before. Most platforms will split this for you.
Most business owners look at sales and revenue but don't look deeper to see which part of their marketing might be working.
Marketing essentially has only two jobs. Finding new customers, or keeping the ones you actually have. That data can be the first indicator of which job is working and vice versa.
Compare the same period year on year, or month on month if your business doesn't swing much with the seasons.
If your new customers are flat
Then your customer acquisition systems need fixing. Your paid ads, SEO or another top-of-funnel strategy may need fixing. Not enough people are finding you, or they're finding you and not buying.
If your returning customers are dropping off
Then it's your customer retention strategies that may need looking at. Your email marketing, your SMS, your data capture. For many businesses, developing a strong relationship with your customers can be the most sustainable way to run your business.
Where to find your new versus returning customer numbers
You don't really need complicated reports either to figure this out.
Shopify is really good for finding your new versus returning customer metric. Audience Republic is really good at this as well for events. Some restaurant and hire booking platforms don't show this, so we've created a skill to help you figure this out.
How to work it out yourself
Export all your orders or bookings for the period you want to analyse
Set up a private project in Claude so your customer data stays yours and no one else has access to it
Add the skill to that project
Drop your export in and ask it to show you new versus returning customers
Compare against the same period last year
Save the skill so you can reuse it every month or every period.
Download the skill below, add it to Claude, and it will show you what part of your marketing is working.
FAQ
What is a good new versus returning customer split?
It depends on the business. A new venue or store should be heavily weighted to new customers. An established one should see returning customers grow as a share over time. What matters more than the number is the direction it's moving.
The ratio also depends on what's normal for repeat business in your industry. For a restaurant, you want a strong returning customer base, 40% or higher. For a building inspector or real estate agent it's obviously going to be a lot lower, because people don't buy houses every year.
How often should I check it?
Monthly. Any less and you won't spot a problem until it's cost you a quarter.
What if my booking platform doesn't show it?
Export the raw orders or bookings and work it out from the customer data. The skill can walk you through the data you need as well. If you get stuck, ask it for help.
Does this work for events and ticketing?
Yes. Platforms such as Audience Republic can show you this. For other ticketing platforms, export the orders and run them through the same process if you can't see it in the platform.
Is my customer data safe if I put it into Claude?
Set it up in a private project. Your data stays in your account and isn't visible to anyone else. Just don't publish any artefacts