Funnel analysis overview

Funnels are essential tools for understanding the complex paths users take to reach their goals. Think of a funnel as a roadmap that guides visitors or users from their first interaction to the moment of successful conversion.

Each step in a funnel represents a stage in the user journey, helping businesses analyze where users drop off, identify friction points, and optimize their experience to improve conversions.

What can you learn from Funnels?

Funnels give you a clear picture of how users move through your website or app. They show where people drop off, what slows them down, and how to improve their experience to increase conversions.

• 🔍 Find where users drop off:

  See exactly where people leave before completing a key action (like signing up or making a purchase). If too many users abandon at a certain step, it might mean confusion, technical issues, or a long process.

• ⚠️ Pinpointing friction points:

  Are users getting stuck somewhere? Funnels highlight the steps that cause frustration—whether it’s a slow-loading page, a complicated form, or a missing piece of information.

• 🎯 Boosts conversions with data:

  Track how many people complete your goals, like sign-ups, purchases, or form submissions. Use this insight to optimize the process and make it easier for users to convert.

• 📈 See how users navigate your site:

  Funnels map out the exact journey people take through your website or app. This helps you understand their behavior, interests, and common paths, so you can adjust your site to match their needs.

• 🔧 Optimize for better results:

  Once you know the problem areas, you can fix issues, improve navigation, and make the experience smoother. Small changes (like shortening forms or improving CTAs) can lead to higher conversions.

• 👥 Personalized Insights:

  Funnels don’t just show overall trends—they let you zoom in on specific users to see what works and what doesn’t. Whether you want to analyze first-time visitors, repeat customers, or different countries, you get insights tailored to your audience.

Understanding funnels in Usermaven

Before setting up a funnel, it’s important to understand how Usermaven tracks user behavior and conversions. There are two key considerations:

1. Step Order: Sequential vs. Strict

Sequential order: Steps must occur in the chosen sequence but can have other actions in between.

For example, if your funnel includes steps like ‘Visited the Website’ followed by ‘Created a Brand’ with sequential order selected, the user must first visit the website and then create a brand for the funnel to count a successful conversion. This method tracks users who follow the defined order, even if they trigger other events in between.

If you’re measuring how an ad impacts conversions, the timing—whether a user sees the ad before or after engaging with your product—can affect the results. The analysis tracks the first time each event happens within the set conversion window.

Strict order: In strict order, the steps must happen in the exact sequence you set, but other events or actions can still occur in between—they just won’t be counted as part of the funnel.

For example, if your funnel includes “Visited the Website” followed by onboarding steps and you’ve selected strict order, a user might visit the website, take unrelated actions, and then complete onboarding. The funnel will still count this as a successful conversion as long as the steps occur in the set order, even with other activities in between.

Strict order mode ensures that only users who follow the exact sequence are counted. This is useful if you want to exclude users who deviate from a specific path, such as checking out a different product before completing a purchase.

Choosing between sequential and strict order depends on how precisely you want to track user behavior. Sequential order allows for a linear path with flexibility, while strict order ensures a stricter, uninterrupted journey through the funnel.

2. Types of Funnels

Visitor-level funnels: These funnels are ideal for enhancing your website’s performance and user experience. They track the journey of website visitors, from their initial interaction to the point of conversion.

User-level funnels: Provide insights into individual user behavior and progression through funnel stages, helping optimize product engagement.

Company-level funnels: Usually used in B2B where each company has multiple users. These funnels identify broader trends and patterns in user behavior, aiding in data-driven decisions for product optimization.

Setting up a Funnel

1. Navigate to the Funnels Analysis page from Left Menu.
2. Click on the “Create New Funnel” button.
3. Give your funnel a meaningful name for easy identification.
4. Select your type of funnel (Visitor, User, or Company).
5. Pick the key events you want to track, such as page URLs, custom events, or pinned events.
6. Assign an Alias (optional) to give funnel steps clear, recognizable names.
7. After this, decide on the funnel order—whether users must complete steps sequentially or in a strict order—to ensure accurate conversion tracking.
8. Define the funnel time window — how long users have to complete the steps (e.g., hours, days).
9. Finally, click on the “Create” button, and your funnel will be generated and added to the list of funnels within your Usermaven account.

Sharing a Funnel

Easily share your funnel insights with others in just a few steps:

1. Open Usermaven and navigate to the Funnels Analysis.
2. Select the funnel from the left side panel.
3. Locate the “Share” button at the top-right corner.
4. Click on it to generate a shareable link.
5. Copy and send the link to grant others access to view the funnel insights.

Analyzing a funnel

Funnels help identify where users encounter issues or drop off in your flow. When analyzing a funnel, it’s crucial to pinpoint the stages where users are leaving. There are two key ways to measure this:

• Absolute Drop-off: This shows where the highest number of users exit the funnel. It highlights specific steps with the most significant user loss in raw numbers.
• Relative Drop-off: This measures the percentage of users lost at each step compared to the previous one. It helps identify the stages that have the biggest impact on your overall conversion rate.

By examining both absolute and relative drop-off, you can better understand user behavior, spot weak points in your funnel, and make data-driven improvements to boost conversions.

To conduct a detailed funnel analysis, select the funnel from the Side Panel or click the “Deep Dive” button in the “All Funnels” section. This will open the Detailed Funnel Analysis Dashboard, where you can explore in-depth insights into user behavior and conversion trends.

Funnel Overview

The Overview Dashboard gives a snapshot of your funnel’s performance:

• At the top, you’ll see the total number of users who entered the funnel and the conversion rate.
• You’ll also spot the step with the highest drop-off, helping you identify where users are leaving.
• At the bottom, a detailed analysis reveals the overall conversion rate and other key metrics.

In Usermaven, your detailed funnel analysis includes essential insights to optimize conversions and enhance user flow.

• Entered (Step 1): The total number of users who started the funnel.
• Completed (Step 2 and beyond): The number of users who successfully moved to the next steps in the funnel.
• Drop-off rate: The percentage of users who exited before completing the next step, calculated as (drop-offs ÷ total entrants) × 100.
• Overall conversion rate: The percentage of users who completed the entire funnel, calculated as (completed users ÷ total entrants) × 100.
• Average time: The average time users take to complete the full funnel.

These metrics offer key insights into how users move through your funnel, where they drop off, and the overall conversion rate.

Visual funnel representation

In the middle of the page, you’ll find a bar graph displaying your funnel data. Each bar represents a specific step. Hovering on any bar provides a detailed breakdown of that step, including:

• Drop-off Rate from Previous Step: The percentage of users who didn’t continue to the next step, helping identify where users leave.
• Drop-off Ratio from Previous Step: A deeper look at user exits, calculated as (drop-offs ÷ users in the previous step).
• Average Time in the Step: The average duration users spend at that stage, useful for spotting engagement issues or bottlenecks.

Funnel breakdown

When you notice a drop-off in your funnel and want to understand why, Usermaven lets you analyze the traffic sources causing it. You can see data based on location, technology, and first touchpoint to find patterns.

How to access funnel breakdown

• Select the Funnel from the side panel or click the Deep Dive button if you’re on the All Funnels page.
• Click on the Breakdown tab next to AI Insights.
• View detailed insights on where users drop off and what factors might be influencing it.

This breakdown helps you find problem areas and improve your funnel to increase conversions. 🚀

Breakdown options

You can breakdown funnel data based on the following:

First Touch

• Source: Where the user first came from (e.g., Direct, Social, Referral).
• Channel: The marketing channel that brought them (e.g., Organic Search, Paid Ads).
• Referer: The specific website or platform that referred the user.

Location

• Country: The country users are coming from.
• City: The specific city of the users.

Technologies

• Device: Whether users are on Mobile, Desktop, or Tablet.
• Browser: The web browser users are using (e.g., Chrome, Safari).
• Operating System: The OS users are on (e.g., Windows, macOS, iOS, Android).

Funnel comparison

Usermaven allows you to compare funnels over different time periods to identify trends and assess how changes impact user behavior and conversion rates.

You can compare funnel performance over:

• Day-to-day changes (e.g., today vs. yesterday)
• Weekly, monthly, quarterly, or yearly trends
• Custom date ranges for more tailored insights.

How to compare funnels in Usermaven

Usermaven allows you to compare funnel performance over different time periods to track trends and assess the impact of changes. Follow these steps to compare funnels:

Analyze the Comparison Results

• View the visitor count, drop-off rate, and conversion rate for both the current period and the compared period.
• The bar graph will display the data visually, making it easier to compare trends.
• You can see conversion differences and drop-off rates between the two periods to identify any performance changes.

Conversion time distribution (how long do users take to convert?)

The Conversion Time Distribution page helps you understand how long users take to move through different steps in your funnel. This is important because it shows where people are taking too long, getting stuck, or dropping off before converting.

View the conversion time data

The conversion time distribution displays the following:

• Average time to convert between funnel steps.
• Median time (the time most users take) to convert.
• Bar graph showing how long users took to complete the funnel.

Check the distribution of users across different time ranges to see where they are converting faster or taking longer.

Customize Your View (Optional)

• Use the dropdown menu (e.g., “Auto Bins”) to adjust how data is grouped.
• Select the date range (top-right corner) to analyze a specific time period.