Cohort Explorer In Google Analytics 4

Everything You Need To Know About Cohort Explorer In Google Analytics 4

Nikolaj Bomann Mertz
6 min readDec 7, 2022

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of the popular analytics tool. It is designed to provide more detailed and accurate insights into user behaviour and engagement. One of the new features of GA4 is Cohort Explorer, a powerful tool for understanding user behaviour over time. In this blog post, we’ll take a closer look at Cohort Explorer and how it can help you gain better insights into your website’s performance.

Google Analytics 4 Cohort explorer showing the Google Merchandise Store

What is Cohort Analysis and How Can It Help Your Business?

Cohort analysis is a powerful tool used by companies to gain insights into their customer base and understand their behaviour. It is a form of segmentation that divides customers into groups, or “cohorts”, based on shared characteristics such as purchase date, demographics, or even behaviour. By understanding the behaviour of these cohorts over time, businesses can identify trends and patterns that can help them make better decisions.

Cohort analysis is a type of data analysis that divides customers into groups, or “cohorts”, based on shared characteristics such as purchase date, demographics, or even behaviour. Each cohort is then tracked over time to gain insights into their behaviour and how it changes over time. This information can then be used to inform decisions about marketing campaigns, product development, and customer service.

Benefits of Cohort Analysis Cohort analysis can provide valuable insights into customer behaviour and preferences, allowing businesses to make informed decisions. It can be used to identify customer segments that are more likely to convert or respond to certain marketing campaigns, and also to identify opportunities to increase customer loyalty. Additionally, it can be used to track the performance of new products and campaigns and to detect any potential problems or areas for improvement.

How to Use Cohort Analysis

Using cohort analysis requires an understanding of the data that is being analysed. This means having a clear understanding of the metrics that are being tracked and the different cohorts that are being segmented. Additionally, businesses should ensure that the data collected is accurate and up-to-date, as this will allow for more reliable results. Once the data is collected, it can be analysed using various techniques, such as cohort comparison, retention rate analysis, and customer segmentation. This can then be used to inform decisions about marketing campaigns, product development, and customer service.

What are the new features in Google Analytics 4?

  • Improved Data Collection: Google Analytics 4 offers improved data collection for website and app data. It allows users to collect more data from their websites and apps, including events, page views, and user interactions. This data can then be used to better understand user behaviour and improve website and app performance.
  • Event-Based Tracking: Google Analytics 4 also offers event-based tracking, which allows users to track specific events — such as page visits, downloads, and purchases — and better understand how their users are interacting with their website and app. This helps businesses identify opportunities to improve their website and app experience.
  • Enhanced Reporting: Google Analytics 4 also offers enhanced reporting capabilities. It provides detailed data and insights on user behaviour, including user flow, conversion rates, and engagement metrics. This helps businesses better understand their website and app data and make data-driven decisions.
  • Machine Learning Powered Insights: Finally, Google Analytics 4 features machine learning-powered insights. This feature uses machine learning to identify trends and patterns in user behaviour, allowing businesses to gain valuable insights into their website and app data.

What is Cohort Explorer?

Cohort Explorer is a feature of Google Analytics 4 (GA4) that allows you to track user behaviour over time. It uses cohorts, which are groups of users who share a common trait or behaviour, to understand user behaviour and engagement. By tracking the behaviour of each cohort over time, you can gain a better understanding of how users interact with your website.

Image from Google's own article on the Cohort Explorer Tool

How Does Cohort Explorer Work?

Cohort Explorer works by tracking the behaviour of each cohort over time. For example, if you have a cohort of users who visited your website in the past month, you can track how they interact with your website over the next month. This will allow you to see how user behaviour changes over time and helps you to better understand user engagement and behaviour.

What Data Does Cohort Explorer Provide?

Cohort Explorer provides detailed insights into user behaviour and engagement. You can use it to track how users interact with your website over time, as well as how they engage with different features. You can also use it to track how long users are spending on your website, what content they are viewing, and how often they are returning.

How Can The Cohort Explorer Help You?

Cohort Explorer can help you gain better insights into your website’s performance. By tracking user behaviour over time, you can see how users interact with your website and what content they are engaging with. This can help you to identify areas where you can improve user engagement and make your website more successful.

The different sections

Below you find a full overview of the Google Analytics 4 Cohort Explorer:

The cohort explorer has 3 overall sections:

  1. Variables
  2. Tab settings
  3. Cohort table

Variables

This section Contains the segments, dimensions, and metrics available for use in this exploration.

You can use the “+” buttons to add variables, whether it’s segments, dimensions or metrics. Both standard and custom variables can be used here.

The next section is the tab settings.

Here you configure your cohort analysis. You need to define your cohort inclusion metric, and the return criteria among other things.

Finally, the 3rd section show our cohort table. The first column shows when your users took the action that made them a part of your cohort.

The next columns are showing how they progressing in month 0 (if you measure retention, then this is usually 100%, unless you have some that churn the same month as they became customers) , month 1 and month 2 etc.

Limitations to the Cohort Explorer

Google describe the following limitations of the cohort explorer tool:

- Cohort exploration can show a maximum of 60 cohorts.

- When you apply a breakdown dimension, a maximum of the top 15 values of that dimension are shown.

- Demographic dimensions are subject to thresholding. If the number of users in the cohort is too small to protect their anonymity, those users won’t be included in the exploration.

Read more here.

Sometimes it can be helpful to pull out your marketing data from Google Analytics and import it to Google Sheets. Then you can model your cohorts exactly how you see fit, without limitations.

Conclusion

Cohort Explorer is a powerful tool in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) that can help you gain better insights into user behaviour and engagement. By tracking user behaviour over time, you can gain a better understanding of how users interact with your website and what content they are engaging with. This can help you to identify areas where you can improve user engagement and make your website more successful.

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