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A marketing funnel is a critical way to discover the needs and wants of your customers by tracking their entire journey.
However, to understand the effectiveness of your marketing funnel and what drives your leads into conversion, you need a comprehensive funnel report.
Funnel reports allow you to track your customers at every funnel stage and get detailed insights into their behavior. You can track user interactions from them visiting your landing page (awareness stage), to adding items to a shopping cart (consideration stage), and completing the purchase (action stage).
Using funnel reporting, you can pinpoint these friction points where customers didn’t convert, and optimize your funnel to improve your user experience and conversion rates.
“Success starts with data that is easy to understand.” —Robert Brill, CEO of Brill Media
How to create an insightful funnel report with existing data
Creating a funnel report involves collecting, analyzing, and presenting data in a manner that precisely represents the customer journey’s analytics through different stages. Here are three steps to build your report:
Step 1. Input and filter your customer journey data
Gather data on user interactions from multiple platforms—website, social media, emails, etc. This data could include:Step 2: Segment into groups
It’s always easier to interpret funnel data when you categorize it based on specific criteria.
Start by grouping data into distinct categories—marketing methods, product types, geographic regions, or any other relevant dimensions.
Once you’ve selected your grouping criteria, create breakdowns of the funnel report for each group. This involves analyzing the performance of the conversion funnel separately for each category.
For example, if the grouping criteria is “marketing channels”, analyze how users from each marketing channel progress through the funnel. This can reveal which channels are most effective in driving conversions, which channels you can optimize, and where you’re wasting your focus.
“Organize the data for multiple parties inside the org. The executive summary is good for the owner or brand manager, while the performance section is good for the people who are in the weeds. The day-by-day table is good for the analyst to download the dashboard data and do additional analysis.
Another recommendation is to organize the dashboard into contract line items so it’s easy to compare the contract to the dashboard. This setup provides an easy point of comparison for anyone viewing the dashboard.
Finally, show an overall delivery widget so the dashboard can be used to track campaign pacing.” —Robert Brill, CEO of Brill Media
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Step 3: Visualize the data
You might have gathered tons of data by now, which can be challenging to interpret. When you need to quickly access information from your funnel reports, you might find yourself lost in the rabbit hole of data, wasting hours on simple tasks.
The ideal solution is to visualize the data using a visualization tool such as Funnelytics to get a birds-eye view of your funnel report. Research says the human brain is capable of processing visual data 60,000x faster than textual data. Using visualization, you can get a clearer picture of the information you’re assessing in a funnel report.
For example, if you’re analyzing the conversion funnel for an e-commerce website, the visual representation of the funnel report should ideally include:
- A funnel-shaped chart that illustrates the decreasing number of users at each stage.
- Specific points where the funnel narrows more abruptly, signaling potential areas of drop-off or conversion challenges.
- A gradual, consistent narrowing, indicating a smooth flow of users from awareness to conversion.
Interpreting your insights after funnel reporting
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Inbound vs. Outbound marketing funnel reports
Inbound and outbound marketing represent two distinct approaches to engaging and converting potential customers. The funnel reports associated with each approach differ in focus and metrics.
The inbound marketing funnel
An inbound marketing funnel covers the data from your inbound marketing efforts that focus on attracting customers through relevant and helpful content (infographics, blogs, videos, social media posts, and other content.)
Ideally, an inbound marketing funnel report consists of:
- A breakdown of traffic sources, focusing on organic search, social media, and referrals.
- Engagement metrics for blog posts, infographics, and other awareness-stage content.
- Visualization of conversion rates at key stages, from visitor to lead and lead to customer.
- Feedback from customer satisfaction surveys and data on repeat purchases.
The outbound marketing funnel
In contrast to inbound marketing, outbound marketing involves reaching out to potential customers through proactive strategies such as advertising, cold calling, direct mail, and other interruptive methods.
Here’s what an outbound marketing funnel report usually involves:
- Potential customers collected through cold outreach, list purchasing, and advertising through mass media channels who may be interested in the product or service.
- A follow-up survey after initial contact to assess the level of interest and potential fit for the product or service.
- Running targeted ads to re-engage leads who have shown interest but haven’t made a purchase.
- Sending personalized emails to engaged leads with special promotions or offers.
Examples & types of funnel reports
Funnel reports come in various types, each serving specific purposes in the marketing and sales landscape. Here are the types of funnel reports that are commonly used in many industries:
- Next-Step Conversions: These funnel reports show you the conversion rates between two steps. This saves time and helps you analyze your funnel faster.
- Cumulative Conversions: These funnel reports compare each stage’s metrics to the starting stage. You can use it for comparing your funnel reports with estimated competitor funnels or a previous funnel report.
- Funnel trends: These reports allow you to visualize the numbers through graphs, charts, and infographics. You can get the picture of what’s working and what isn’t from a glance without digging deep.
- Time-to-convert funnel reports: This report tells you how much time a potential customer took to go from the awareness to the action stage.
- Frequency funnel report: With the help of this report, you can identify which stage has been the most successful in converting your potential customers and pinpoint exactly where customers drop off.
Real-world use cases of funnel reporting
The e-commerce purchase funnel and SaaS onboarding funnel are two useful examples of how funnel reporting can benefit a business by providing important insights.
E-commerce purchase funnel
Companies like Groupon reach millions of customers every month. To understand the steps their customers take from browsing coupons to completing a purchase, they have a sales funnel in place:
- They get traffic from ads, direct referrals, affiliates, and email lists.
- Their homepage shows a popup to new visitors, which directs them to a 20% off coupon.
- They also send tailored follow-up offers to customers who used the coupon once to get them to purchase more.
This is where a funnel report can help track the following:
- The number of visitors to the homepage.
- User engagement on product pages.
- Popular products and categories.
- The number of users who add items to the shopping cart.
- High-performing products in terms of add-to-cart rates.
- The effectiveness of product recommendations.
- The number of users who initiate the checkout process.
- Any significant drop-offs during the initiation of checkout.
- The impact of shipping costs or additional fees on user behavior.
SaaS Onboarding Funnel
When it comes to onboarding new users, most SaaS companies have a proper onboarding funnel in place. Here’s what the sales funnel usually entails:
- Supporting new users for initial sign-up and gaining access to their SaaS platform.
- Assessing if users are able to set up their profiles and configure the software.
- Evaluating the success of users progressing through the product tour and onboarding guides.
- Assessing the adoption and success of users in using core features.
- Helping users transition from the trial phase to becoming active, subscribed customers.
Here, a funnel report can help track the following:
- The number of users who sign up for the SaaS platform.
- The completion rate of the account creation process.
- The most common entry points for new users.
- User engagement with profile setup features.
- User participation in product tours.
- Stages where users seek additional help or frequently exit the onboarding process.
Funnel reporting metrics
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Funnel reporting is the key to unlocking unique insights into your marketing funnel and turning raw data into actionable intelligence. You can break down the user journey into different funnel stages to gain a granular understanding of how potential customers move from awareness to conversion.
A customer journey analytics software like Funnelytics brings this entire narrative to life—allowing you to paint a vivid picture of user behavior using graphs, charts, and visual representations that everyone understands.
Add Funnelytics to your funnel reporting stack and visualize your customer journey with ease using contribution reports.
Start your free trial of Funnelytics Performance
Unleash the full potential of Funnelytics with a free 14-day trial and get access to the platform that will help you plan, measure and optimize your customer journeys.
Funnel reporting FAQ
1. What is funnel reporting?
2. What should be included in a funnel report?
3. What metrics should I use in a funnel report?
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Mikael Dia
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