THE BRIEF
Our churn went from 7% to 11% in Q2 and I don't know why. Here's a CSV of 14,000 subscribers with signup date, plan, discount code and cancel date. What happened?
Scenario: Founder of a subscription snack-box company
Package: Answer one question from a CSV · $50 · 2 hrs
Short answer: churn is mostly the March cohort. About 80% sure.
THE QUESTION
Why did monthly churn go from 7% to 11% in Q2?
THE ONE CHART
Chart title: "Q2 cancellations by signup month: is it everyone, or one group?"
A bar chart, signup month on the x axis, cancellation rate in their second month on the y axis.
| Signup month | Subscribers | Cancelled by month 2 |
|---|---|---|
| January | 1,210 | 14% |
| February | 1,090 | 15% |
| March | 2,880 | 38% |
| April | 1,150 | 16% |
- Signup month
- January
- Subscribers
- 1,210
- Cancelled by month 2
- 14%
- Signup month
- February
- Subscribers
- 1,090
- Cancelled by month 2
- 15%
- Signup month
- March
- Subscribers
- 2,880
- Cancelled by month 2
- 38%
- Signup month
- April
- Subscribers
- 1,150
- Cancelled by month 2
- 16%
March is the outlier. Everything else is normal.
WHY MARCH
March signups were 2.5 times normal. 71% of them used the code SNACK50, which gave 50% off the first box. People who used SNACK50 cancelled at 44%. March signups without it cancelled at 17%, close to normal.
So it's not the product. It's who the discount brought in.
THE CHECKS I RAN
- Did box contents change in Q2? One snack was swapped. Cancellations didn't rise after the swap date. Ruled out.
- Did the price change? No.
- Did shipping get slower? Average delivery went up by 0.3 days. Too small to explain this.
HOW SURE I AM
About 80%. The 20% is that I can't see why people cancelled. If you have cancel-reason survey answers, send them and I'll confirm.
WHAT TO DO
Stop treating 11% as your real churn. Without the March SNACK50 group, Q2 churn is 7.6%. If you run SNACK50 again, cap it or pair it with a 3-month commitment.
Data's yours. — Kwame
