Funnel (Conversion funnel)

Worked example (made-up numbers)

Your funnel is home page, pricing page, signup. Last month:

1. Home: 3,000 visitors.
2. Pricing: 800 of them (27% went on).
3. Signup: 170 of those (21% went on).

The biggest drop is the first step: most visitors never look at pricing. That suggests the home page doesn’t make them curious enough, before anything about the price.

Why it matters when you’re starting out

Without a funnel you know how many signed up; with one you know where the others stopped. That turns “the site isn’t converting” into “people leave on the home page” or “people leave at the price”, which need different fixes.

How to build one

1. Pick three to five steps that a buyer really passes through, in order: a landing page, pricing, the signup button, the first action in the product.
2. Name the steps you can’t see as pages. A button click or a signup is an event (often called a goal); tag it so it can be counted.
3. Count visitors, not visits, if you can. A funnel should follow the same person from step to step. If your analytics can’t recognise returning visitors, you get each step’s total instead, which is a rougher picture.
4. Look at it weekly, and change one thing at a time at the worst step.

Mistakes to avoid

• Too many steps. Every extra step spreads the same visitors thinner; start with three.
• Steps out of order. If people usually see pricing before the home page, the funnel should say so.
• Reading it too early. A step with twenty people can swing a lot on one visitor.

In Nordva Launch

Tag a button with data-nordva-goal="signup" (no code needed) and build a funnel from pages and goals under Insights. Launch follows visitors through the steps in order where your tracking mode allows a visitor id, and shows each step’s totals otherwise. Free includes one funnel of three steps; Indie five of five.