Why is the number of conversions different between these two Goal Flows in Google Analytics

Question

I'm utilizing Google Analytics for my mobile apps (iOS & Android) and set Goals to track how many users successfully touch down Home page (Intro - Sign up - Welcome - Rate Movies - Home)

So I set these two goals for test:

• Both Goals are URL Destination types.
• Goal #1. Intro(Required) -> Sign Up -> Welcome(Set as Goal URL)
• Goal #2. Intro(Required) -> Sign Up -> Welcome -> Rate Movies -> Homm(Set as Goal URL)

Now it's been a few days and I can check the data but both of them returned same number of Intro views (9905) but different numbers in Sign Up (5772 vs 8328). In same period.

Please advise me why this happened.

Answer 1

The figures inside the various steps of the funnel are not accurate. In the situation you have described, the problem is most probably caused by the "back-filling" of Sign-Up step visits. You may rely on the goal conversion rate, not on the funnel visualization nor goal flow.

If you really want to visualize the funnel, you may have to build it by yourself, extracting data from Google Analytics API.

Articles giving more explanations about how the conversions funnels work:

• Goals & Funnels in Google Analytics: Confusion and Workarounds
• The Google Analytics Conversion Funnel Survival Guide

steps higher in the funnel are artificially “backfilled” when a lower step has a greater number of pageviews