A strong sales funnel is essential for guiding users toward conversion. For the funnel to perform well, every stage needs to be optimized to align with user intent.
A well-defined sales funnel can increase your deal win rate by 16%, according to ZipDo. However, even the most carefully planned funnel won’t deliver results without regular analysis and ongoing optimization, especially on landing pages, where most conversions happen.
In this post, you’ll learn how to run effective conversion funnel analysis and explore examples from three different business areas.
How to Make Funnel Analysis in 10 Steps?
To perform a funnel analysis and examine the specific steps your traffic takes within a conversion funnel (such as where they drop off or where they convert) follow these 10 steps:
- Define Funnel Stages
- Choose Analytics Tool
- Identify Key Metrics
- Collect Data
- Create a Funnel Visualization
- Analyze Conversion Rates
- Identify Bottlenecks
- Find Optimization Areas
- Implement A/B Testing
- Report Insights
To get more details about analysis flow, take a look at the specific explanation for each of the ten mentioned steps:
Step #1 Define Funnel Stages
Start by defining the stages of your funnel and clearly outlining the steps users go through to complete the desired action. Understanding your funnel stages is crucial for gathering valuable data about your traffic behavior and preparing a conversion funnel that provides actionable insights.
Funnel stages can vary, depending on your business model, but the basic path always looks similar to the following one:
- Visiting the webpage,
- Viewing product/content,
- Taking the desired action,
- Initiating checkout/form filling,
- Completing purchase/registration.
Once you define your funnel with appropriate points, you get a projection of perfect user behavior, which you can measure and analyze.
Know where your traffic stands—and design your landing page to meet them there.
Step #2 Choose Analytics Tool
Next, select the appropriate funnel analysis tool, such as Google Analytics or Landingi, to gather meaningful data and simplify the conversion analysis process.
At this stage, make sure data tracking is properly implemented on your website, landing pages, or application.
Step #3 Identify Key Metrics
In this step, identify the key metrics for each stage of your conversion funnel, ensuring they provide the essential data needed for proper analysis. Examples include:
- 1st stage – Visiting the website: Visits (the number of users who land on your page)
- 2nd stage – Viewing product/content: Views (the number of product/content page views)
- 3rd stage – Taking the desired action: Micro-conversions (the number of CTA clicks)
- 4th stage – Initiating checkout/form filling: Cart Additions/Form Openings (the number of users who start the purchasing or registration process)
- 5th stage – Completing purchase/registration: Conversion (the number of completed purchases/registrations)
Step #4 Collect Data
The fourth step is to allow your chosen tool to collect meaningful data over time. Depending on your digital marketing strategy, it may take weeks or even months to gather sufficient information for analysis.
Keep in mind that while daily results may fluctuate, it’s important to focus on the overall trends and trust the process until you have enough final data for a thorough analysis.
Every click tells a story. Use EventTracker to follow user actions and turn them into valuable marketing insights.
Step #5 Create a Funnel Visualization
Once the data is collected, the next step is to use your analytics tool to create a conversion funnel visualization. This will help you quickly identify drop-off areas that need improvement.
Most popular analytics platforms offer funnel and data visualization features, saving you and your team time by streamlining the process.
Step #6 Analyze Conversion Rates
Next, analyze your conversion rates and calculate results for each funnel stage to identify where users are dropping off and where improvements are needed.
But don’t worry; there are always some weak points in the conversion path, and once you figure out where they appear, you gain space for optimization, adaptation to new trends, and improvement of the user experience factor.
To better understand where and how weaknesses appear, follow the detailed analysis steps below.
Step #7 Identify Bottlenecks
After reviewing the analysis of critical metrics, focus on stages with high drop-off rates and identify potential issues that may be causing poor results. Common bottlenecks include:
- Confusing navigation: This user experience issue often stems from a complex or unclear page structure, such as mobile responsiveness problems, confusing menu layouts, or overly complicated dropdown lists.
- Long forms: Long forms can be a significant barrier, as they may feel invasive or burdensome to users, creating friction in the conversion process.
- Unclear CTAs: Calls-to-action that don’t clearly convey the intended action or guide users effectively can lead to confusion. Common issues include vague language, lack of context, or poor design.
Step #8 Find Optimization Areas
In this step, identify weak points in your funnel and implement targeted optimizations to address the most problematic areas on your webpage or application. For example, detect unclear CTAs, make necessary changes, and simplify the overall conversion process.
Step #9 Implement A/B Testing
Implement A/B testing to experiment with changes on your website or application. Test variations in page design, button placements, or form layouts to see how they impact conversion rates at each stage and the final conversion.
Step #10 Report Insights
The final step is to generate new reports and analyze the impact of your optimizations. After implementing changes, evaluate how they affect the user journey on your website. Share these insights with your marketing team, draw conclusions, and brainstorm new optimization ideas.
Conversion funnel analysis is an ongoing process in every successful business. Use this as valuable advice for the future, and repeat the process regularly to ensure your optimization efforts lead to the ultimate goal – boosting conversions.
Analyze, optimize, and convert—build your first high-performing landing page with Landingi today. No cost, just results.
Why Conversion Funnel Analysis Is Crucial for Landing Pages?
Conversion funnel analysis is vital for landing pages because it reveals where users drop off and what prevents them from converting. Landing pages are central to most PPC and lead generation funnels, serving as the entry point or key conversion point. If your page doesn’t align with user expectations or intent, even high-quality traffic may bounce without taking action.
A proper funnel analysis helps identify which landing pages underperform and why. It uncovers issues like weak CTAs, confusing layouts, poor mobile UX, or slow loading times.
With Landingi, you can monitor user activity with EventTracker, test multiple versions through A/B testing, and optimize each landing page based on funnel performance. This helps you move beyond vanity metrics and focus on meaningful improvements. Even a single landing page tweak – based on funnel data – can significantly boost your conversion rate.
3 Examples of Conversion Funnel Analysis
To better understand what conversion funnel analysis is and how optimization can impact your business, explore these 3 hypothetical examples of funnel analysis reports with detailed explanations.
#1 Conversion Funnel Analysis for e-Commerce
This example illustrates an effective conversion funnel for sales and highlights how optimization in eCommerce can drive significant results.
For a hypothetical mid-sized online store, the user journey follows these stages: visiting the website → navigating to the eStore → adding products to the cart → initiating checkout → filling out the form → completing the transaction.
Let’s design an example conversion funnel for e-commerce with these stages. Each stage includes a count of users that reached it on their customer journeys. Here is what our exemplary funnel may look like:
The initial metric in this example is the number of landing page visitors, which is taken as 100%. As you can see in the picture above, each stage of the conversion funnel shows drop-offs. It’s normal, but you’re looking for weak spots which can be improved.
In this case, you can notice the most significant drop-off appears in step 4. of the user’s journey: Initiating Checkout.
Only 39% of users of those who have completed the previous step and barely 27.6% of all landing page visitors have taken the desired action, which means the most problematic area for this business is Initiating Checkout.
The solution, in this case, will be optimizing the process from adding products to the cart to initiating checkout. It may include design changes, adding popups, or implementing email reminders about abandoned carts for visitors with store accounts.
Split tests for each optimization will show results on detailed funnels – when sales conversion rates for A/B tests differ, the only profitable solution is to leave the version with a better score and let conversion grow.
Put your funnel insights to work. Create landing pages that actually convert—start free with Landingi.
#2 Conversion Funnel Analysis for SaaS Product
The SaaS conversion funnel is more complex than a typical eCommerce funnel. It’s based on David McClure’s AARRR Pirate Metrics (created in 2007), with one modification – an additional “A” stage. The SaaS adaptation operates with the following stages:
- Acquisition: Users sign up for a free or demo version of your SaaS product.
- Activation: Users engage with the core features of your SaaS product.
- Adoption: Existing customers decide to use your SaaS product long-term.
- Retention: Ensuring that users not only make an initial purchase but also continue using and paying for your product over time.
- Referral: Turning users into advocates who recommend your product to others.
- Revenue: Generating increased revenue through account expansion, such as upselling, cross-selling, or add-ons.
As the SaaS conversion funnel is way more complex than a basic sales funnel, analysis can be challenging. The important step, in this case, is to create an appropriate metric set for each stage of the funnel to measure success within every part of the user journey.
Turn more visitors into users, users into fans. Landingi helps you tailor landing pages to each AARRR stage.
Analysis of conversion SaaS funnel can include such metrics as:
1. For Acquisition Stage:
- Sign-up rate – the number of visitors who decided to sign up for a free trial of your product over a set period
- Demo requests rate – number of visitors who requested your products’ demo over a set period
- PQLs (Product-Qualified Leads) – number of users who have experienced your products’ value
2. For Activation Stage:
- Onboarding completion rate – number of users who start and finish the onboarding process
- Customer activation rate – the percentage of customers that activate or understand the value of your product
- Time to Value – the metric of time taken by the user to discover the value of your product
3. For Adoption Stage:
- TTA (Time to adopt) – average time taken by users to reach adoption
- Feature adoption rate – the percentage of users who adopt a core product feature
- BoU (The breadth of use) – number of users per account
- DoU (Depth of use) – number of core product areas your customers use your product
4. For Retention Stage:
- Customer retention rate – the percentage of existing customers who remain over a set period.
- Customer churn rate – the percentage of customers who cancel their subscriptions over a set period
5. For Referral Stage:
- Customer satisfaction score – number of positive answers in satisfaction surveys
- NPS (Net Promoter Score) – the number of your customers willing to promote your product/service
6. For Revenue Stage:
- CLV (Customer lifetime value) – the total amount a customer is expected to spend on your product through the lifetime of your business relationship
- ARPU (Average revenue per user) – the amount a company expects to generate from each customer over a set period
- ARR (Annual recurring revenue) – the projected revenue from subscriptions and other recurrent contracts over a year
Take a look at a projection of a hypothetical SaaS conversion funnel analysis example with a user journey path including 6 steps: registration for a free trial → onboarding completion → the core product feature adoption → payment for the first-month subscription → filling satisfaction surveys → payment for an extended subscription. Remember: the higher the stage, the fewer visitors that reach it. With this in mind, our funnel might look like this:
The final conversion rate for this funnel is barely 1%, but if you take a look, according to step 4, when users decide to pay for a first-month subscription, the conversion rate would be 7%. It means that of all users who chose to try a full version of the SaaS product, 7% considered it good enough to pay for the extended subscription.
The highest drop-off, in this case, appears between the 3rd and 4th steps, which refers to the adoption stage of a funnel.
To fully understand the issue and find the causes of such a huge drop-off, the team should examine funnel reports within each metric set at the 3rd and 4th stages: TTA, feature adoption rate, BoU, DoU, churn rate, and retention rate. Tracking events and deep analysis of metrics would help to find optimization areas.
Turn insights into action. Use Landingi to build landing pages tailored for conversion—and start for free today.
#3 Conversion Funnel Analysis for Marketing
This example focuses on the conversion funnel analysis for marketing, explaining the characteristics of a marketing funnel.
A marketing funnel visually represents the customer’s journey, from initial acquisition to eventual advocacy. It encompasses various levels of user interaction and engagement with your business.
Before diving into the example, it’s important to note that sales and marketing are closely intertwined. Your marketing efforts directly influence sales growth, making the sales funnel an essential part of the broader marketing funnel framework.
The marketing funnel consists 5 key stages:
- Awareness stage – refers to the brand-building area and shows the point at which potential customers meet your product or service for the first time. The key metric at this stage is, e.g., the number of ad clicks or blog post views.
- Consideration stage – refers to your target customer’s higher interest and willingness to try out your product or service. The key metric at this stage is, e.g., the number of newsletter sign-ups or webinar requests.
- Conversion stage – refers to the lead’s decision-making. At the point of engagement in your product or service, the key metric at this stage is e.g., conversion from free service to paid service.
- Retention stage – refers to meeting or exceeding your actual customer’s expectations. The key metric at this stage is e.g. retention rate or CLV.
- Loyalty stage – refers to the value of your product or service. The key metric at this stage is, e.g., the number of given recommendations or net promoter score.
Take a look at the hypothetical projection of the marketing company’s conversion funnel analysis with a customer journey map that includes 5 steps: social media ad click → webinar request → booking paid consultation → purchase of monthly consultations in the annual subscription → recommendations. In this case, hypothetical metrics for the following stages might be depicted this way:
The picture above shows how difficult it can be to reach the final conversion rate on a high level within social media advertising. However, the point, in this case, can be converting warm traffic (from the consideration stage) to hot traffic (to the conversion stage) because the company already knows that retention and loyalty stages are well-prospering ones – from all users who decided to book paid consultation, 40% bought an annual subscription, and 100% of those given a recommendation.
While the highest drop-off score appears between the 1st and 2nd stages, more important can be the significant drop-off from webinar requests to booking paid consultations.
Of course, dependency goes with the ROAS factor in this case, but looking closely at the conversion from the 2nd to the 3rd stage would be crucial. The causes of such situations may differ:
- some users request webinars randomly,
- some forget about them,
- some take part in events but don’t click CTAs, etc.
There is a space for optimization in order to maximize conversions.
Your funnel isn’t working without the right pages. Start optimizing each step with conversion-focused builder.
What to Avoid in Conversion Funnel Analysis?
There are 7 common pitfalls in conversion funnel analysis that can lead to unclear insights: overlooking micro-conversions, ignoring user segmentation, relying solely on averages, focusing only on successful conversions, neglecting seasonal or external factors, failing to conduct regular analysis, and rushing to solutions without identifying the root cause.
#1 Overlooking Micro-Conversions
Focusing only on your end goals (macro conversions) and neglecting intermediate actions (micro-conversions) can lead to a limited understanding of user behavior at various stages of the funnel.
It’s crucial to recognize and track these smaller actions, as they play a key role in driving the overall conversion process.
#2 Ignoring User Segmentation
Failing to segment your audience can obscure key differences in user behavior. Different segments may have distinct needs, preferences, and behaviors.
It’s essential to analyze your conversion funnel by demographics, traffic sources, or user characteristics to uncover valuable insights.
#3 Relying Solely on Averages
Averaging conversion rates across the funnel can obscure important insights.
Instead, analyze conversion rates at each stage individually to pinpoint pain points, bottlenecks, and areas that are ripe for improvement.
#4 Focusing Only on Successful Conversions
Avoid focusing solely on completed conversions; it’s equally important to analyze the behavior of users who don’t convert.
Understanding where and why users drop off offers valuable insights into potential issues and areas for optimization.
#5 Ignoring Seasonal or External Factors
External factors, such as holidays or special events, can significantly impact user behavior. Ignoring these influences can lead to misinterpreting your data.
Always consider the context and external factors when analyzing your conversion funnel to ensure accurate insights.
#6 Lack of Regular Analysis
Conversion funnel analysis should be an ongoing process, continuously revisiting initial factors and evaluating the performance of optimizations while implementing new strategies.
Neglecting regular reviews and updates can lead to outdated insights. As you optimize your conversion funnel, it’s crucial to adapt to shifts in user behavior and market dynamics.
#7 Rushing to Solutions Without Root Cause Analysis
When problems are identified, take the time to thoroughly understand the root causes before jumping to quick fixes. Always conduct a comprehensive root cause analysis to effectively address the underlying issues.
EventTracker reveals how users interact, where they drop off, and what converts. Plug it into your funnel—free to start.
FAQ About Conversion Funnel Analysis
To gain a deeper understanding of conversion funnel analysis, here are 6 frequently asked questions to keep your knowledge up to date:
What is Funnel Analysis?
Funnel analysis involves tracking and analyzing user interactions across the stages of their journey on a website or app to identify opportunities for optimization and improve conversions. It provides insights into user behavior, drop-off points, and areas for improvement in the conversion process.
What is a funnel strategy?
Funnel strategy is a systematic approach to guiding users through the stages of the conversion process. It includes targeted actions, messages, and optimizations at each stage to maximize conversions. Funnel strategy is typically used in sales, marketing, or user engagement scenarios.
What is a funnel report?
A funnel report is a database of user interactions at various stages of a conversion process, often represented visually with an automated funnel analysis tool.
It shows critical metrics e.g., conversion rates, drop-offs, and key performance indicators, providing insights for businesses to analyze and optimize their funnel for higher revenue.
Why Should You Perform Conversion Funnel Analysis?
Conversion funnel analysis is essential for the following 5 reasons:
- Identifying issues and pinpointing where users drop off
- Optimizing the user experience
- Increasing conversions
- Maximizing ROI
- Enabling continuous improvement, tailored to shifts in user behavior or market changes
What is Conversion Rate Optimization?
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) is the process of improving a website or app to increase the percentage of visitors who complete desired actions, such as signing up for free trials or requesting demo versions.
The process includes data analysis, A/B testing, and iterative improvements aimed at maximizing user conversions.
What are the Best Funnel Analysis Tools?
The best funnel analysis tools offer a range of features with user-friendly interfaces. One such tool is Landingi, which provides an EventTracker solution to track user behavior and analyze click patterns or trends within your webpage.
Thanks to its multifunctional capabilities, Landingi is an excellent conversion optimization tool, offering valuable features like a split test tool to enhance the efficiency of data-driven marketing campaigns.
Run Funnel Analysis to Improve Conversions on Landing Pages
Conversion funnel analysis is an essential process for any data-driven marketing strategy and a key step in optimizing your conversion rate. To perform an effective funnel analysis, follow these steps:
- Design funnel stages aligned with your current goals
- Select tools tailored to your business needs
- Identify the right metrics
- Collect and analyze data to pinpoint pain points
- Implement optimizations and continuously repeat the analysis to maximize conversions
Now that you know how to structure your funnel and take the right steps, if you’re unsure about choosing the best tool, try Landingi’s free trial. It’s the most efficient digital marketing tool for conversion funnel analysis, offering an effortless solution to optimize your landing pages and drive higher conversions.
