Product retention, activation & cohort analytics

How to test this use case

Measure Product analytics for retention and check the results

To measure product analytics for retention, choose one workflow and its owner. Define the events, test them with known inputs, and write a query that answers a specific question.

1
Choose when to log
Define the activation moment for the product.
2
Capture the outcome
Begin with onboarding_step_completed, first_meaningful_action_completed, feature_used and document the grain of each event.
3
Check the stored rows
Build dashboards for activation, weekly active teams, adoption, and upgrade intent.
4
Make the decision
Which first action best predicts retained teams?

Use case versus template

Choose what to measure

Use this guide to choose what to measure and when to log it. For a shorter setup prompt, open the matching template.

Open Activation and retention template

Related use cases

Check which events this guide covers

Use this guide to measure activation, feature adoption, and return visits.
Use SaaS revenue analytics when the source of truth is subscription MRR movement and revenue retention.
Use telemetry data quality to check event freshness, required fields, types, and duplicates.

Agent prompt

Paste this into your coding agent

Replace YOUR_API_KEY after signup, then ask the agent to run the product flow and verify the first events.

agent prompt

Product analytics for retention setup prompt

text

Instrument product usage and retention with Telemetry.

Use /skill.md and this Telemetry API key: YOUR_API_KEY

Please add structured events for:
1. Signup, onboarding step completion, team creation, first successful integration, and first meaningful product action.
2. Core feature usage with feature_name, action, surface, team_id, user_id, status, latency_ms, and error_type when relevant.
3. Retention milestones: second active day, first saved dashboard, first shared artifact, first alert created, and first return after seven days.
4. Expansion signals: invited teammate, upgraded plan intent, billing page viewed, usage limit reached, and support requested.

Create a dashboard for activation rate, weekly active teams, feature adoption, retained teams by first action, and upgrade-intent events.

Setup steps

1Define the activation moment for the product.
2Ask an agent to instrument onboarding, core feature usage, and return events.
3Send test events for a new account and a returning account.
4Build dashboards for activation, weekly active teams, adoption, and upgrade intent.

Events to capture

onboarding_step_completedfirst_meaningful_action_completedfeature_useddashboard_savedteammate_invitedretention_milestone_reached

Questions you can answer

Which first action best predicts retained teams?
Which features are adopted by accounts that later upgrade?
Where does onboarding lose otherwise qualified users?

Example event schemas

Check what each event records, when to send it, and which field types it needs. Review the example payload and privacy checklist before using it in production.

Product lifecycle7 fields