Product metrics: activation, retention and churn
For product managers, product and marketing analysts, growth and customer success leads who report how well a software product keeps its users. Prerequisite: 'Metric definitions, denominators and dashboards' (numerators, denominators and cohorts). This course goes further into product metrics: choosing an activation event that marks real value and calculating activation rate, reading cohort retention tables ('on' and 'on or after' retention, incomplete cohorts, weighted averages), calculating customer churn, MRR churn and net revenue retention, reading lifecycle charts (new, current, resurrected, dormant and the pulse ratio), and writing a finding with its definitions and caveats. Definitions follow Amplitude, Mixpanel and Google Analytics documentation as it was when this course was written; your tools may label things differently. Your organisation's analytics owner decides official metric definitions; use aggregated or pseudonymous data only.
- Level
- Intermediate
- Length
- About 110 minutes
- Contents
- 5 lessons · final exam
- Status
- Published · updated 10 Oct 2026
Skills you'll practise
- Choose an activation event that marks the first real value a new user gets, and calculate the activation rate for a signup cohort
- Read a cohort retention table and calculate 'on' and 'on or after' retention, leaving out incomplete cohorts
- Calculate customer churn rate, MRR churn and net revenue retention from stated subscription figures
- Classify active users as new, current, resurrected or dormant and interpret the lifecycle pulse ratio
- Write a product metrics finding that states the cohort, event definitions, retention mode, segments and the limits of correlation
Course outline
- 1.Choose an activation event that marks first real value, and calculate activation rateLesson · 18 min
- 2.Read a cohort retention table and calculate 'on' and 'on or after' retentionLesson · 20 min
- 3.Calculate customer churn rate, MRR churn and net revenue retentionLesson · 18 min
- 4.Classify active users as new, current, resurrected or dormant, and interpret the pulse ratioLesson · 15 min
- 5.Write a product metrics finding with its definitions, segments and limitsLesson · 15 min
- 6.Product metrics: activation, retention and churn: knowledge checkKnowledge check · 14 questions
- 7.Product metrics: activation, retention and churn: practical exerciseKnowledge check · 1 question
- 8.Final exam10 questions · passing it completes the course, so people who already know the material can test out
Sources it draws on
The lessons and questions are written from these references, so learners can go back to the original.
- Amplitude Docs: No activation event: choose and validate one
- Amplitude Docs: Interpret your Lifecycle chart
- Amplitude Docs: The Compass chart: discover your users' 'a-ha' moments
- Amplitude Docs: Interpret your Retention Analysis chart: Usage interval
- Mixpanel Docs: Retention (measure engagement over time)
- Mixpanel Docs: Building Revenue Metrics
- Google Analytics Help: [GA4] Cohort exploration
- GOV.UK Service Manual: How to set performance metrics for your service
See it with your own jobs and topics
Tell us about your team and we'll walk you through setup, from choosing jobs to your first skills check.