What are cohorts and periods?
- A cohort is the group of people who first visited in the same day or week.
- A period is how long after that first visit you’re measuring — period 0 is the first day or week, period 1 is the next, and so on.
- Each cell is the percentage of the cohort that returned in that period. Period 0 is always 100% by definition.
How do I read the chart and the matrix?
- The retention chart draws one curve per cohort, so you can compare how different cohorts hold up over time.
- The retention matrix is a grid: each row is a cohort, each column is a period since first visit, and the color shows the share returning — darker where more people came back.
Should I use daily or weekly cohorts?
Toggle between daily and weekly cohorts. Weekly cohorts smooth out day-to-day noise and are usually easier to read for most sites; daily cohorts give a finer view when you have high traffic. Weekly cohorts start on Monday.The report’s date range follows your dashboard time zone, so it respects your site’s reporting timezone when one is set.
Frequently asked questions
Why is period 0 always 100% in the retention matrix?
Why is period 0 always 100% in the retention matrix?
Period 0 is the period in which the cohort first visited, so every member of the cohort is present in it by definition. That makes period 0 always 100%. The meaningful numbers start at period 1, which shows the share of the cohort that came back in the next day or week.
How accurate is retention for anonymous visitors?
How accurate is retention for anonymous visitors?
It’s a close estimate. tinyanalytics recognizes returning visitors cookielessly, which works well for anonymous traffic but isn’t exact. To make retention exact for signed-in people, identify users so their visits are tied to a stable ID.
Related
Users
See the people whose return visits drive retention.
Identify users
Make retention exact for signed-in users.
Funnels
Measure conversion through a sequence of steps.
Dashboard overview
Top-line metrics for your whole site.