Understanding Retention Report Criteria and Cohort Qualification Dates

·Jan 22, 2025 06:14 AM·

I set my Retention report with the criteria On or After Each Month. Why is the cohort Dec 1, 2024 retention in column <1 Month shows that "Profile will continue to qualify until the end if Jan 30"? Shouldn't it stop counting before the end of Dec 2024? the cohort Dec 1, 2024 retention in column Month 1 also shows that "Profile will continue to qualify until the end if Mar 1". Why not Dec 31? How does this work?

5 comments

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Ilhan(Mixpanel)
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Hi Yanisa 👋, Your Retention Criteria and your Retention Window are set to look at Month long intervals in this report. This means that users have 30 days to be counted within the next interval cohort. Any users who enter in December have 30 days to qualify for the <1 Month retention interval. For example: user A enters December 23rd - they have 30 days to qualify for <1 Month(Jan 22nd). That is why this cohort is not complete until Jan 30th (to account for anyone who enters December 31st). https://docs.mixpanel.com/docs/reports/retention#how-is-retention-calculated The users qualify till March 1st because the Retention criteria looks in 30 day intervals, and as February has 29 days this year that means this window ends on the 1st of March. And the Month 2 window would end the 31st of March. Hope this clarifies the report here 🙂
Yanisa S.
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Hi Ilhan(Mixpanel) Thanks for the clarification. What if I toggle “Group by Date”? How is different from this report?
Ilhan(Mixpanel)
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Calendar Retention Mode is applied when you choose "Group by date". This groups users by calendar dates, instead of rolling retention. For anyone who qualifies in Total Profiles in December, this user will need to perform their second event in December to be counted within the <1 Month cohort. Any events performed in January will count for Month 1 and so forth...
Yanisa S.
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Ilhan(Mixpanel) Thank you so much. You just saved my life 💕 😆
Ilhan(Mixpanel)
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Yanisa S. I'm happy to hear that helped! 🥳 Have a lovely rest of your day 👋🏾
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