In a discussion about sharing retention data using Google Analytics cohort analysis, user charleswalter shares their low user return rates, prompting others to share their own metrics. DiscourseMetrics provides cohort analysis charts and promotes their newsletter with tips on improving engagement and retention. BCHK highlights the value of sticky content and suggests a crowd-sourced, anonymized data-sharing feature within Discourse’s admin interface to benchmark performance across forums. SaraDev adds that a SQL Data Explorer report for monthly user activity cohort analysis is available on Meta Discourse, offering a customizable way to track retention.
Not sure if there’s an appropriate category for discussing performance data (perhaps UX), but was curious to hear what others have found.
We seem to do a good job at attracting website visitors, but it very difficult for us to get them to come back (or register). Would anyone else be interested in sharing their weekly cohort analysis report from Google Analytics for benchmarking purposes?
Note that in week 1 after first vist, we see roughly 1/40 users coming back to the site. By week 7, we see less than 1/200 users coming back.
I have higher retention, but I think the numbers will depend a lot on what type of forum you have.
Here’s my chart of user growth this year.
As you can see, I did something in that doubled my signup rate overnight in February. I’m sharing how I did it and many more tips on how to increase engagement and retention in my free newsletter at discoursemetrics.com (use the form on the right side of the page).
I’m still working on growing engagement by trying different things, but I think I’m on the right path:
