Retention

Retention groups people by when they started, then shows how many came back in each day, week or month after. It is how you tell whether people are forming a habit or quietly drifting away.

Updated

When to use it

  • “What share of new visitors come back in week 1?”
  • “Are people who signed up this month sticking around better than last month’s?”
  • “Do people keep using the feature, or try it once?”

The definition

The strip at the top reads the definition as a sentence, for example People who did Signed up then came back and did any event · 8 weekly cohorts · 1,204 people. Click Edit definition to change it:

  • Starting event: puts each person into a cohort by when they first did it. The default is a pageview.
  • Returning event: Any event (the default) measures visits. Pick a specific event to measure a habit instead.
  • Count someone as retained if they…
    • Came back in that week: a quiet week doesn’t remove them from later weeks.
    • Came back every week since: stricter. One quiet week drops them for good.
  • Hide cohorts under 20 people: on by default, so a tiny cohort can’t swing the picture. Change the number, or switch it off to see every cohort.

Switch between Daily, Weekly (the default) and Monthly cohorts at the top. The wording follows, so weekly cohorts talk about weeks and daily ones about days.

Reading the grid

Four cards sit above the grid:

  • Week 1 retention and Week 4 retention: averaged across cohorts old enough to have them.
  • Where the curve flattens: the period after which it loses less than 1 point per period.
  • Median cohort size, with the smallest and largest.

In the Grid, each row is a cohort: when it started, how many people, and the share who came back in W0, W1, W2 and so on. The All cohorts row on top blends them. Darker cells mean more people came back.

Blank cells are periods that haven’t happened yet. The current week is left out until it closes, so a young cohort never looks like a drop.

The curve

Switch the view to Curve to draw each cohort as a line: the share still active, by week since they started. A curve that levels off means you have found people who stay. One that keeps falling means everyone eventually leaves.

Who came back

Click any cell to open its audience, for example Aug 4 · weekly period 2. Choose Retained or Not retained to list exactly who came back, or who didn’t, under your definition and filters. Click a person to open their profile.

Breakdowns and segments

  • Break down by splits cohorts by a property of each person’s first starting event, such as UTM source or Country. You get the top 5 values, and the rest are grouped as Other.
  • Compare segments splits them by up to five saved segments, plus Other.
  • A breakdown and a segment comparison replace each other. The cards then show the high and low values, and the curve draws one line per value.

Filters

Segment, dates, source and property filters in the filter bar apply to the report and to the audiences. Retention doesn’t compare to the previous period. To compare groups of cohorts, read the newer and older rows side by side, or use Compare segments.

Tips and gotchas

  • “Not enough history yet” means the project needs two completed periods. Click Switch to daily cohorts to see something sooner.
  • “No cohort qualifies yet” means every cohort is under the minimum size. Lower it, or pick a more common starting event.
  • The daily, weekly or monthly choice and the Grid or Curve view aren’t kept in the page address, so a link opens weekly and as a grid.
  • Pick the returning event with care. Any event counts a visit as “coming back”, including a single pageview. A specific event, such as Project created, is a stronger signal.

Recipes

What % of new visitors come back in week 1?

  1. Click Edit definition. Set Starting event to a pageview and Returning event to Any event.
  2. Choose Came back in that week and press Apply.
  3. Keep Weekly cohorts and read the Week 1 retention card.
That card is the average share of new visitors who came back the week after their first visit. The W1 column shows the same for each cohort, so you can see whether it is improving.

Do people keep using the export feature?

  1. Set Starting event and Returning event both to Export created.
  2. Choose Came back every week since, which is the strict habit test.
  3. Switch the view to Curve.
If the lines flatten, a core group has made exports a habit. Click a W4 cell and choose Retained to see who they are.

Do people from paid ads stick around as well as organic visitors?

  1. Click Break down by and choose UTM medium.
  2. Compare the cpc rows with the Other rows at W1 and W4.

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