At a glance: The Cohort dashboard groups app users by acquisition date. Perform performance analysis across user life-cycles. Use the dashboard to gain insights as to how campaign differences alter campaign metrics.
Revenue by days post-install broken down by media source
Cohort dashboard
Related reading: Differences between Cohort flavors
To use Cohort, select users from one or more apps and segment them by conversion date. Cohort metrics like revenue, ROI, and event conversion rates are available. Break the cohort down, for comparison purposes, into dimensions like campaign or media source. Doing so can uncover patterns or changes in performance over user or campaign life-cycles. See Cohort use cases.
Tip
Want to know more about cohort reports? Check out this short, informative course on the AppsFlyer Learning Portal.
Cohort principles

- Cohort type
- Unified:
- The combined performance of user acquisition and retargeting campaigns (including cost and revenue).
- If an event is attributed to both conversion types, only the retargeting event is included. Meaning, the report is generated using the actual last touch media source. If you are familiar with raw data, it means events where is_primary_attribution=true.
- User acquisition: performance data from installs (reinstalls excluded)
- Retargeting: performance data from re-attributions or re-engagements
- Unified:
- Trend type
- User lifetime performance: Users are grouped by conversion day. This enables you to compare user performance post-conversion, starting with the conversion day, referred to as cohort day 0. Cohort disregards the event hour and uses only the event day. This trend is typically used to evaluate user performance relative to the media source.
- For day granularity the maximum number of days is 180.
- For week granularity the maximum number of weeks is 156
- For month granularity the maximum number of months is 36
- User lifetime performance: Users are grouped by conversion day. This enables you to compare user performance post-conversion, starting with the conversion day, referred to as cohort day 0. Cohort disregards the event hour and uses only the event day. This trend is typically used to evaluate user performance relative to the media source.
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- KPI by attribution time: Users are grouped by conversion time. This enables you to evaluate campaign performance over time and to view campaign KPIs relative to the conversion time.
- Cost-related metrics: In Cohort cost data is included only if there is an associated attribution (install, re-engagement, or re-attribution). In other words, if a campaign incurs cost based on clicks and impressions but has no attributions the cost isn't included in cohort reports. This principle holds true for all levels of the advertising hierarchy.
- Granularity options
Granularity type Permitted period Remarks Days Select 1–60 days Hours Select 1–72 hours out of the previous 72 hours Cost related metrics not available Weeks Up to 26 weeks Months Up to 12 months
Example: User lifetime performance trend vs. KPI by attribution time trend
Metrics available
Functions | ||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Always/ Optional |
Metric |
Count | cvr (conversion rate) | Rate | Sum | Unique users |
Number | Percentage | Percentage | Number | Number | ||
Always | Users (4) | ✓ | - | - | - | - |
Always | Cost (3) | - | - | - | ✓ | - |
Always | Average eCPI | - | - | ✓ | - | - |
Optional | "event_name" |
✓ | - | ✓ | ✓ | |
Optional | Revenue | ✓ | - | - | ✓ | - |
Optional | ROAS (3) | - | - | ✓ | - | - |
Optional | ROI (3) | - | - | ✓ | - | - |
Optional | Sessions (2) | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | ✓(1) |
Optional | Uninstalls (3) | ✓ | - | ✓ | - | (- |
(1) Unique sessions returns when aggregation_type=on_day
(4) The Users metric counts the number of attributions (installs, re-engagements, re-attributions) taking place during the selected period. |
Using Cohort
Setting up an analysis
- Go to Dashboard > Cohort.
The Cohort dashboard opens. The granularity and conversion date range display. - Select the granularity.
- Set the attribution period (user acquisition or retargeting engagement). Data relating to the most recent dates can result in partial data indicated by dashes in charts and tables.
- Click Edit Cohort.
The Cohort setup window opens.
- Complete the following:
- Cohort type:
- User acquisition.
- Retargeting
- Unified: includes the in-app events of both user attribution and retargeting attributions. Note: retargeting events take precedence over user acquisition events meaning the report contains events where is_primary_attribution=true.
- Select a Trend type:
- User lifetime performance.
- KPI by attribution time.
- Users of the apps: Select 1–many or all (means the top-100 apps in your account). Note: Agencies can only select one app.
- Grouped by: Select one or more dimensions [Default: Media Source].
- Minimum cohort size: Set the minimum cohort size. This avoids cluttering your report with insignificant (small) cohorts. [Default=1]
- Optional fields:
- Filtered by: Select one or more dimensions to filter by. There are no default filters.
- Cohort type:
- Click Apply changes.
The report displays. - To complete the cohort setup, complete one of the trend-type procedures that follow.
- [Optional] Managing saved cohort reports.
Trend type—User lifetime performance
Users are grouped into cohorts by post-conversion days. The conversion day is referred to as post-conversion day 0. The next as post-conversion day 1 and so on.
- For day granularity the maximum number of days is 180.
- For week granularity the maximum number of weeks is 156
- For month granularity the maximum number of months is 36
- Select a metric, function, and per user:
Note! Not all combinations of metric, function, and per-user are available.- Metrics: Revenue,Sessions, Uninstalls, ROI, In-app event, ROAS.
- Functions: The metric is calculated using functions. The function list varies depends on the metric.
- Sum: the total revenue on a cohort day.
- Count: count of events. For example, the number of sessions, number of revenue events, number of uninstalls, etc.
- Unique users: the unique number of users that performed an event. That means, for example, that if a user opened the app 10 times on a specific day that the result shown will be 1.
- In-app conversion: conversion rate from install/retargeting to an in-app event. The number of unique users who perform a specific in-app event for the first time ever divided by the number of unique users in the cohort. For example, the number of [unique] users in a cohort is 100. Of these, 20 perform a specific in-app event for the first time. The In-app conversion rate is 20/100=20%.
- Per-user: when selected, the sum or count is divided by the number of app users.
- Display duration: The number of cohort days to display post-conversion. Day 0 is the conversion day, Day 1 the day following conversion, and so on. Note: The display duration is truncated if the result is a future date.
- Table or Chart:
- Charts display the top 5 or 10 ranked by the number of app users in the cohort. This is irrespective of the dimension displayed.
- Tables display up to 50 rows. The users, cost, and average ECPI (effective cost per install) always display irrespective of the metric selected.
- On day or Cumulative:
- On day means the value of the metric for that day only.
- On day doesn't provide Cost related metrics.
- Cumulative means the cumulative or running total of the metric. Note! In the context of a unique users metric, it means the number of unique users having performed a given event until a given cohort day. It is not the sum of unique users of the preceding days.
Trend type—KPI by attribution time
Users are grouped into cohorts by attribution time.
- Select a metric, function, KPI days, and per user :
Note! Not all combinations of metric, function and per-user are available.- Metrics: Revenue, Sessions (not available in unified view), Uninstalls, ROI, In-app event, ROAS.
- Functions: The metric is calculated using functions. The function list varies depends on the metric.
- Sum: the total revenue on a cohort day.
- Count
- Unique users: the unique number of users that performed an event. That means, for example, that if a user opened the app 10 times on a specific day that the result shown will be 1.
- In-app Conversion: conversion rate from install/retargeting to an in-app event. The number of unique users who perform a specific in-app event for the first time ever divided by the number of unique users in the cohort. For example, the number of [unique] users in a cohort is 100. Of these, 20 perform a specific in-app event for the first time. The In-app Conversion rate is 20/100=20%.
- KPI time: Select from Day 0, Day 3, Day 7, etc. Day 0 is the conversion day only. Day 3 means the conversion day and the next three days, a total of four days, likewise, for the remaining days. The KPI value is totaled for the period selected.
- Per-user: when selected, the sum or count is divided by the number of app users.
- Table or Chart: Charts display the top 5 or top 10 ranked by the number of app users in the cohort. This is irrespective of the dimension displayed in the chart. Tables display up to 50 rows.
- On day: The value only on the cohort Day specified. For example, In the case of Day 7 this means the value on post-conversion day 7.
- Cumulative where: The combined value of all the days specified in Days. For example, in the case of Day 7, this means the total of the conversion day and the following 7 days. Note! In the context of unique users, it means the cumulative number of unique users.
List of dimensions for grouping and filtering
Dimension | Comments | Group by | Filter by |
---|---|---|---|
Ad | ✓ | ✓ | |
Ad ID | ✓ | ✓ | |
Adset | ✓ | ✓ | |
Adset ID | ✓ | ✓ | |
Agency | ✓ | ✓ | |
Apps | Relevant when the report contains multiple apps | ✓ | x |
Attributed touch-type | Values: Click, impression, or NA (organic) | ✓ | ✓ |
Campaign | ✓ | ✓ | |
Campaign ID | ✓ | ✓ | |
Channel | ✓ | ✓ | |
Conversion type |
Cohort type dependant:
|
✓ | ✓ |
Country (Geo) | Based on user IP address | ✓ | ✓ |
Time. In the case of:
|
Cohort type dependant:
|
✓ | x |
Install app store |
Relevant for apps implementing Android multi-store attribution. Reach out to your CSM to enable this dimension. |
✓ |
✓ |
Keywords |
Search keywords provided by the integrated partners |
✓ |
✓ |
Media source | ✓ | ✓ | |
Revenue Type |
Regular, Ad monetization |
x | ✓ |
Site Id | ✓ | ✓ | |
Sub Param 1 | ✓ | ✓ |
Using My reports—Save and select reports
- My reports enable you to save the current dashboard settings for future use.
- Select a saved report to display the most current cohort data available.
- You can save one or more reports.
- Only you can access your My reports.
Feature |
Description |
---|---|
My reports |
Select a report to display the most current data available. |
Save changes |
Save the report. Note: The currently selected report is overwritten. |
Action options (
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Partial data
Use the Real-time Cohort control to select the data display mode:
- [Default] Real-time:
- Attribution data updated continuously in real-time including revenue.
- Cost data updates 6 times a day on average every four hours.
- Partial data (indicated by dashes in reports and charts) is included
- Daily: Data is updated daily and available a few minutes after midnight. Data of partial days does not display.
What is partial data?
For a given day in the conversion data range, if the number of days that have elapsed since the conversion date is less than the cohort day, that cohort day contains partial data. Meaning partial data occurs on any day where the cohort day > current date-conversion date.
Export the cohort to a CSV file
- Cohort reports can be exported to CSV files.
- CSV files are limited to a maximum of 10,000 rows.
- The CSV export function is limited to User lifetime performance reports.
- Columns names having a partial suffix is the equivalent of dashes that display on charts and tables in the user interface.
To export cohort reports to CSV files:
- In the upper-right side of the Cohort reports window, click
(export).
The cohort report CSV file is downloaded.
Information
Cohort for agencies
- The advertiser needs to grant the agency permission to use Cohort.
- To grant permission to an agency, the advertiser:
- Goes to Configuration > Active Integrations.
- Select the agency.
- Go to the permissions tab, enable Allow access to your retention and cohort reports.
- To grant permission to an agency, the advertiser:
- Agencies are limited to accessing traffic generated by the agency.
Use cases
Revenue sum by country
Chart: Cumulative revenue per user
Table: Revenue per day
In-app event conversion
An advertiser defines an in-app event af_purchase. The cohort chart displays the percentage of app users in the cohort who made a mobile purchase. We can see on day 10 for instance that close to 30% (11.11%+9.71%+7.47%) of the cohort users performed a mobile purchase
FAQ
Question | Answer |
---|---|
Can I view Apple Search Ads keyword Cost and ROI? | Yes, you can. Apple Search Ads provides us with the cost for each keyword per day broken down by Campaign/Adset/Ad. Note: Breakdown by Geo/country is not available. |
For a given media source, why does the same campaign name display more than once? |
|
Can I view organic users? |
Organic users, by default, are included in Cohort reports. To limit the Cohort report to organic users only: |
Can I see data from deleted installs? |
Deleted installs, such as installs from SRNs that were deleted due to data retention policies or GDPR deleted installs, can not be seen in the cohort dashboard. For more information click here. |
Can I compare data for daily view to data in weekly or monthly views? |
It’s not easy to compare data from a daily granularity to a weekly or monthly granularity, because the cohort LTVs don't align. When viewing cohorts in daily granularity, Day 0 displays data for the day of the installs. Day 1 is the day after the install, Day 2 is 2 days post-install, etc. When viewing cohorts in weekly granularity, data displays for all installs made in the entire Week 0. Week 1 is the week after the install, Week 2 is 2 weeks post-install, etc. When viewing cohorts in monthly granularity, data displays for all installs made in the entire Month 0. Month 1 is the month after the install, Month 2 is 2 months post-install, etc. This means the LTV timelines don’t align. For example, if you look at data for January 9-15: If you use daily granularity, Day 0 contains data for the first day of all installs made January 9-15. And Day 6 contains data for the first 6 days post-install of all installs made January 9-15. Meanwhile, in weekly granularity, Week 0 contains data for the entire period for all installs made January 9-15. So for installs on January 9, the data is like Day 6. But for installs on January 15, it’s like Day 0. |
Traits and limitations
Trait | Details | Remarks |
---|---|---|
Ad network access to Cohort | No | |
Agency access | Yes |
|
Agency transparency | Yes | Starting January 10, 2021 |
App-specific time zone | Yes |
Exception: In all of the following cases, AppsFlyer ignores the app-specific time zone and uses the default time zone being UTC +0:
|
App-specific currency | Yes | Exception: All apps need to use the same currency |
Limitations |
|
|
Organic data | Yes | Included |
Non-organic data | Yes | Included |
Data freshness | Real-time |
|
Historical data | Yes |
|
Geo/country | Yes | When geo is unknown (N/A), ad revenue data doesn't display when grouping by geo. |
Session count | Yes |
Session count for Day 0 in the Retargeting view might be lower than the user count.
|
Retargeting and Unified data | Monthly session data is only available from the first of September 2021 onwards | |
Ad revenue | Yes |
|
Week and month granularity limitations | Displayed | Week and month granularity is only available on the cohort dashboard
|
Unique functions | Unique users and conversion rate metrics are not available if the data includes installs from before November 2022 | |
Cost metrics |
Cost-related metrics are not available when grouping by Week or Month. These include:
|
|
Realtime data |
Real-time data is not available when using the week or month dimensions. The data will only show after it has been completed (IE at the end of the week or month). However, data, where some of the install data has been completed, such as some data has finished (post-install time) and others haven't started yet, will be displayed. |
|
Past data |
Past data is only available from the year 2021 onwards |
|
APIs |
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