What are funnels?
Funnels, put simply, are a series of steps your visitors take on your website and the data associated with those steps — how many visitors completed the step, and how many dropped out. This is very common in quantitative analytics as funnels show you where in a process you lose most of your visitors, otherwise known as a bottleneck.
However, funnels can be paired with recordings, allowing you to see exactly why your visitors have left your processes. In this way, funnels can be used as qualitative
analytic tool.
Why do I need funnels for qualitative analytics?
Barriers on your pages (things like bugs, excessively long forms, or buttons that don’t do anything, etc.) can keep your visitors from becoming customers. But with most funnels, you’ll only see where your barriers are in your conversion process. You won’t see exactly what they are.
That’s why session recordings, when paired with funnels, give you the best context to find out why your visitors have left. Recordings will show you exactly what the barriers are to having a more successful funnel.
When you have a lot of data and not enough time to watch all your recordings, this is a way to watch the specific, important recordings that can improve your conversions. Funnels are a simplified way to filter for these very important bottlenecks and see the precise problem.
How do I set up funnels?
First of all, you need to set up events for the different stages of your funnel. Don’t know how to do that? Don’t worry! Just check out our Smart school tutorial for events and our CSS and event picker tool.
Once you’ve set up your events, you can create funnels with combinations of any kind of event. Some examples of funnel steps include:
- Opening a certain page (Visited URL)
- Clicking on a specific button (Clicked-on text / CSS)
- Entering a specific search term (Typed-text)
- Clicking on a field (Focus on input)
- Custom events
Start by naming a funnel and selecting the events to use as steps to make up your funnel. Then click 'Save funnel'.
Note: You can add as many steps as you like. Use drag-and-drop to rearrange the funnel steps.
And that’s it. Events data is tracked from the minute the Smartlook code is on your website, therefore all the funnel data is collected retroactively. This means your funnel will be visible immediately!
What can I see in my funnels?
Now you’ve got a beautiful new funnel. You can see a graph with the number of users that have made it through each step of the conversion funnel. You can adjust the date range (1) and the conversion rate of the funnel (2). The drop-off rate between the steps are listed at the bottom of the funnel with the orange representing the Highest drop-off. Your conversion rate is shown at the top of the graph.
Editing and Reporting
In the top right of the funnel tab you'll find additional options to duplicate, delete and edit the active funnel. It's also possible to activate automatic reporting via email to stay completely up-to-date.
Can I watch recordings of visitors who dropped out, too?
Yep! Just click the “Play” button to see a playlist of filtered recordings from the visitors that dropped out between the steps of your funnel. You can see exactly what happened with, for example, those that abandoned their shopping cart right before checking out.
You can save the segment directly or click "edit filter" to make additional modifications.
Any other features?
Funnels can also be broken down by additional properties. For details, click here.
In this lesson, you have learned:
- What funnels are
- How to use funnels for qualitative analytics
- How to set up funnels from different types of events
- Where to replay the sessions of visitors that dropped out of the funnel
Do you have any questions?
We'll be happy to help you. Contact us at support@smartlook.com