glossary term
Cohort
A group of visitors defined by something they share, like the week they first showed up.
What it means
A cohort is a group of users bucketed by a shared starting point — most often the week or month they first visited — tracked afterward to see how their behavior changes over time.
Why it matters
Cohort analysis answers a different question than a simple trend line: not just 'is traffic up,' but 'are the people who found us in March still coming back in June.'
ask datanephew
Can datanephew build a cohort view for me?
Ask it to compare how visitors from a specific period behaved afterward — it can pull that from Analytics without you setting up a custom report.
Is cohort analysis only useful for subscription businesses?
No — any business that cares about repeat visits or repeat purchases can use it, even a once-a-year retailer looking at seasonal return patterns.
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