We believe very firmly that there’s something foundational about cohorts. When we say “cohort,” we mean a group of customers that were acquired in a period, whether that’s a monthly cohort, a quarterly cohort, or an annual cohort. The 2021 cohort is a group of customers who made their first purchase in 2021.
What’s powerful about a cohort is that the membership of that group never changes. Once someone is in a cohort, they’re always in that cohort. Therefore, you can track the behavior of that cohort over time and understand if it’s growing or declining.
Not only is this sort of membership immutable, but if you look at the entire customer base, every customer is in a cohort. Cohorts completely cover the customer base. For me, that makes it a very compelling and powerful way to answer questions about customer behavior. It’s not that demographics and persona-led segments aren’t helpful. For me, they are at a different level to a cohort analysis, which I would say is foundational.
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