Retention Analysis

Retention analysis measures the proportion of users who return to a product after their initial use over subsequent time periods. Retention is typically visualized as a retention curve or cohort table showing the percentage of users who remain active at Day 1, Day 7, Day 30, and beyond. Key retention metrics include Day 1 retention (initial stickiness), Day 7 retention (weekly engagement), Day 30 retention (monthly engagement), and rolling retention (active within a moving window). Retention analysis helps product teams understand product-market fit, identify where users drop off, measure the impact of feature changes, and forecast long-term user base growth. Improving retention is often the highest-leverage growth strategy.