Reading D7 retention when gifts spike during festivals
Holiday gift volume can flatter return curves. Here is how we read D7 without mistaking a campaign for product habit.
Malaysian and regional festivals often push gift and tip volume hard. Partner codes, bonus coins, and celebrity streams inflate day-zero arrivals. Seven days later, a retention chart can look “healthy” while ordinary Mondays remain thin.
Isolate the campaign week
Label the cohort by acquisition source when you can: organic, paid, partner festival. If source is missing, at least compare the festival week against the two ordinary weeks before and after. Retention that collapses outside the bonus window is campaign memory, not product habit.
Creators are not a side note
Creators who streamed during the festival may retain for different reasons — earnings momentum, audience chat relationships — than fans who redeemed a one-time pack. Mixing them into one D7 number hides which relationship actually formed.
What we write in briefs
When a festival cohort looks strong, our briefs ask three questions: Did creators return to create? Did audiences return without a bonus? Did monetisation events after day three rely on leftover coins? Until those answers exist, we treat the spike as weather, not climate.