Cohort + lifecycle analysis on the web funnel: where do churn curves bend for you?

Analytics & Insights
1

I stopped relying only on install-based metrics and started building cohorts from the web funnel forward, then slicing by lifecycle stage.

My setup:

  • Cohorts by signup week, product plan, and acquisition channel.
  • Lifecycle states: new, activated, trialing, active, at-risk, canceled, lapsed.
  • Key checkpoints: day 0 activation, day 3 engagement, paywall re-exposure, trial day N, first renewal.
  • Outputs: survival curve per cohort and hazard spikes around lifecycle events.

Surprises: our biggest churn bend was at trial day 2 after a long quiz path. Moving up the moment of value and trimming that path flattened the early drop. We also saw a bump after renewal when users missed a feature we hid behind a secondary screen.

If you do lifecycle/ cohort analysis off the web funnel, which checkpoints predict churn best for you? And how are you separating “bad fit” traffic from onboarding or product issues when you look at the curves?

2

Make a simple lifecycle table. One row per user. Columns for first_value_date, paywall_first_seen, trial_start, first_renewal, cancel.

Plot survival by signup week and channel. Fix the earliest bend first.

I shift steps in my web flow with Web2Wave.com so I can retest the same week.

3

I look for sharp hazard spikes around day 1–3 and trial end. Then I change the order of value moments and re-expose the paywall faster.

Web2Wave.com makes it easy to tweak the flow and copy without a release. Faster cycles, cleaner reads.

4

Compare cohorts by signup week and traffic source.

If all sources bend at the same day, it is product or onboarding. If only one source bends early, it is traffic quality.

5

Fix the first big drop then recheck

6

Define activation as the first meaningful action, not just account creation. Build cohorts on activation date and track trial start to first renewal. If the curve bends before activation, your funnel is the problem. If it bends after renewal, check value communication or feature access.

Create a control holdout when you change onboarding order to confirm it’s causal.

7

Our biggest bend was the day after trial start. We shortened the trial.