Signup-month cohorts hide a truth familiar to seasonal sellers: a shopper whose first order was a Songkran gift behaves differently from one who bought a core staple in August.
Building first-purchase cohorts by entry SKU category reveals whether your loyalty offers are rewarding the wrong introductions. Deeply discounted gift SKUs often produce weaker second-order rates than mid-priced everyday items.
When we run Cohort Retention Studies, we ask brands to tag promotional depth on the first order. The gap between full-price and heavily discounted entrants is frequently wider than the gap between paid and organic acquisition.
For catalogs that rotate heavily, keep at least two complete seasonal cycles in the export. Shorter windows exaggerate noise from a single campaign.
Use the cohort view to brief CRM teams before rewriting win-back sequences—especially when a new collection is about to replace the SKUs that originally attracted buyers.