How to Analyze User Retention in GA4?

Mar 03, 2022

We all hate GA4, but let’s try to make the best out of the waste.

One of the features I like in GA4 is custom analysis.

I can create my custom reports inside Google Analytics, it looks very ugly though.

The only thing I use GA4 is for creating user retention reports.

For those who do not understand user retention and its importance -

So, in this snippet, I am going to analyze the Weekly retention of the Google Merchandise Store using GA4 Demo Account

Click on the big + button to create a new report and you will land on the dashboard -

Let me quickly walk you through this dashboard.

On the left-most side, you see three things - Segments, Dimensions, Metrics.

By clicking on the + button you can create/add a new custom segment on the fly, add dimensions and metrics you want to analyze.

The second panel is about -

a. What type of charts do you want to visualize

b. What are the metrics, dimensions, and segments you want to include in your report

The second panel will change according to the technique you select.

Let’s see how does it look like for retention.

Click on the + button beside Segments, and choose your preferred conditions. I am simply creating a segment for users who landed on the website directly. You can add multiple conditions and exclude a group of users as well.
1. Click on “Save and Apply”. Drag the Active Users from metrics to Values -