Analyzing Conversion Funnels

What a funnel tells you

A funnel measures how many people move through an ordered sequence of steps and where they fall away. It answers the question every growth team cares about: of everyone who started, how many finished, and where did we lose the rest? In StretchAnalytics, each step is an event name, and the app computes the count, the conversion rate from the previous step, and the drop-off at every stage.

The default funnel

If you don't specify steps, StretchAnalytics uses a sensible default that fits most sites:

1. page_view
2. cta_click
3. form_submission

That's the classic "landed → clicked → converted" path. You can override it with any ordered list of up to eight event names.

What you get back

For each step the funnel returns:

• count — how many events of that step occurred.
• conversion — the ratio of this step's count to the previous step's count (the first step is always 1.0, i.e. 100%).
• dropoff — the share lost since the previous step (1 − conversion).

The result also echoes the from/to window you set.

Step-by-step: run the default funnel

1. Open the Funnels view.
2. Leave the steps at their default (page_view, cta_click, form_submission).
3. Set a date range with from and to.
4. Run. Read each step's count and conversion, and note the biggest drop-off.

Step-by-step: build a custom funnel

1. Open Funnels.
2. Enter your steps as an ordered, comma-separated list of event names — for example page_view, cta_click, form_submission.
3. Keep the order meaningful: the funnel measures each step against the one before it.
4. Set your date range and run.

Example

A team runs the default funnel for the last 30 days and sees:

• page_view: 8,000 (conversion 100%)
• cta_click: 1,200 (conversion 15%, drop-off 85%)
• form_submission: 260 (conversion ~21.7%, drop-off ~78.3%)

The biggest leak is the first step — only 15% of visitors click the CTA. The team rewrites the CTA and re-runs the funnel a week later; CTA conversion rises to 19%, and total submissions climb even though traffic is flat. The funnel told them exactly which lever to pull.

Tips

• Keep steps in the true order users experience them; a funnel measured out of order is meaningless.
• The biggest drop-off is your highest-leverage fix — start there.
• Use the same date window before and after a change so the comparison is fair.
• Pair funnels with Explore: when a step leaks, group that event by page_path to find where.
• You can define up to eight steps, but shorter funnels are usually clearer.

Troubleshooting

A later step has more events than an earlier one. Funnels count events in the window, not strictly sequenced user journeys, so a very active step can exceed an earlier one. Make sure your steps reflect the real order and consider tightening the date range.

Conversion looks impossibly high or low. Check that each step's event name is spelled exactly as it's recorded (for example form_submission). A misspelled step counts zero and skews the funnel.

No data at all. Widen the date range and confirm the events exist for your organization using the Explore tab first.