How to Create a Funnel Exploration Report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
Updated: May 16
Understanding your funnel is the first step in improving the performance of your website and the bottom line of your business. The Funnel Exploration report in Google Analytics 4 allows you to view the steps your users take to complete certain actions, as well as determine at what stage the user succeeds or fails in completing the sequence. This step-by-step guide (with screenshots!) will show you how to create a funnel exploration report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4).
In case you prefer to watch a video tutorial, here's one you can find from XYZ Lab's Youtube Channel!
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Topics Covered:
Step 1: Navigate to "Explore"
Step 2: Select "Funnel exploration"
Step 3: Click on STEPS and customize your funnel
Under the Tab settings column, click on the pen symbol next to Steps.
Funnels should be relevant to events; the actions that people take on your website. We can create the condition for the steps by clicking on the dropdown and selecting the dimension and creating the parameter.
Example: Google's Demo Website Funnel
Step 1: View Promotion
This first step is relevant to users who took a specific action on the website, namely the event view_promotion.
Step 2: Select a Promotion
Next, we will click on "Add step" to add another step relevant to a subsequent action. The next step is relevant to the event select_promotion.
Step 3: Add to Cart
We will add another step relevant to users who added items to cart, so we will add the event add_to_cart.
Step 4: Begin Checkout
After adding to cart, some users will begin the checkout process, so we can add the event begin_checkout.
Step 5: Sale
As the final step, a user may complete a sale by making a purchase, so we added the event purchase.
Adding AND/OR Function
You can also add multiple conditions with the AND/OR function. For example, we can create the step 1 as people who arrived at the website and viewed promotion OR did another action. You can also create step 1 as people who viewed promotion AND selected a promotion.
Setting Directly / Indirectly Followed By
Indirectly followed by means the system will record the user that proceeded to the subsequent steps even if they do so indirectly (not in a direct sequence). For example, if I come to the website and viewed a promotion (step 1), then I navigated to another page and returned to select a promotion (step 2), then the system will still count me as a user that proceeded to step 2, even if I do not do it directly after step 1.
Directly followed by means the system will only record the user that proceeded to the subsequent steps (took the actions) directly in sequence. For example, if I viewed a promotion (step 1) and then directly selected a promotion (step 2), the system will count me as a user that proceeded to step 2. However, if I viewed a promotion (step 1) and then navigated to different pages and do not directly select a promotion, then the system will not count me as a user who proceeded to step 2 as I do not do it in sequence.
Step 4: Apply the Funnel
You can click on "Apply" once you've completed the funnel configuration.
As a site note, the funnels can be configured relevant to events (as we configured earlier), or to people who visited certain pages. For instance, you can select the dimension relevant to the page path or page URL.
Step 5: Analyze the Funnel Report
The system will display the visual representation of the steps that we included in the funnel (i.e. how many users proceeded in each steps), as well as a table with user statistics (i.e. how many users completed the steps, completion rate, abandonments, and abandonment rate). With this data, you can understand where is the problem in the funnel and fix it accordingly.
Add a Breakdown
We can add a breakdown to the funnel report.
Example 1: Breakdown by Device Category
1. Click on the "+" symbol next to Dimension, find the dimension Device category and click "Import".
2. Drag and drop the Device category under Breakdown.
Now the report will display the breakdown of the steps by device category (desktop, mobile, tablet). You can see if the completion rate or the abandonment rate is the same in different devices.
Example 2: Breakdown by Channel
You can break down the report using any dimension following the same steps above. For instance, we can drag and drop the dimension Session default channel grouping to see the break down of the steps by channels. So, we can see the completion and abandonment rate by different channels and we can understand which channels are actually bringing in quality traffic.
Changing Report Visualization
You can change the visualization of the report from standard funnel to trended funnel.
The trended funnel shows the visualization of the funnel over time. The dark blue line on the top represents how many people viewed the promotion and the next line shows how many people selected a promotion. This is useful for example if you made any changes to the website on a certain date, you can see if the results improved after the changes. Particularly, if any changes made had an impact on the completion rate or the abandonment rate.
As you can see, the funnel report will allow you to identify problems and opportunities for improvement in certain areas of your website. For instance, you may notice if there are a lot of visitors to your checkout page but a significant abandonment rate at purchase, then perhaps you can check if there are issues at the payment page or if you should offer a final coupon code to drive sales. Or, you can also check whether certain marketing channels are not contributing to the bottom line and adjust your marketing budgets accordingly. You can also think about running remarketing campaigns for cart abandoners. In a nutshell, there are a variety of ways you can use the funnel report data to tweak your digital marketing strategies!