Users can navigate most sites in a nearly infinite set of combinations. If you don’t have a set way to approach this data, trying to tie back how users got from point A to B to Z during their user journey can make you feel like a detective on the hunt for the truth.
And if you think about how people make decisions in life, having a step-based approach to your data aligns with how people make decisions. Not everyone will take a direct path, or make their decisions in a single session, and your data should be aligned to deal with all of these situations.
With GA 360 Custom Funnels, you can finally visualize a user’s journey.
Let’s take the first step and learn how to track user journey in Google Analytics 360.
Custom Funnels are really just a next level option of Custom Reports in GA 360 that will allow you to take up to 5 stages (i.e. parts of the funnel), of which each can have up to 5 rules (i.e. the definitions to isolate the stage – this channel, device type, region, etc.).
Custom funnels allow you to choose between the following options:
- Analysis type – Should all steps occur within one session or multiple?
- Funnel type – Closed (set pacing through funnel) or Open (users can start at any point)
- Metric – Users vs. Sessions (should be matched to analysis type choice)
- Subsequent stage should follow – Should the stages be immediately after the other, at any point, or decided for each individual stage.
Here’s what the flow set-up looks like in GA 360:
GA 360 Custom Funnels: Benefits & Value
So, this is all great, but what do custom funnels get you?
First off, you are able to analyze how often users drop-out at each point between the stages. This is key because it shows you what your critical drop-off points are in your specified path. This can create immediate ways for you to optimize the flow on your site as a whole.
As you can see above, you can see that only 2% of users make it from step 1 to 2, but for those that do, the are >20% rates of users making it to the subsequent pages.
Secondly, you can create segments based on any funnel stage to dig into further. This gives you the ability to take this user group and see how it applies to other reports in GA 360. Want to know how often conversion rate rises for users who make it through certain steps on your site? You’ve got it! Want to know the split of new vs. returning users for those who fall off quickly? You’ve got that too!
Anything you could want to see is available.
Finally (but perhaps most powerfully), you can create remarketing audiences based on any funnel stage to use for paid search. This means that you could take users who fall-off on your desired path and attempt to regain their attention in the future. Or, if you have users that are extremely close to reaching your end goal, you can use remarketing to (hopefully) push them over the finish line.
Now that you know how powerful custom funnels can be in GA 360, what kind of use cases can you see someone using this for? A few I can think of:
- Where are people going from my homepage?
- Why aren’t my users converting?
- How are users viewing our blog/content?
- For a sign-up/application/purchase path, what stage are users most often falling out of?
What kind of insights do you think you could find with custom funnels? Let me know in the comments.
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