Metric · Hooked
Trigger-type mix (including paid share of returning sessions)
Share of sign-ups and of sessions by what brought them in: paid, earned, relationship, owned, or nothing. Returning sessions should rely less and less on paid triggers, and unprompted sessions should grow with tenure.
Plain label: what brings each sign-up and session inAlso known as: trigger mix, session source mix, paid share of returning sessions
The rule of thumb behind it (Hooked's trigger lifecycle): acquisition runs mostly on paid, earned and relationship triggers, return visits run on owned triggers while the habit is still forming, and long-term retention runs on internal ones. So the paid share of returning sessions should trend toward zero, and the share with no trigger should rise with tenure. HK-Q28 (Hooked Ch.2)
Keep trigger type separate from channel. An email can be an owned trigger or a relationship trigger (sent on another user's behalf); an ad is paid; press and store features are earned.
Limits
What we don’t claim
- The Hook Model is a practical design tool, not a validated or complete theory of behavior.Hooked, Introduction
Sources
Hooked · Nir Eyal
Ch.2
Source IDs: HK-T05HK-Q28
Book content is paraphrased, never quoted at length. Last verified October 24, 2026.
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