Build a retention chart
Group customers or users by when they started and see what share comes back in each period after.
A retention chart answers how many people come back. It groups each entity, like a customer, into a cohort by the period they first appear, then shows what share of each cohort is active in every period after. Each row is a cohort and each column is periods since start. Pick Retention from the chart type selector.
Fill the shelves
| Shelf | What it holds |
|---|---|
| Date | Required. One date field, such as Order Date. It sets each cohort and period. |
| Entity | Required. The thing that returns, such as Customer ID. |
| Split by | Optional. A dimension that breaks each cohort into one row per value, such as Segment. |
- Pick Retention from the chart type selector.
- Drag a date field to Date.
- Drag the entity you're tracking to Entity.
- Optionally drag a dimension to Split by.
The chart works out the retention rates and colors for you, so there's no measure to add. Click any cell to see the records behind it.
Format options
Open the format pane and find Retention options.
- Type - N-period counts an entity if it was active in period N. Classic only counts it if it was active in every period from the start through N.
- Granularity - Auto, Day, Week, Month, Quarter or Year.
- Show values as - a percentage, a count, or both.
- Show average row - adds a row averaging all cohorts.
- Min cohort size - hides cohorts smaller than this, so a tiny cohort's 100% doesn't stand out.
Build it from the chat
Ask the chat for something like "monthly customer retention by first order month" or "retention by segment". Follow-ups change the same chart, so you can say "focus on the 2023-Q4 cohort" and it keeps the cohorts as they were rather than filtering the dates.