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Using Multi Channel Funnels to better understand conversions

Ok, so you’ve got Google Analytics installed on your website, you’re monitoring traffic channels and have setup goals to track your conversions. Great stuff! But is this the full picture?  Spoiler alert – probably not!

Google’s Acquisition Channel Report 

You’re probably used to looking at something like this:
 
google traffic by channel acquisition table
Assuming you’ve set up your goals conversion correctly, the A – B – C  (acquisition – behaviour – conversions) layout is a pretty handy overview for checking which channels are converting.  However, it is really important to understand how Google attributes goal conversions to traffic channels and that’s by using a last interaction attribution model. Essentially this means the last channel the last click came from gets 100% of the credit. Why is this important? Because depending on the conversion you’re tracking (and especially in the case of ecommerce) a user may visit your website multiple sites from different traffic sources before converting. 

 

Multi Channel Conversions 

 
Think about your own buyer behaviour online. Let’s say you’re researching a holiday. You may start your search by visiting the website of a company you’ve previously used (direct traffic). Then you may search on Google for related keywords looking for new holiday ideas. You may click on ad on the results page (paid search) and may also click on several listings on the main section of the results page (organic search). You may then be served remarketing ads which you click on (potentially social and display). And finally, you may revisit some of the sites directly that you have looked at (direct traffic again). So although Google will only attribute your potential conversion to one traffic channel, multiple traffic sources will have been a part of, and critical to, your conversion journey. 

 

Tracking Multi Channel Funnels

Ok, so we’ve established we need to monitor these multi channel paths but how on heck do we do it?  Easy – in Google Analytics click on conversions on the left hand menu and then select top conversion paths. Here, you will see a breakdown of your top converting paths and how many times a converter has used each channel. These paths will vary enormously depending on what conversion you are tracking, your business and your audience. It could be fairly straight forward like this:

multi channel funnels example 1

Or, your top converting paths may involve multiple visits from multiple channels:

second multi channels funnel

Why is this important? 

Without understanding properly how all your traffic sources are contributing to your conversions you simply cannot plan your digital marketing effectively. Furthermore, armed with this information you can consider planning remarketing campaigns, paid advertising activities and assess the true effectiveness of your SEO efforts. 

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