Total sales can look stable while your business is weakening underneath, because repeat and Subscribe and Save orders prop up the number in the short term. New-to-brand (NTB) sales are the real leading indicator: if they fall consistently, your repeat revenue and subscriptions will decline a few months later, once cancellations outpace new signups. This SOP audits whether your acquisition engine is healthy.
When to use it: weekly.
Step 1: Read the new-to-brand split
Open the LTV & Subscriptions report and go to the Overview page. The KPIs at the top split total sales into new-to-brand, repeat, and Subscribe and Save, each compared to the prior period. Note the direction of the NTB number.
Step 2: Establish your normal NTB range
Open the New to brand sales only chart, which shows NTB as a percentage of total sales week by week. Normal varies by category: for some brands it is 30%, for others 70%. Extend the range to 8 or 16 weeks to see when a trend started. A steadily declining NTB percentage is a flag worth investigating.
The pattern to watch out for: repeat sales holding steady while NTB falls. Total sales can look fine for another 6 to 8 weeks on repeat momentum, and then repeat falls too, once the pipeline of new customers empties.
Step 3: Make sure subscriptions aren't masking a decline
Open Subscribe and Save vs regular sales. If S&S share spikes upward, it often means NTB sales dropped, not that subscriptions improved. Do not let a rising subscription number hide a falling acquisition number.
Step 4: Localize the problem
Use the product breakdown below the charts and click a parent ASIN to see which products' NTB is declining, then act on those specifically. If NTB is falling, audit your acquisition first: check whether PPC spend was cut, then check whether your market share on non-branded keywords dropped (use the Market Share & Funnel report).
If repeat sales are the ones declining: the problem is retention, not acquisition. Check the Retention view on the Cohort Analysis page to see whether recent cohorts are churning earlier than older ones.
Data caveat: NTB is identified by customer email, is available for FBA orders, and is only counted once an order ships. The most recent two weeks can be incomplete, so do not act on last week's NTB number. Give it about two weeks to settle.
Tip: NTB growth is your earliest warning system. Track it monthly. A sustained decline is the first thing to fix, because everything downstream follows it.