What Is Cohorts?
nova Cohorts helps you analyze how your customers behave after their first purchase. By grouping customers into cohorts based on how many times they’ve purchased, you can uncover valuable patterns that guide your acquisition and retention strategies.
Note: This tool works with customer data from your e-commerce platform (Shopify or Salesforce Commerce Cloud). Your data is only visible to you, and all insights are based on secure, aggregated analysis.
What You Can Learn
With nova Cohorts, you can answer questions like:
How many customers only buy once?
How valuable are customers who buy two or more times?
When do repeat purchases typically happen?
How quickly do I recover my acquisition investment?
These insights help you improve how you retain customers, where to invest in acquisition, and how to adjust your messaging and offers.
What You’re Seeing in the Tool
Your customers are grouped based on how many purchases they’ve made. We then analyze each group — called a cohort— to show differences in customer value, retention, and timing.
Here are the standard groups we use:
Cohort | What It Means |
First-Time Purchasers | The first order of all customers. Each customer is counted once, based only on their initial transaction. |
Second-Time Purchasers | The first and second orders of all customers who have made more than one purchase (Total Orders > 1). |
Repeat Purchasers | All customers who have placed more than one order. Includes all their orders (not just the first two). |
All Purchasers | All orders from all customers, regardless of how many purchases they’ve made. This is the full customer base. |
One-Time Purchasers | Customers who have placed exactly one order (Total Orders = 1). Also referred to as the “Single Purchaser Cohort.” |
Two-Time Purchasers | Customers who have placed exactly two orders (Total Orders = 2). |
Each group is evaluated by its customer count, lifetime value, and contribution to your overall revenue.
Key Sections and What You Can Do With Them
Summary Overview
This section shows how much value different types of customers bring to your business.
First vs. Second Purchase: Compare the value of a customer after their first purchase vs. after their second.
Overall Customer Value: See average and median customer lifetime value (LTV) across your entire customer base and all the repeat purchasers
CAC: View your purchase rates and customer acquisition cost (CAC) benchmarks per cohort.
Use this to: Understand whether your business is heavily reliant on first-time buyers or growing value through repeat purchases.
Cohort Breakdown
This view shows how your customers are distributed based on the number of purchases they’ve made.
Percentage and count of customers in each cohort
Average and median LTV for each group
Use this to: Identify if your business has a retention challenge (e.g., a high percentage of one-time buyers) or where the greatest value is coming from.
Setting a CAC
This section helps you define how much you can afford to spend on acquiring new customers.
Suggested CAC thresholds based on your margins and observed customer LTV
LTV comparison between first-time, two-time, and all customers
Use this to: Adjust CAC targets or budget strategy, especially if higher LTV customers justify increased acquisition spend.
Customer Lifecycle
This section tracks how soon customers return to make another purchase.
A cumulative curve showing second purchase timing
Highlights your payback period — when revenue from repeat purchases offsets acquisition costs
Use this to: Adjust timing of email or ad campaigns and identify the optimal moment to re-engage customers.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to do anything to enable cohorts?
If your store is already integrated with Shopify or Salesforce Commerce Cloud, you're ready to go. Data typically updates within 24 hours of setup.
Why are refunds included for some clients but not others?
Refunds are included for Shopify clients. Due to current API limitations, refunds are not reflected in Salesforce Commerce Cloud data.
Can I look at only a specific product or campaign?
No — the analysis includes all purchases made through your connected e-commerce platform. Filtering by product or channel is not currently supported.
Does this include subscription purchases?
Yes, as long as those purchases are recorded in your connected e-commerce system.
Why is this number different from my Shopify return rate?
Shopify’s "Returning Customer Rate" is calculated as:
Returning Customers / Total Customers — by transaction month, not by cohort.
In contrast, nova's cohort-based Repeat Purchase Rate measures the percentage of customers from a given first-purchase month who go on to place 2+ total orders. This aligns with retention logic and customer lifecycle tracking.
Shopify’s method can inflate the return rate, especially if a small group of loyal buyers make many repeat purchases, skewing the metric. nova provides a truer customer-level view of repeat behavior over time.
Why is my data different from older cohort reports?
Our system was updated to improve accuracy. These updates include better logic for cohort grouping, cleaner handling of refunds, and more complete data ingestion. As a result, newer reports are more reliable and may differ from older versions.
Need Help?
If you have questions about interpreting results or how to use these insights in your business, your Account Manager is here to help. You can also contact us directly via in-app support.