I want to cohort users based on what they do in their first 30 days and then use that to measure retention. How can I create a cohort that says something like took at least x actions in their first 30 days from sign up?
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You can do this with a cohort that’s defined using an event count condition plus a time window that’s relative to signup.From the docs, cohorts can be defined as “Users who did <event> more/less than <some threshold> ” over a chosen time range, and you can also define “New Users: Users who signed up in the past month,” etc., then reuse those cohorts in Retention reports.[Cohorts][Define cohorts]Given what’s in the knowledge sources, they don’t spell out a UI control that explicitly says “first 30 days since signup,” so I can’t describe the exact clicks. But the pattern you want is: 1. Create a cohort in the Cohort Builder
- Go to Users → Cohorts → Create Cohort.[Cohorts]
- Add a condition of the form:
- “Users who did <your key action> more than X times in the last 30 days” (this is the documented pattern for “did event more/less than threshold in last N days”).[Cohorts]2. Constrain to “new users” (approximate ‘first 30 days from signup’)
Since the docs only explicitly show examples like “New Users: Users who signed up in the past month,” you’d combine:
- Condition A: “Users who signed up in the past 30 days” (your signup event or a signup property).[Cohorts]
- AND
- Condition B: “Users who did <your key action> more than X times in the last 30 days.”[Cohorts] This approximates “at least X actions in their first 30 days from signup” using the documented building blocks.3. Save and use the cohort in Retention
- Save the cohort (e.g., “Power users – ≥X actions in first 30 days”).[Cohorts]
- Open a Retention report, define your retention behavior (e.g., “Sign Up Completed” → “Any Event” or your key event), and then filter or break down by this cohort to compare retention of these users vs everyone else.[Quick start][Track retention]Because the sources don’t explicitly document a “first N days since event A” selector inside the cohort builder, the above is the closest fully-documented way to express “took at least X actions in their first 30 days from sign up” using cohorts and then use that cohort in Retention.
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No, it doesn’t have to be static.By default, cohorts you build in the Cohort Builder are dynamic: they’re “computed dynamically at the time that you use them in a query,” and “every time you run a query that uses the cohort, the cohort is freshly computed vs being a static snapshot of users.”[How cohorts are computed]Static cohorts only come into play if you explicitly create them that way (for example, via a CSV upload, which the docs note “are static; they will not update over time”).[Creating via CSV]So if you define your “≥ X actions in first 30 days” logic in the Cohort Builder, it will be a dynamic cohort and will keep updating as users newly qualify or fall out, and your Retention report will always use the current membership.
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You can use a dynamic cohort like this for long‑term retention; the main constraint is on the report’s date range / intervals, not on the cohort itself.From the docs: - Cohorts are recomputed dynamically “at the time that you use them in a query,” so they stay up to date over time.[How cohorts are computed] - Retention reports have some guardrails: - When using day as the unit, Retention is “limited to 60 days.”[Retention FAQ] - To look beyond that, the docs say: “One way to extend it would be to switch ‘Each Day’ to ‘Each Week/Month’ under the Retention Criteria.”[Retention FAQ]So for long‑term retention (> 3 months) of your “first‑30‑days power users” cohort: 1. Keep the cohort dynamic (defined in the Cohort Builder). 2. In the Retention report: - Use Week or Month as the time unit instead of Day, so you can see out much further than 60 days.[Retention FAQ] - Filter or break down by that cohort.The knowledge sources don’t mention any 3‑month limit specific to cohorts in Retention; the only explicit limit is the 60‑day cap when using daily buckets.
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