Cohort Analysis Guide

Cohort Analysis Workflows

Example: Monthly Customer Retention

Scenario: You're a SaaS company and want to understand how many customers remain active over time, grouped by the month they signed up.

Your Data

You have transaction data in "Periods as Rows" format:

Step-by-Step Setup

1. Open Jetti and select your data sheet
2. Column mapping:
   • Customer ID → customer_id
   • Date/Period → month
   • Value → revenue
3. Settings:
   • Report type: Cohort
   • Value type: Count (we want to count customers, not sum revenue)
   • Interval: Monthly
4. Generate Report

Expected Output

As percentages:

How to Interpret

• 2024-01 cohort: Alice and Bob both signed up in January. Both were active in February (100% retention). Only Alice remained in March (50%). Neither was active in April (0%).
• 2024-02 cohort: Carol signed up in February and stayed active through April (100% retention at Month 2).
• 2024-03 cohort: Dave signed up in March and was still active in April.

Key Insights

• The January cohort shows 50% drop-off at Month 2 - what happened to Bob?
• February and March cohorts show better early retention
• Click on the "50%" cell to drill down and see it was Bob who churned

Example: Revenue Retention by Cohort

Scenario: Same data, but now you want to track how much revenue each cohort retains over time (not just customer count).

Setup Changes

1. Keep all settings the same, but change:
   • Value type: Sum (sum revenue instead of count customers)

Expected Output

As percentages of starting revenue:

How to Interpret

• January cohort started with $150 (Alice: $100, Bob: $50)
• By Month 2, only $100 remained (Alice) - 67% revenue retention
• The 2024-02 cohort (Carol at $200) retained 100% through Month 2

Revenue vs Count: When to Use Each

How Cohort Calculations Work

Step 1: Determine Each Customer's Cohort

Jetti assigns each customer to their first active period:

Step 2: Calculate Cohort Age

For each period a customer is active, calculate how many periods since their cohort:

Step 3: Aggregate by Cohort and Age

Jetti groups customers by their cohort and age, then counts (or sums) the values for each cell in the table.

Step 4: Calculate Retention Percentage

Divide each cell by the Month 0 value for that cohort:

Retention = (Value at Month N) / (Value at Month 0) × 100