I know you have a thousand things to do and cohort analysis on not top of the list, but you should incorporate it in your marketing activities and business performance reports because it is gold.

Cohort analysis gives you personalization at scale since it’s not 1-on-1, but it’s not blanket approach to your whole customer base either.

If you have a long-term strategy for your ecommerce business, you know you should be focusing on customer retention, not only on acquisition.

In this article, we’ll show you how to make your own retention report in order to measure your retention efforts now and see what can be improved.

For those of you who don’t want to do it in spreadsheets themselves (and run on Shopify, Magento or WooCommerce), we have something very convenient for you at the end.

If you’re trying out Metrilo’s Retention Analysis, here’s how to make the most of it.

That’s a walk-through of the Retention Analysis report and a helper what you’ll find in yours, how to read it and what to do with the info.

Let’s talk retention and sell more!

Retention means healthy growth.

Retention in ecommerce is becoming more and more popular. It works for ecommerce stores the same way it has been working for B2B SaaS companies in the last decade.

In SaaS, you have to fight churn and maximize monthly recurring revenue (MRR) because that’s the metric for stable user base and growth.

In ecommerce, retention is gaining attention for the same reason: the more returning customers a shop has, the better it’s positioned to grow.

Why?

The ecommerce industry is finally turning to retention as acquisition is no longer cheap enough to make money on single orders.

You probably see conversion rates and reach falling, CAC going up, losing money on the first order is the norm now…

What can you do to keep afloat and earn money?

Make up for those CACs to the fullest. Get returns on the money you spent already! Once you paid to play, make the most out of it.

Retain your customers and make profit. Here’s how.

Customer retention best practices:

• Treat loyal customers better than one-timers
• Listen to negative feedback & improve
• Listen to positive feedback & use it for marketing
• Adapt marketing to product use and buying cycles
• Tag by taste/ behavior and tailor communication
• Offer great support
• Build a community
• Create a shopping experience worth repeating

Cohort analysis in ecommerce may not be the first thing you think about in the morning, but it may very well be the key to providing premium customer experience.

In this article you’ll discover:

• How to read customer behavior and what it means
• How cohort analysis shows you what to do to make your shoppers happy
• And, of course, how to drive more sales thanks to cohort analysis