Análisis de cohortes

What is the importance of retention versus acquisition?

Customer retention is an extremely valuable strategy that is often overlooked in favor of acquisition. Many companies focus exclusively on attracting new customers, but the key to sustainable growth may lie in keeping those who have already chosen your product or service. A prime example of this is Facebook. Since its inception, the platform demonstrated impressive retention levels, with 65% of users active daily and 95% monthly. This focus on retaining its existing user base was fundamental to its exponential growth.

How can I measure retention?

To evaluate the effectiveness of customer retention, cohort analysis is used. This method allows you to segment users into groups, or cohorts, based on specific criteria, such as date of registration. For example, you can analyze how users who signed up in July performed compared to those who signed up in August or September. By looking at these patterns, you can identify the percentage of users who continue to use your product month by month.

• July cut-off: It started with a 62% retention in the second month, showing that 40% stopped using the product, although those who continued were retained in the following months.
• August cut-off: Showed a decrease to half in the first month, but then stability.
• October cut-off: Showed significant improvement, with only 20% loss, possibly due to product improvements or error reduction.

Why is retention so crucial?

There are multiple reasons to prioritize customer retention, one of the main ones being its direct impact on growth metrics. If your goal is to grow 10% per month, but you have a 5% churn rate, real growth is reduced to 5%. To truly expand your business, it is essential to decrease this churn rate to the minimum possible.

Another important perspective is customer lifetime value. This indicator estimates the value that a customer brings throughout his or her relationship with your company. By extending the duration of this relationship, the total value for your business increases significantly. For example, if a customer stays for one year and generates a value of $400, increasing it to two years doubles this value, positively impacting revenue and facilitating the acquisition of new customers.

What is the next step in customer behavior analysis?

After understanding the importance of retention, the next step is to analyze in detail how customers interact with your product. Evaluating the daily, weekly or monthly usage of your service, as well as the frequency of payments, provides a clear picture of customer loyalty and satisfaction. In addition, these insights are essential to adjust strategies and improve the user experience.

With these insights, you will be able to prepare more accurate and effective sales reports, adjusting tactics to maximize customer loyalty and value. Continuing to explore and learn about these metrics is crucial to elevate the success of your products or services.