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Persona movement report

See how your customer base is changing over time and what your customer life cycle looks like.

Gareth Burroughes avatar
Written by Gareth Burroughes
Updated over 6 months ago

Before you start

Things you need to know:

  • The data displayed in the report is based on ALL transactional data in your account; this includes customers that are suppressed or have unsubscribed since they were first added to your account.


Find the report

  1. Go to Audience > Personas.

  2. Select the Persona movement tab.

Set the date range

  1. Select DATE RANGE in the top right.

  2. Select the calendar icon to choose a Start date and End date.

  3. Select APPLY.

There are two sections that are affected by the date range selection: the Persona destinations chart and the Population size change table.

Refresh the data

To show the latest data, select the Refresh icon in the top right. Hover your cursor over the icon to see when your data was last refreshed.


Understand persona destination

We assign a persona to a contact based on their RFM score, which appears on the left and right sides of the Persona destinations chart.

Depending on how you set the date range, the chart shows how your contacts move between categories over time.

Reading the graph

By hovering over specific areas of the chart with your cursor, there are three ways to look at persona destinations:

  • Left side: The left side of the chart shows the distribution of the personas at the start of the specified date range. The New customers persona includes contacts that don’t have any orders at the start of the date range, but have one or more by the end of it.

  • Middle: The middle of the chart shows the movement of contacts from one persona to another, or sometimes the same persona, between the date range. This doesn’t show every change a contact might undergo during this time, but how they have changed from the start to the end of the date range. It’s possible, given a long enough time period, that a contact may move from the start date persona to another, and then back to the start date persona; this appears as a persona that hasn’t changed.

  • Right side: The right side of the chart shows the distribution of the personas at the end of the time period. You can hover over each block to see the number of contacts that belong to that persona at the end of the time period.


Understand population size change

The Population size change table shows the personas and compares the movement of your contacts between them using numbers, based on the date range you select.

Reading the table

To understand the table, it’s best if you break it down into three columns: RFM personas (left column), start date (middle column), and end date (right column).

To be more specific:

  • RFM personas are categories for your customers’ life cycles.

  • Start date is the date you picked for your data to start showing from.

  • End date is the date you picked for your data to stop showing from.

The start and end date columns also have sub-columns:

  • Total

    The total number of contacts that exist in the persona at the time specified.

  • % of persona

    The percentage of contacts in the persona at the time specified.

To the far right, there’s a % change column - this shows you the overall percent change of a persona between the dates you select.


Persona movement segments

You can create a customer segment to include all customers included in a persona movement.

To create a segment based on a persona movement:

  1. On the Persona destination chart, select a persona movement pipe anywhere between its source and the destination persona.

  2. In the Create segment side panel, enter a segment name.

  3. Select CREATE SEGMENT.

  4. Configure the rules of your segment as required.

  5. When happy with your segment, select APPLY.

Your segment is now ready to use. You can find your new segment under Audience > Segments.

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