Build a retention analysis

Amplitude's Retention Analysis chart helps you drive product adoption by showing you how often users return to your product after taking a specific action (known as triggering an event).

Amplitude computes retention data by comparing the date of that starting event to the date of the return event you specified. The return event is the event that, when triggered, tells you a user is retained. When building a retention analysis chart, you can choose any event for both the starting and return events. You can also choose not to specify an event and instead tell Amplitude to use any active event.

You can select up to two return events for your retention analysis. Each event has its own analysis and appears as a separate segment in the chart.

The Retention Analysis chart's usage interval shows the percentage of active users who triggered the events you're interested in with a specified daily, weekly, or monthly median frequency. Essentially, it shows how much time elapses between a user firing your product's critical event. This is a vital piece of your retention analysis puzzle. Knowing how often users actually use your product helps you gauge the health of your product when looking at Retention Analysis and Lifecycle charts.

Before you begin

You can't use the Retention Analysis chart, or any other Amplitude chart, until you complete the instrumentation process. Read the article on building charts in Amplitude to learn the basics of Amplitude's user interface.

If you're new to Amplitude, read about the Event Segmentation chart before moving on to Retention Analysis. You may also want to review the playbook on mastering retention.

Set up a retention analysis

At its core, a retention analysis measures the amount of time between two different user events. Tell Amplitude what those events are and which users to include in the analysis.

To build a Retention Analysis chart, follow these steps:

1. In the Events Module, select the starting event. You can choose a specific event that's instrumented in Amplitude, or you can tell Amplitude to consider any event as the starting event for this analysis by selecting Any Event from the list of available events.
2. To filter by properties on your starting event, click + Filter by, select the property name, and specify the property value you're interested in.
3. Select at least one return event. You can choose up to two, and you can filter by properties on these events as well.
4. In the Segmentation Module, identify the user segment you want to include in this analysis. You can import a previously saved segment by clicking the Saved dropdown and selecting the one you want from the list. Otherwise, Amplitude assumes your analysis targets all users.

5. If you don't want to import a previously saved user segment, build your own by adding properties. To do so, click + Filter by, choose the property you want to include, and specify the property value you're interested in.
6. To narrow your focus further, tell Amplitude to include only users who already performed certain actions. To do so, click + Performed, then choose the event you're interested in.
7. To add another user segment, click + Add Segment and repeat steps 5 and 6.

Your Retention Analysis chart appears, along with a tabular view of your results in the breakdown table. Check or uncheck segments in the breakdown table to compare retention rates in the visual. For example, this Retention Analysis chart shows two lines for comparison because its third segment is unchecked.

Usage interval analysis

The Retention Analysis chart also supports usage interval analyses.

Or learn how to interpret your Retention Analysis chart.