Understanding User Cohorts in Historical Reporting
I'm writing to confirm my understanding of how user cohort works when analyzing past data, to ensure our historical reporting is accurate. Here is the scenario and my understanding of it:
- 1.
A brand new user performs their first-ever event, "App Open", on Monday, July 14th, 2025.
- 2.
The same user is active again and performs another "App Open" event today, on Monday, July 28th, 2025.
My question is about how this user is classified when I look at historical data. My understanding is that if I, today (July 28th), set a report's date range to only include the week of July 14th, that user's activity will be correctly attributed to a New User. The classification is relative to the time period being analyzed. Could you please confirm if this understanding is correct? In short, is the "New vs. Returning" classification always determined based on the date range selected for the report, not on the user's absolute current status?
