‍Prospecting Campaigns in Axon: A New Era for Customer Acquisition

Customer acquisition has always been the north star for growth‑driven advertisers. While retargeting campaigns help maximize repeat purchases, the real challenge lies in consistently finding and converting net‑new customers. Axon by AppLovin has just launched Prospecting Campaigns, a feature designed specifically to address this challenge.

This launch is more than a product update for sure; it’s a response to one of the most requested features from advertisers. Early results already show 75%+ improvements in new customer KPIs, with some brands scaling Prospecting Campaigns to six‑figure daily spend. For marketers focused on growth, this represents a new era in mobile advertising.

What Are Prospecting Campaigns?

Prospecting campaigns are built to expand reach beyond existing audiences. Instead of retargeting users who have already interacted with a brand, prospecting focuses on identifying and converting new customers.

In practice, this means:

• Targeting audiences who have never purchased before.
• Optimizing toward acquisition metrics like new customer ROAS (ncROAS), cost per new customer purchase (ncCPP)Using predictive signals to allocate spend toward impressions most likely to deliver net‑new conversions.

For advertisers, prospecting campaigns are the missing piece in balancing acquisition and retention. Universal campaigns capture blended demand across audiences, while prospecting is designed to drive net-new growth.

Why Prospecting Campaigns Are a Game‑Changer

For years, growth teams have wrestled with the tension between chasing scale and proving that spend is truly incremental. Prospecting in Axon reframes that challenge: instead of guessing which impressions might bring in new buyers, advertisers now have a system designed to prioritize acquisition at its core. That’s why this release feels like a game‑changer; it gives marketers confidence that their campaigns are not only reaching fresh audiences but also driving measurable, long‑term growth.

• Solving Signal Loss Challenges

If you’ve been running ads in the past two years, you know the pain: data signals keep disappearing. Between ATT, GDPR, and the slow death of device‑level identifiers, attribution has become a guessing game. Marketers are left wondering if their spend is actually driving new customers or just echoing conversions they would have gotten anyway. Axon’s Prospecting Campaigns optimize for modeled conversions and SKAN postbacks, they give advertisers a way to keep acquisition measurable even when the data pipes are half‑blocked. It’s not perfect visibility, nothing is anymore, but it’s visibility you can trust enough to scale.

• Aligning Directly With Growth Goals

Every brand talks about growth, but not every campaign is built to chase it. Too often, advertisers get stuck optimizing for blended ROAS or vanity metrics that look good on a dashboard but don’t prove net‑new customer impact. Prospecting Campaigns flip that script. They’re wired to align with the one KPI that matters most for acquisition‑driven teams: new customers. Whether you track ncROAS, cost per new customer purchase, Axon makes sure your spend is pointed at the right target. That alignment is liberating: you stop worrying about whether your campaigns are “kind of” working and start seeing proof that they’re fueling actual growth.

• Complementing Universal Campaigns 

Prospecting isn’t here to replace Universal campaigns; it’s here to make them stronger. Think of it as a growth engine: prospecting brings in net-new buyers, while Universal campaigns capture blended demand across both new and returning customers. Without Universal campaigns, you miss the opportunity to efficiently convert and monetize the full spectrum of demand. Together, they create a balanced approach that drives both acquisition and scale. Axon’s Prospecting Campaigns complement Universal campaigns seamlessly, ensuring you’re not just sustaining blended demand but continuously expanding it.

• Scaling With Confidence

Scaling prospecting has always been a leap of faith. You push budgets higher, cross your fingers, and hope the numbers hold. What’s different here is the confidence advertisers are showing right out of the gate. Early adopters are already running six‑figure daily spend through Axon Prospecting Campaigns. That kind of scale doesn’t happen unless the system is delivering both efficiency and trust. Predictive bidding, creative rotation, and privacy‑safe optimization aren’t just buzzwords; they’re the guardrails that let brands push harder without fear of wasted spend. The takeaway is simple: growth isn’t just possible, it’s sustainable, and advertisers finally have a prospecting engine they believe in.

Why Axon Launched Prospecting Campaigns

The launch was driven by advertiser demand. According to Axon’s Chief Product & Engineering Officer, prospecting was consistently requested by brands whose primary KPI is new customer growth.

Traditional ad platforms often prioritize click‑through rates or blended ROAS, which can mask whether spend is actually driving incremental customers. Axon’s Prospecting Campaigns were designed to solve this gap by:

• Embedding acquisition goals directly into the campaign structure.
• Leveraging Axon’s predictive bidding system to optimize for new customer outcomes.
• Providing advertisers with transparent reporting on acquisition‑specific KPIs.

This makes prospecting not just another campaign type, but a strategic tool for growth marketers.

How Prospecting Campaigns Work in Axon

Launching a prospecting campaign is not just about flipping a switch; you are literally giving advertisers confidence that every dollar spent is working toward the right outcome: net‑new customer growth. Axon’s system was built to take the guesswork out of acquisition. Instead of forcing marketers to manually balance bids, creatives, and attribution signals, Axon layers predictive intelligence and privacy‑safe measurement into the campaign itself. The result is a prospecting engine that feels less like a gamble and more like a growth strategy you can trust.

• Predictive Bidding for New Customers

Axon’s predictive bidding system reallocates spend in real time based on conversion probability. For prospecting, this means prioritizing impressions that are most likely to result in new customer acquisitions, rather than optimizing for blended ROAS. Advertisers don’t have to chase clicks blindly; Axon’s models are constantly learning which audiences are most likely to convert into first‑time buyers.

• Creative Rotation to Prevent Fatigue

Prospecting requires fresh, engaging creatives to capture attention from audiences unfamiliar with the brand. Axon automatically selects the best ad for each impression, i.e., the ad most likely to drive a positive outcome. This keeps campaigns feeling dynamic and relevant, so new audiences see the brand at its best rather than its most repetitive.

• Incremental Measurement

All campaigns are designed to be measured through incrementality testing. This allows advertisers to validate that new customer growth is truly incremental, not just cannibalized from other channels. By focusing on incremental lift, Axon ensures that prospecting campaigns deliver real growth, not just reshuffled conversions.

Case Examples from Early Adopters

A- Poncho Outdoors

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• Prospecting Campaign enabled Poncho to 10x spend
• Poncho launched a prospecting campaign on Axon on Nov 9
• Axon NC ROAS beats Poncho’s largest channel
• Minimal 15% channel overlap with Poncho’s largest social channel
• Compared to the period before testing began:
  
  • Axon NC ROAS increased by 42%

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“We’ve seen a night and day performance improvement since launching our prospecting campaign on Axon. Axon NC ROAS is now better than any of our Meta campaigns, as is New Visitor %. Based on the results, we’ve increased our investment on the platform more than 10x and are continuing to see exceptionally strong New Customer performance.”

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Alex O’Shaughnessey, Head of Growth, Poncho Outdoors

B- Viasox

• By running a Prospecting Campaign, Viasox increased Axon NC ROAS by 70%
• On NC ROAS, Axon beats Viasox’s largest paid social channel by 35%

“Since turning on the prospecting campaign, Axon's NC ROAS is exceeding our largest paid social channel - at meaningful scale, with thousands of new customer purchases. We doubled our Axon budget overnight, are continuing to scale, and are seeing great performance as we do so.”

Dimos Siagoulis, CEO, Viasox

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While Axon’s own blog highlights aggregate performance gains, the broader WorkMagic studies give us a closer look at how prospecting‑style campaigns translate into measurable incremental lift. These aren’t abstract metrics, they’re real advertisers testing attribution in the wild.

Best Practices for Advertisers Using Prospecting Campaigns in Axon

To maximize the impact of prospecting campaigns in Axon, advertisers should:

• Define acquisition KPIs clearly (ncROAS, ncCPP).
• Ensure pixel events are mapped correctly to capture new customer conversions.
• Upload historical data: Shopify brands to integrate via Shopify app connection or upload at least two years of historical purchase data from the events manager. 
• Test creatives frequently to maintain engagement with unfamiliar audiences.
• Run incrementality tests to validate that growth is truly incremental.
• Balance prospecting with universal campaigns  for a full‑funnel strategy.

Key Takeaways

• Prospecting campaigns are now live in Axon, directly addressing advertiser demand for new customer acquisition.
• Axon’s predictive bidding, creative rotation, and privacy‑safe optimization make prospecting campaigns efficient and resilient.
• For advertisers focused on growth, prospecting campaigns represent a new era in mobile advertising.
  
  Join Axon Insiders to access exclusive attribution benchmarks, case studies, and optimization playbooks designed for 2026’s privacy‑first landscape. 

FAQs

1. What are Prospecting Campaigns in Axon? Prospecting Campaigns are a new audience strategy in Axon designed to help advertisers acquire net‑new customers by optimizing spend toward impressions most likely to convert first‑time buyers.
   
   
2. Why did Axon launch Prospecting Campaigns? Prospecting was one of the most requested features from advertisers whose main KPI is new customer growth. Axon built Prospecting Campaigns to directly address this demand.
   
   
3. What results have early adopters seen with Prospecting Campaigns? Initial tests show 75%+ improvements in new customer KPIs, with some brands scaling Prospecting Campaigns to six‑figure daily spend on AppLovin.
   
   
4. How do Prospecting Campaigns work in Axon? They combine predictive bidding, creative rotation, and privacy‑safe optimization. This ensures campaigns prioritize new customer acquisition while remaining resilient to signal loss.
   
   
5. How do Prospecting Campaigns complement retargeting? Prospecting brings in new customers, while retargeting nurtures them into loyal repeat buyers. Together, they create a full‑funnel strategy for sustainable growth.

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