The Retention module of MoEngage Analytics provides insights into user retention, a critical aspect for assessing the loyalty and recurring user base of a product.

A cohort is a group of users identified by their common behavior. In web and app analytics, a cohort is a group of users who have performed the same events within a specific time frame. For example, new users on a music streaming app who actively play music for 15 days.

The retention module offers reports for assorted cohorts, presenting graphical representations for intuitive comprehension. Furthermore, tabular reports are accessible for downloadable in-depth analysis. These comprehensive reports facilitate the assessment of retention trends across diverse cohorts over time.

Retention Overview

 

You can use Retention to answer questions such as:

• How many users are using the platform after signing up?
• What percentage of users visited a particular product on the e-commerce app, returned to the app, and bought the product?
• What is the quality of users of paid channels compared to others?

Create Retention Report

To create a Retention report,

1. Navigate to MoEngage Dashboard > Analyze > Retention.
2. Add retention events
3. Filter users for retention analyze
4. Set the retention options
5. View the retention reports

Retention Events

To create a Retention report select First Events and Return Events for retention analysis from the drop-down menu. 

You can add multiple First Events and Return Events in case you want to perform the retention analysis for multiple events.

Event Filters

You can use filters to drill down the retention to specific attributes such as Event Attributes, User Attributes, Device Attributes, or a combination of them.

Filters can be added to both the first and return events of the retention analysis depending on the data you want to segment. To add filters:

1. Click Add Filters
2. Select appropriate filters from the Filter By section.
3. Select the Case Sensitive checkbox if you want the report to match the exact case of the value you specify.

You can add multiple filters and apply all filters or only one filter.

Filter Users

The Retention analysis can be performed on the desired group of users. You can filter uses in 2 ways. First select All users or Filter users by User property, User behavior, User affinity, and Custom segment. To filter users:

1. Select All users or Filter users by
2. In the case of Filter users by, select appropriate filter categories.
3. Select the suitable user attribute, user behavior, user affinity, or segment.
4. In both the filter options, All users or Filter users by you can exclude a specific set of users by selecting User property, User behavior, User affinity, and Custom segment.

You can add multiple filters and apply all filters or only one filter.

For more information, refer to creating user segments and custom segments.

Retention Options

Retention Types

Three different types of Retention analysis are Unbounded Retention, N Day Retention, and First Occurrence. You can access this on the chart.

1. Unbounded Retention

Unbounded Retention provides the percentage of users retained until the selected date. The users can also be retained for more duration. Users performing the return event until the selected date or higher. For a higher level of granularity, choose Hour, Week, or Month instead of Day.

For example:

The user installed the app (first event) on Week 0. The user opened the app (return event) on Day 0, Day 1, and Day 3 but did not open the app on Day 2. The user is counted as retained for Day 0, Day 1, Day 2(as well), and Day 3. The user will be counted retained for Day 2 as the user was active on the platform for the later period on Day 3.

2. N-Day Retention

N-Day Retention provides the percentage of users retained on the selected day. It also includes the users who performed the return event on the selected day. For a higher level of granularity, choose Hour, Week, or Month instead of Day.

For example:

The user installed the app (first event) on Day 0. The user has opened the app (return event) at least once on Day 0, Day 2, and Day 4 but has not opened the app anytime on Day 1 and Day 3. The user will be counted as retained only for Day 0, Day 2, and Day 4. The user will not be counted retained for Day 1 and Day 3 as the user was not active on these days.

Please Note:

In the case of Nth day retention, we skip strict order requirements for the first event and return event. If a user performs the return event before or after the first event, they will be counted as retained.  Even if a return event -App opened, has been triggered before the first event within the period of selected granularity (Day, week, month as per selection), the user will be counted as retained for the Nth day. 

However, in the case of Unbounded, we only count a user as retained if the first event is triggered before the return event. So if the user performs the return event -App opened, before the first event- The installed app, then he won't be counted as retained under Unbounded retention metrics.

3. First Occurrence

The First Occurrence shows the percentage of users who perform the return event for the first time (after the first event) on a specific day. It is the percentage of users who haven't performed the return event until the selected day. The First occurrence is how much time users are taking to perform the return event. For a higher level of granularity, choose Hour, Week, or Month instead of Day.

For example:

The user installed the app (first event) on Day 0. The user did not perform the Purchase (return-event) on Day 1 & Day 2; the user is counted as inactive on Day 1 & Day 2. On Day 3, when the user Purchase (return-event) for the very first time, the user is counted as a returned user on Day 3. We do not consider what happens after Day 3 as this analysis only provides how long the user was away from the app, came back, and performed the returned event.

Comparing Retentions

You can also compare different Retention by multiple attributes. You can compare Retention for any property of the first event. To compare Retentions, click Split By and select the attributes from the drop-down menu. You can see the top 1000 values of the selected event property. The table has all the Retentions, and the chart shows the top 5 Retentions.

Analysis Time Frame

After defining the Retention events, and the Split Retention attribute, in the  Duration section, select the time frame of the Retention report. Choose any one of the following:

• Yesterday
• Last 7 Days
• Last 30 Days
• This Month
• Last Month
• Select your custom date range

Retention Reports and Visualization

Retention Chart

The Retention line chart is created as a weighted average of the percentage of retained users for the selected day or selected granularity. The calculation is applicable for all retention types.

By default, MoEngage Retention shows you your App/Site Open Retention for the last six weeks with weekly granularity.

Changing Visualisations

You can break down the report into the granularity of Daily, Weekly, or Monthly for easy visualization. Retention users are displayed based on the granularity you select.

A few limitations of the Retention granularity are:

• Hourly Retention is available for a day (24 Hrs).
• Daily Retention is available for 90-day durations.
• Weekly Retention is available for 180-day durations.
  

Add to Custom Dashboard

Retention analysis reports can be pinned to any desired dashboard. You do not have to enter all the steps & filters and can see the analysis with one click on the custom dashboards. Click Save to Dashboard button to save the Retention analysis in custom dashboards. For more information, refer to Custom Dashboards.

Retention Table Report

The column ‘Cohort’ shows the number of users who performed the first event on a specific day. The rows ‘Day 0’, ‘Day 1’,... ‘Day n’, provides the percentage of users according to Unbounded Retention, N-Day Retention, and First Occurance as explained.

Day granularity can be replaced with any granularity like Hours, weeks, or Months. The percentage numbers are color-graded for a better holistic view.

You can transpose the table; it allows you to view and download the table in your preferred format by shifting the vertical and horizontal orientation of the table.

Download Reports

Please go ahead and download the report after viewing the information. The charts are downloaded in PNG format, and the table is exported in CSV format.

 

Retention analysis is transformed from just informative to actionable through actionable analytics. The insights provided by Retention analysis can be utilized in custom segments and you can take the following actions on custom segments:

• Create Campaign: You can create campaigns or segments for the following set of users:
  • Returned users
  • Churned users
• Analyze Segments

Reach out to us directly from your MoEngage Dashboard -> Need Help? -> Contact Support or send an email to support@moengage.com.