To get the most from Leanbase, it helps to build a picture of how your data in Leanbase is structured, grouped, and related or related to analytics term.
Events
Our data model starts with events, single actions triggered at a specific point in time.
These are sent either from one of our SDKs, or directly via our API.
Events are flexible: they can be captured automatically via autocapture, or you can capture your own custom events, and attach additional metadata via properties.
Properties
Properties are metadata that you can attach to many types of data in Leanbase.
You might, for example, create a custom event to represent purchasing an upgrade with custom properties like price or renewal_period.
You could then break down your upgrade_purchased event by those properties.
We also automatically apply some properties to events, such as:
the Browser used to trigger an event.
the Current URL where an event occured.
or the Device Type used.
Sessions
A session is a collection of events corresponding to a specific usage session of your product or website.
One unique user can have multiple sessions, and each session will contain numerous individual events.
Sessions can also have properties, such as Session duration, Entry URL, and Pageview count, which you can query.
Actions
Actions are a layer on top of events.
They let you combine several events and treat them as if they're a single event, which you can then analyze in insights and dashboards.
Unlike events, which are captured via code in your product, actions are created within Leanbase via the data management tab, or by using the toolbar on your website or app.
You might create an action to combine a number of events that lead to the same outcome – e.g. all the buttons on your homepage that lead to the pricing page.
Actions are also useful for renaming events and giving them a more memorable name.
Unlike events or sessions, actions do not have properties attached to them, though you can filter actions using properties attached to events, sessions, and other types of data in Leanbase.
Person profiles
Users of your product are given a person profile, which associates all their events, sessions, and actions to them.
Person profiles similarly contain properties. Some are set automatically, such as:
Browser details
Geo IP data
Referrers
UTM values
You can also set your own properties on person profiles, which will appear in reports and data tables.
If a user upgrades to a paid tier, for example, you could set a property called paid_tier with the details.
Person profiles need distinct identifiers, so Leanbase can accurately track behavior.
You might see a few identifiers on each profile: anonymous IDs created before a user has been identified, an ID you set after they log in, and IDs that are created on the client and backend, later merged together into a single profile.
Further reading
Cohorts and groups
There are two ways to analyze collections of users in Leanbase:
Cohorts – Dynamic or static lists of users based on shared properties
Groups – An aggregate of events captured from a group of users (e.g. a company)
Cohorts
Cohorts enable you to easily create a list of users who have something in common, such as completing an action or having the same property.
For example, if you want to see a list of every user in your paid tier, you could query for all profiles where that paid_tier property has been set.
Your cohort would then show you a periodically-updated listing of your paid customers.
You could then use this cohort in other parts of Leanbase, such as:
In trends, funnels, retention, user paths, stickiness, and lifecycle insights
As a filter on any product analytics dashboard
To target feature flags, experiments, and user surveys
To filter the session replay list and create playlists
Filter live events on the Activity page
Groups
Alternatively, you might want to understand group behavior. By defining groups, you can see a cross-section of events across multiple person profiles.
This can be helpful if you're selling to companies with multiple individual users, and want to understand the overall behavior of the whole company that uses your product.
Groups are also useful if you want to analyze retention at an account-level – i.e. how long customers use your product before churning.
Groups require that you have the Group analytics add-on and that you enable person profiles.
Topics
In Leanbase, topics represent the key insights automatically extracted from user conversations — revealing what people are truly talking about across channels. Each conversation can touch on multiple topics, capturing the full context of user needs, issues, or ideas. Likewise, a single topic can span many conversations, grouping related discussions under one unified theme. This bi-directional structure helps you identify recurring patterns, emerging pain points, or trending requests at scale — turning scattered feedback into clear, actionable understanding of what matters most to your customers.
Conversation
In Leanbase, conversations encompass every form of customer interaction — including messages, reviews, feedback, and support tickets — all seamlessly synced from multiple platforms into one unified workspace. From these conversations, Leanbase’s AI automatically extracts topics, which represent the recurring themes, insights, or issues your customers talk about most. Each conversation can contain several topics, while a single topic can aggregate insights from many conversations across different channels. This structure allows you to connect the dots between fragmented customer touchpoints, uncover hidden trends, and gain a holistic understanding of your users’ voices at scale.
Business Context
In Leanbase, the business context serves as the AI’s core memory of your organization — capturing essential information such as your company details, products, services, goals, and terminology. This context ensures that Leanbase AI understands not just what users are saying, but how it relates to your business. By grounding every analysis, insight, and response in your company’s real-world context, Leanbase delivers interpretations that are more accurate, relevant, and aligned with your unique operations and strategy.
Data sources
In Leanbase, data sources are the channels from which customer interactions — such as tickets, messages, reviews, and feedback — are automatically synced into the platform. These can include support tools, social media, review sites, chat systems, or any other communication channel your customers use to engage with your business. By unifying all these data sources into one place, Leanbase gives you a complete, centralized view of every customer touchpoint — enabling deeper insights, faster analysis, and more connected decision-making.
Funnels
Funnels help you understand how users move through key steps in your product — such as signing up, activating, or completing a purchase.
For example, you could create a funnel to track how many users visit your pricing page, start checkout, and complete payment.
This lets you measure conversion rates between each step and identify where users drop off.
You can use funnels in Leanbase to:
Diagnose friction points in user journeys
Compare conversion rates across cohorts, devices, or campaigns
Evaluate the impact of product changes or experiments
Track improvements in activation and purchase flows
Retention
Retention helps you understand how many users return to your product after their first visit — and how long they keep coming back.
For example, you could measure what percentage of users who signed up last week came back to use a feature again in the following weeks.
This shows whether your product is providing lasting value or losing users after initial engagement.
You can use retention in Leanbase to:
Measure stickiness and customer loyalty
Identify the best-performing acquisition channels or cohorts
Evaluate product updates and their effect on returning users
Detect early signs of churn before it becomes a trend
Lifecycle
Lifecycle helps you categorize users based on their stage of engagement — from new, active, and resurrected users to dormant or churned ones.
For example, you could see how many users have recently become inactive and design re-engagement campaigns to bring them back.
This gives you a high-level view of your product’s health and how users progress over time.
You can use lifecycle in Leanbase to:
Monitor user movement between active, dormant, and churned states
Identify segments for activation or win-back campaigns
Track long-term engagement trends
Align marketing and product strategies with user behavior patterns