Cohort Analysis
Cohort analysis groups users by a shared characteristic (acquisition date, channel, campaign) and tracks their behaviour over time — revealing retention, LTV, and channel-quality patterns invisible in aggregated reports.
In context
Cohort analysis is the antidote to vanity-metric reporting. A channel can look great on top-line traffic but terrible on retention; cohort analysis surfaces it. GA4's Exploration → Cohort Exploration report supports basic cohort analysis; richer analysis typically requires exporting to BigQuery and building custom cohort views. For SEO programs, weekly acquisition cohorts tracked across 12 weeks reveal which content types drive durable engagement.
A Canadian publisher's cohort analysis showed organic-search visitors had 3× the 4-week return rate of paid-social visitors — supporting reallocating budget from paid social into SEO content investment.
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