How to do Conversion Funnel Analysis in Google Analytics

Getting traffic to your website is one thing but getting it to convert is a totally different ball game.

You may be getting millions of visitors to your website each month but if they are adding little to no value to the business bottomline than your cost per acquisition will remain high and your gross profit would remain low.

In order to make your business a success, you need to focus on increasing revenue and decreasing cost per acquisition/conversion.

The home page is the top landing page for many websites.

So if the home page is your top landing page then you would like to know how people go through the conversion funnel once they land on this page.

The best way of doing this is by looking into the ‘Goal Flow’ report in Google Analytics and then identifying and removing the bottlenecks in your conversion funnels:

Look for drop off in conversion funnel from one step to the next; determine the reason of the drop off and what could be done about it.

If you are optimizing your shopping cart experience then goal flow report is of great help.

Make sure once a person adds an item to the shopping cart, he/she completes the checkout on your website.

You can do this by identifying and removing the bottlenecks in your checkout funnel and through remarketing.

If you could make more people to reach the shopping cart page, you could generate more sales.

Now the problem is, you don’t know which website visitors proceeded to the shopping cart page from the home page and which didn’t.

You have got a lot of questions:

Were they, the visitors from organic search?
Were they, the visitors from paid search?
Were they, the visitors from social media?
How many visitors viewed a particular product category page before they added items to the shopping cart?
How many visitors viewed a particular product detail page before they added items to the shopping cart?

Without segmenting the conversion funnel there is nothing much you can do about the drop off from one step to the next in a conversion funnel.

Fortunately, Google Analytics allow applying custom/advanced segments to the Goal flow report.

Following are my top 14 advanced segments:

Apply these advanced segments one by one to your goal flow report and then find drop offs from one step to the next.

Once you know the reason for the drop off from one step to the next and which funnel page(s) need to be optimised, only then you start your testing (A/B testing, usability testing etc) and/or optimization of marketing campaigns.

Another smart way to segment conversion funnels is to create and use filtered view for each major traffic source/medium for your website:

Once you have created filtered views then use the goal flow report of each filtered view for conversion funnel analysis.

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Do you know the difference between Web Analytics and Google Analytics?

99.99% of course creators themselves don’t know the difference between Web analytics, Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM).

So they are teaching GA and GTM in the name of teaching Web analytics.

They just copy each other. Monkey see, monkey do.

But Web analytics is not about GA, GTM.

It is about analyzing and interpreting data, setting up goals, strategies and KPIs.

It’s about creating strategic roadmap for your business.

Web Analytics is the core skill. Google Analytics is just a tool used to implement ‘Web Analytics’.

You can also implement ‘Web analytics’ via other tools like ‘adobe analytics’, ‘kissmetrics’ etc.

Using Google Analytics without the good understanding of ‘Web analytics’ is like driving around in a car, in a big city without understanding the traffic rules and road signs.

You are either likely to end up somewhere other than your destination or you get involved in an accident.

You learn data analysis and interpretation from Web analytics and not from Google Analytics.

The direction in which your analysis will move, will determine the direction in which your marketing campaigns and eventually your company will move to get the highest possible return on investment.

You get that direction from ‘Web analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.

You learn to set up KPIs, strategies and measurement framework for your business from ‘Web analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.

So if you are taking a course only on 'Google Analytics’, you are learning to use one of the tools of ‘Web analytics’. You are not learning the ‘Web analytics’ itself.

Since any person can learn to use Google Analytics in couple of weeks, you do no get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing GA.

You need to know lot more than GA in order to work in Web analytics and marketing field.

So what I have done, if you are interested, is I have put together a completely free training that will teach you exactly how I have been able to leverage web/digital analytics to generate floods of news sales and customers and how you can literally copy what I have done to get similar results.

Here what You'll Learn On This FREE Web Class!

1) Why digital analytics is the key to online business success

2) The number 1 reason why most marketers are not able to scale their advertising and maximize sales.

3) Why Google and Facebook ads don’t work for most businesses & how to make them work.

4) Why you won’t get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing Google Analytics.

5) The number 1 reason why conversion optimization is not working for your business.

6) How to advertise on any marketing platform for FREE with an unlimited budget.

7) How to learn and master digital analytics and conversion optimization in record time.

My best selling books on Digital Analytics and Conversion Optimization

Maths and Stats for Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization

Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics

Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics and Beyond

Attribution Modelling in Google Ads and Facebook

Maths and Stats for Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization
This expert guide will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of maths and statistics in order to accurately interpret data and take actions, which can quickly improve the bottom-line of your online business.

Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics
This book focuses solely on the ‘analytics’ that power your email marketing optimization program and will help you dramatically reduce your cost per acquisition and increase marketing ROI by tracking the performance of the various KPIs and metrics used for email marketing.

Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics and Beyond
Attribution modelling is the process of determining the most effective marketing channels for investment. This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling. It will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to allocate marketing budget and understand buying behaviour.

Attribution Modelling in Google Ads and Facebook
This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling in Google Ads (Google AdWords) and Facebook. It will teach you, how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to understand the customer purchasing journey and determine the most effective marketing channels for investment.

Himanshu Sharma

Digital Marketing Consultant and Founder of Optimizesmart.com

Himanshu helps business owners and marketing professionals in generating more sales and ROI by fixing their website tracking issues, helping them understand their true customers' purchase journey and helping them determine the most effective marketing channels for investment.

He has over 12 years of experience in digital analytics and digital marketing.

He was nominated for the Digital Analytics Association's Awards for Excellence. The Digital Analytics Association is a world-renowned not-for-profit association that helps organisations overcome the challenges of data acquisition and application.

He is the author of four best-selling books on analytics and conversion optimization:

How to do Conversion Funnel Analysis in Google Analytics

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Do you know the difference between Web Analytics and Google Analytics?

Here what You'll Learn On This FREE Web Class!

My best selling books on Digital Analytics and Conversion Optimization

Himanshu Sharma

Digital Marketing Consultant and Founder of Optimizesmart.com