What is cohort analysis?
Cohort analysis groups people who share a starting point, such as the month they first purchased, and compares how each group behaves over time. It shows trends like retention and repeat purchase that overall averages can hide.
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How cohort analysis works
You define a cohort by a shared event or trait, then follow each group across the same stretch of time since that event. A typical table has cohorts as rows and time periods as columns.
Reading across a row shows how one cohort changes. Reading down a column compares cohorts at the same age.
What cohort analysis is used for
Marketers use cohorts to compare retention, repeat purchase rate, and customer value by acquisition channel, campaign, or season. A channel that looks efficient on first purchase may bring customers who rarely come back.
Cohorts also help you see whether product or onboarding changes improved behavior, by comparing groups before and after the change.
Common questions
What is a cohort?
A cohort is a group of people who share a characteristic or experience within a time frame, such as customers who first bought in March.
Why use cohorts instead of overall averages?
An overall average mixes old and new customers, which can hide whether recent customers behave differently. Cohorts keep groups separate so you can see the change.
What are common cohort types?
Acquisition cohorts group people by when they joined. Behavioral cohorts group them by an action, such as a first purchase of a certain product. Channel cohorts group them by where they came from.
What tools can do cohort analysis?
Most analytics platforms, including Google Analytics 4, offer cohort reports. You can also build them from your own data in a spreadsheet or data warehouse.
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