Retention
See how many of the people who did something in a week or month came back to do it, or something else, later.
How-to guide2 min read
Retention shows who comes back. Of the people who signed up, bought or booked in one week, how many came back the week after, and the week after that? It comes with the Enterprise plan and needs known users.
Why it needs known users
Without known users, Insights Orbit recognises a visitor for one day only and keeps nothing that points to a person. That is what lets it count without cookies, and it also means it can't tell whether someone who came on Monday came back on Friday. With known users switched on, your website sends its own user id after people sign in, so the same person is recognised on any day and device. Retention counts only those people.
The screen says what is missing: a plan without retention, a site with known users off, or no ids sent yet.
Read the table
- Open the site, then Retention.
- Choose what people did first, such as the Signed up event or a goal, and what they came back to do, such as Booked a trip. Leave both on anything to see who came back at all.
- Choose week or month.
- Each row is a cohort: the people who first did the first thing in that week or month, among the 8 weeks or 6 months shown.
- People is how many there are.
- Week 1 is the share of them who came back and did the second thing the week after, Week 2 the week after that, and so on. Hover over a share to see the number of people.
- Darker cells are higher shares, against the highest share in the table. Empty cells are weeks or months that haven't happened yet.
- Average weighs each cohort by its size.
Weeks start on Monday and months on the first, in the site's time zone. The latest week or month is still running, so its numbers grow until it ends.
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