Understanding Retention Curves and Qualifying Profiles Explained
If I want to look at retention since October 1st in Retention Curves, why are profiles continuing to qualify until Nov 30th when looking at < 1 month retention.
If I want to look at retention since October 1st in Retention Curves, why are profiles continuing to qualify until Nov 30th when looking at < 1 month retention.
Hi Shane, Please stand by as I search the Mixpanel knowledge base for an AI-powered answer. I normally take about 15 seconds or so. In case AI cannot answer your question, feel free to reach out to Mixpanel support at mixpanel.com/get-support. If you have follow-up questions for this thread, please tag me again with your question: @kapa.ai <follow-up question> 👋
Feel free to ask a follow-up question once I've answered by mentioning me with @kapa.ai
Based on the knowledge sources, I can explain why profiles continue to qualify until November 30th when looking at retention since October 1st.
When you set a date range starting from October 1st in a Retention report, Mixpanel creates user cohort buckets based on when users performed the initial "A event" (the birth event). According to the Retention report documentation:
Each of the user cohort buckets will include every unique user that did the "A event" criteria in that time window, starting at 0:00 of the first day of the bucket and ending midnight of the last day.
This means that if your date range extends through November 30th, users who perform the birth event anytime between October 1st and November 30th will be included in their respective cohort buckets. Each user is placed into a cohort based on when they first performed the birth event within your selected date range.
For the < 1 month retention bucket, the report needs to track whether these users return within their first month after performing the birth event. So a user who performs the birth event on November 30th would still be included in the analysis, and Mixpanel would track their retention behavior in the subsequent period.
Additionally, the documentation notes that <https://docs.mixpanel.com/docs/reports/retention#basic-features|boxes with an asterisk (*) indicate incomplete buckets> where "the data is still in flux and not set yet because the time is still ongoing." Users entering the cohort later in your date range may have incomplete retention data for later time buckets since not enough time has passed for them to complete those retention periods.
kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.
ℹ️ Tip: Mention @kapa.ai in the thread for follow-ups or DM the app for 1-to-1 help.
Let me check the knowledge base for you again. One moment! 📚
I understand your confusion. Let me clarify how the "< 1 month" retention bucket works in Mixpanel.
The "< 1 month" bucket doesn't mean "October 1-31" when you set your date range starting from October 1st. Instead, it refers to the retention time period relative to each individual user's birth event, not the calendar date range of your query.
According to the <https://docs.mixpanel.com/docs/reports/retention#basic-features|Retention report documentation>, retention analysis works on a per-user basis:
The first column (Date) indicates the day/week/month when the user performed the "A event". The Size column indicates the number of users that performed the "A event" within the time period.
Here's what's happening:
- Your date range (October 1 - November 30) determines which user cohorts are included in the analysis - specifically, users who performed the birth event anytime during this period.
- The "< 1 month" retention bucket measures whether each user returned within their first month after their individual birth event, not within the calendar month of October.
For example: - A user who signs up on October 1st: their "< 1 month" period is October 1-31 - A user who signs up on November 15th: their "< 1 month" period is November 15 - December 15
So profiles continue to qualify through November 30th because that's the end of your selected date range for creating cohorts, and each cohort's retention is measured relative to when that specific cohort performed the birth event. The retention time buckets (< 1 month, Month 1, etc.) are rolling windows relative to each user's start date, not fixed calendar periods.
kapa.ai is still learning and improving, please let me know how I did by reacting below.
ℹ️ Tip: Mention @kapa.ai in the thread for follow-ups or DM the app for 1-to-1 help.
