User Lifecycle

User lifecycle is a model that assigns each user one state per period, such as new, current, dormant or resurrected, based on activity in that period and the one before it.

The states are computed, not declared: a definition of active plus a period length turns raw activity into one label per user per period. New means the first ever activity happened in this period, current means active in both this period and the previous one, resurrected means a return after at least one silent period, and dormant means a user who was active before and is not now. Together the states form a growth accounting identity: the change in active users equals new plus resurrected minus dormant, which is how a product can lift its active count while its retention is deteriorating underneath. The term is also read differently by discipline. In marketing, customer lifecycle usually names an ordered path of awareness, consideration, purchase and loyalty that a person walks once, while in product analytics it is a per-period state machine a user can re-enter many times. Every number in the model moves with the period length chosen, and churn is never observed, only inferred once someone stays inactive past a threshold the team set.