The new Funnel report is often your best shot for answering those “nice-to-know” questions that come up your business. This is especially true for questions related to customer journeys.
The report captures two types of queries:
How many customers who did A went on to do B and then C?
How many customers did any combination of W, X, Y, and Z?
For example:
How many customers ordered a sample product on their first order, then signed up for my loyalty program, then bought a subscription product?
How many customers bought a t-shirt and a pair of jeans and a hat in any order?
But the Funnel report doesn’t just answer the end result of how many customers completed all steps. It gives you insight into every stage of the journey. Which customers only made it halfway? How long does it take an average customer to move between steps? Where is friction the highest?
These are “nice-to-know” questions because the answers reveal better ways of guiding your customers towards the desired outcomes at the ends of your funnels.
When you first load the report, it may seem like a bit of a blank canvas. This was necessary for it to be flexible enough to track endless combinations of customer journeys.
But don't let that intimidate you! It's much easier to start generating valuable reports than it might seem. And once you’ve run through it a couple times, you’ll start coming up with plenty of ideas for customer journeys you'd like to dig into.
Let's take a quick look at what the report is trying to achieve and then walk through a couple of examples to help get you started.
What's a funnel?
A funnel (or "flow") is any sequence of steps through which you're trying to lead new or prospective customers toward a desired outcome. Funnels can have any number of steps, and you can require that they be completed in strict sequence or in any sequence. You can define each step however you'd like.
At any one time, your business will have customers at different stages of your funnels. Successively fewer customers will complete each step, and it's likely that only a small percentage of your starting customer base will progress all the way through your flow.
What can I learn by analyzing my funnels?
Which steps of your funnel have the highest drop off rates? What can you do to prevent churn at these bottlenecks?
Which steps of your funnel have the longest average time to convert? How can you reduce friction between steps?
What do your most "successful" customers have in common? How can you find more customers that share these traits?
Which of your customers are least likely to progress through your funnels?
Are changes you're making to your business improving the rate at which customers progress through your funnels?
How to run the report
To generate a funnel report in Lifetimely, start by finding your Funnel report in the "Customer Behavior" section of your sidebar menu.
Then define the steps of your funnel and which customers to analyze using the settings in the top section of the report, and the results will automatically populate beneath based on your parameters.
To define steps:
Decide whether your funnel requires orders to take place in strict sequence vs any sequence
Set the number of steps in your funnel. Steps can be added with the "+ Add funnel step" and can be deleted by hovering over a step number and clicking the "x" that appears. You can include as many steps as you like.
Click "+ Add filter" to define each order in the sequence. You can filter by product, product type, order tag, discount code, sales channel, and more. Filters can be used either inclusively or exclusively.
To define customers:
Decide whether to include all customers or only customers who are new as of the selected time period
Click "+ Add filter" to set any limits on which customers to include in the report. You can include/exclude customers by customer tag, country, or state, with more filters to be added soon.
Example 1
Let's start by looking at a funnel report with the following default settings:
Time period is set to the last six months of order data
"This sequence" is selected, meaning orders must take place in strict sequence to count as a conversion
There are three steps: 1st Order, 2nd Order, and 3rd Order. No filters are applied, which means that a customer completes the first step by placing any order, completes the second step by placing another order of any kind, and completes the last step by completing any other order in the time period.
"New customers" is selected, meaning the report only counts customers who are new in the last six months
To put it all together, the funnel analyzes new customers from the last six months who have placed up to three orders.
What we learn from the results:
There were 4641 new customers who completed Step 1, meaning they placed at least one order in the last 6 months
891 (or 19%) of these customers completed the next step by placing a second order. The average time between completing Steps 1 and 2 was 39 days.
Among customers who completed Step 2, 329 (7% of the original 4641) placed another order to match the criteria for Step 3. On average, this took another 34 days.
Overall, 7% of new customers in the last 6 months placed 3 orders to make it all the way through the funnel. On average, this took 73 days. The highest drop off rate occurred between Steps 1 and 2.
Example 2
Let’s run through a more complex example.
Our Lifetimely demo store has four different product types. Let's say we're interested in how many US customers in the last twelve months ordered at least one product of each product type. We don't care about the sequence of orders, and we don't care about new vs. returning customers (in order words, we're not only analyzing orders made by customers who are new in the last six months).
To match the criteria above, we'll need to change the following parameters:
Adjust the time period: Set "Time period" to "Last 12 months"
Allow any sequence: Change "Orders placed in This sequence" to "Orders placed in Any sequence"
Add a fourth step: Click "+ Add funnel step"
Filter each step to a different product type: Next to the first "Order", click "+ Add filter". Then click "Product" to change to "Product type", and click "Select values..." to choose the first product type. Repeat for the second, third, and fourth orders with different product types.
Allow "any" customers: Change "New customers" to "Any customers"
Add a customer filter to select only US customers: Click "+ Add filter". Then click "Customer tag" to change to "Country", and click "Select values..." to choose US customers only
The results:
At the top of the funnel are 18,049 customers who ordered at least one item (regardless of product type)
At the bottom are 2379 customers who ordered at least one item from each of the four product types (regardless of the sequence in which they ordered them)
Among all active customers from the last 12 months: 75% ordered any two types of products, 39% ordered any three types of products, and 13% ordered all four types of products.
The Funnel report is for PRO and PLUS customers only. A more detailed walkthrough of the report is available in our help center. More filters and features will be added to the report soon!
As always, please feel free to reach out to us with any comments, ideas, or questions at hello@lifetimely.io!
