Best Practices for Funnel Analysis
Think of your website’s conversion funnel analysis as the process of making a delightful sandwich. You need to define specific fundamental steps and time the ingredients perfectly to savor the taste. The same stands for funnels. Let’s take a look at the best practices that will help you devise and analyze a funnel in a way that aids your digital business with the maximum possible capacity:
Capture the Movement
It goes without saying that website conversion funnels are always in motion. It would be best if you analyzed them to understand the direction in which it is headed to make accurate forecasts for the future. You can do this in two ways:
- Taking snapshots of the funnel at regular intervals
- Analyzing changes in field history values
Simultaneously, capturing the conversion rates for every step of the funnel is important to understand how it can be optimized for the ideal conversion scenario. You can do this by:
- Checking for pitfalls that are killing conversion rates.
- Making minute improvements at every conversion step to understand the impact on the overall funnel.
Measure Funnel Velocity
Funnel velocity is the rate of change of a prospect into a lead or a customer (depending on the goal of the funnel). Measuring this metric gives you an account of how fast prospects are moving through the funnel and how productive your funnel actually is. In addition to a bird’s eye view, you should also look at each stage of the funnel's velocity to pinpoint bottlenecks and spot opportunities.
Evaluate Sub Funnels
Marketing and sales funnels can also consist of certain sub-funnels, which can be defined by slicing the data based on key variables such as volume, conversion rates, velocity, and more. This will help you to identify the changes that can lead to more effective revenue growth.
Some examples of sub funnels include:
- Marketing Sub Funnels: Lead Source, Campaign, or funnels based on geographic region, vertical industry, and product.
- Sales Sub Funnels: By sales rep, By sales manager, and by sales team or funnels based on geographic region, vertical industry, and product.
Determine Funnel Momentum
Once you have the idea of funnel velocity, movement, conversion rates, and the involved sub-funnels, you will be able to connect the dots and have a better idea of the future. Correctly forecasting the funnel's future results by analyzing the impact of every possible change made to it should be your next step.
Execute Cross-Funnel Comparisons
Your website can (and should) have multiple versions of the conversion funnel based on the various paths users are taking through the website before converting. To completely understand the areas which can be optimized, you should undertake an active cross-funnel comparison analysis. This will help you understand the business variables that you should focus on and the impact they would have on the overall revenues.