Retention rates can vary from business to business depending on what sector you’re in, however, what’s considered a good retention rate tends to be universal. According to Metrilo, an e-commerce analytics platform and should be a company’s first focus milestone.
A good retention rate occasionally changes, and this is certainly the case for replenishment goods because of the high level of customer loyalty in this industry due to the speed of re-ordering replenished goods.

Metrilo have a host of customers that achieve a retention rate of around 40% with some super-achievers reaching over the 50% mark. When discussing what a good retention rate is and conducting retention analysis, it’s also important to consider what a good churn rate is, the percentage of customers that stop using your service, as these 2 rates go hand in hand.

However, it is common knowledge across all industries that achieving a retention rate of over 10% is expected. With the aid of automation tools such as Metrilo, higher rates of 20-30% can be achieved. In the table below are some results of Metrilo clients in their relevant industries.

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How Do You Calculate Your Retention Rate?

Calculating your company’s retention rate is a 3-step process. The first step is to define what an ‘action’ is. This term has to be uniquely defined by each company because an action is different for every business. In general terms, an action is an event that a user carries out using your platform. For example, a business might class an action as a user clicking on the home page, whereas another business might describe an action as a user signing up.

The next step is to determine what time period you will measure retention over. Yet again, this step is influenced by what industry you are operating in, however, it is encouraged to measure the time period based on where you see drop-offs in retention. For example, mobile app retention is normally measured until 20% retention which tends to occur after 3 months.

The third and final step is to decide how many actions within the time period you’ve chosen, represents retention. Whether it’s a single action or a combination of actions that represents a contribution to your retention rate, this is how you calculate your company’s retention rate.

The Key Customer Retention Metrics To Focus On

One of the most important metrics that you will need to keep in mind during your customer retention analysis is the customer churn rate. If your customer churn rate begins to exceed double digits, then it is important that you act on it by evaluating and reviewing why this is happening. Otherwise, this will ultimately lead to a poor retention rate.

Repeat Purchase Rate (RPR) is also a key metric when carrying out retention rate analysis. RPR is very similar to retention rate and is the percentage of current customers that have bought from your company more than once. Even though this metric is more specific to consumer goods, it’s an excellent indicator to any marketing team about where they should be concentrating their efforts.

How You Can Improve Your Retention Rate

In order to achieve a high retention rate of around 30% it’s vital that you take advantage of the various tools and resources available online. For example, the integration of CRM tool into your retention marketing platform will allow you to follow customer journeys and pinpoint what areas you could improve to increase retention using customer interaction data.

What Factors Do You Need To Take Into Consideration When Picking A Retention Marketing Platform?

Cohort Analysis

As previously discussed above, cohort analysis is key to finding specific marketing campaigns or features that have caused your retention rate to grow. It’s important for your marketing platform to work alongside your cohort analysis because it will allow your company to easily market features that previously increased your retention rate.

Most Important Tools

When it comes to choosing a retention marketing platform, it becomes very dependent on the nature of your company and the sector you are in. For example, you might be interested in developing a long term social media strategy, or you might simply be after an automation tool. Different platforms specialize in various aspects of marketing and is something your company should take into consideration before you choose a retention marketing platform.

Ease Of Integration

One of the most difficult parts of introducing a new tool or platform is aligning it with old and legacy systems that your company is using. When considering your new influencer marketing platform, you should study its specifications in order to ensure that it can be compatible with your company’s existing systems. This will allow your company to develop effective retention marketing campaigns that align with the rest of your company, for example, the launch of a new product.

Analytics

In order to develop effective marketing campaigns, your company’s platform must include a high level of analytical data in order to back each marketing decision you make. The most successful marketing campaigns are mostly based on data-driven decisions and without data you cannot do this.