CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-analytics
Gabriel Marinho
Gabriel Marinho

Reputation: 13

Google Analytics goal funnel - step drop to the same page

I have a Google Analytics universal analytics goal with 5 steps:

  1. Home
  2. Shopping Cart
  3. Contact Information
  4. Shipping Information
  5. Payment Information

The destination is the "thank you" page and the goal conversion works properly. But at each step, I see drops pointing to the same page and can't see how it's possible. The dropouts are in almost all the steps, but the one that annoys me the most is the shopping cart, as it shows a user leaving the cart to the "/cart" page (the cart URL doesn't have variations).

I saw this tutorial online where they discuss the drops of each step of the example funnel https://www.megalytic.com/blog/understanding-the-funnel-visualization-in-google-analytics, but if have a closer look in the image below, it's possible to see that the same issue happens: https://www.megalytic.com/hs-fs/hubfs/Imported_Blog_Media/funnel-visualization-report.png?width=1284&height=797&name=funnel-visualization-report.png (sorry I don't have reputation to post the in-text image)

Is it possible to fix this? Right now I'm using a simple regex "/cart" to match my shopping cart page.

Thanks for your help.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 157

Answers (1)

michaelquery
michaelquery

Reputation: 56

Super annoying, right?

Disclaimer: I Operate a Google Analytics Consulting firm... but I'm gonna whine about GA anyway

There is no way to "fix" this in GA. Here is GA's documentation on how funnel steps, entrances, and exits are counted.

Assuming you have read the GA doc, you'll know that the exit is assigned to the deepest point in the funnel (regardless of order). And the page of the exit is the first page that doesn't match the next expected step in the funnel.

In your funnel this sequence of page views would generate an exit from the /cart to /cart:

Home > Shopping Cart > Shopping Cart

Crazy, but this counts as an exit b/c the expected next step in the funnel from "Shopping Cart" is "Contact Information".

Hypothesizing a bit, this could be a super common user experience if adjusting quantities in the cart causes a refresh of the cart page.

Mostly, don't use goal funnels for tracking ecommerce actions. Use the enhanced ecommerce and shopping behavior report:

Shopping Behavior Product Performance - Shopping Behavior

Upvotes: 0

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