What is a Cohort?
For mobile marketing purposes, a cohort is a set of users that share a particular trait grouped together because of that common identifier.
A cohort could be anything, from users in a certain geographic locations, to users who installed an app within the same period. A cohort could even be created from users triggering an event during a specific time span. As long as there is something in common, then users can be collected around that theme.
Why Are Cohorts Important?
With cohorts you can compare data much more easily across metrics that matter. But there are many things which you can do with cohorts that cement cohort analysis as an essential part of mobile marketing.
For instance, any user that installs your app has an engagement lifespan, and this lifespan expresses trends that you can manipulate. The changes you perform are not as noticeable when your user base is constantly changing. So, to clearly see effects of your actions you need to look at the same user group over time, and this is where the cohort analysis comes in.
Cohorts give you the ability to track user segments from a specific period. Engagement rates vary not just between different users but also between the various stages of those users’ lifespans. This means that optimization may work on some groups, but not others, and with cohorts you can find out which groups and at what stage of the user journey.
Cohort analysis can also remove the confusion that can arise from running simultaneous improvements and campaigns, so you can get a better sense of what is yielding the best results and is worth investing in.
Reference: “Adjust,” Retrieved – 23 April 2018