How would a saved search be created to identify new customers? I know there is a report for that, but can't quite figure out how to set criteria that would produce the same results.

You can use the field of date created

You could also look at the number of transactions, so any customer with only a single sale is going to be a new customer.

Use system notes field to find created date add that to the criteria with a date range or use highlight options to highlight the customers that falls in to your date range.

One thing you may need to clarify, is what the business defines as a ‘New Customer’ - For example the created date will show you the date the Customer record was created, this may have been a considerable time before they made a purchase, IE created as a lead from a online form, etc.

Basically it's a customer that has their first sale within a given time period.

For this, you could just use the “Date of First Sale” value on the Customer Record, and use this within your time period window criteria

@markderrick THANK YOU! That's perfect!