An Introduction to Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels

Tracking people that go on to buy a product from your website, sign up for your newsletter or contact you via an enquiry form is an essential part of monitoring the performance of any website.

Setting up goals in Analytics can help you understand what marketing tactics are working and enable you to identify potential issues or bottlenecks in visitor journeys through your site. Armed with this knowledge you can make informed decisions about your marketing or site design.

If you are paying to advertise on Google or are spending a lot of your time promoting your business on Twitter - you'll want some reassurance that your efforts have been worth it! Setting up goals is a great way to measure your performance - for example when people click through via a PPC advert or from a link on Twitter.

But what do you do though if someone clicks through to your site via a social media campaign and then leaves only to come back two weeks later to buy something from you? This is where Multi-Channel Funnels come in.

Multi-Channel funnels show how different traffic sources work together to generate sales and conversions on your site.

Found within the "Conversions" section of your Google Analytics account, multi-channel funnels enable you to track the overall marketing funnel leading to a sale.

Rather than just crediting the final click that leads to a conversion with multi-channel funnels you can instead get an appreciation for how customers interact with your other marketing channels en route.

A number of reports are available:

"Path Length" shows the number of interactions visitors have with your channels allowing you to assess to what extent they assist with conversion

"Time Lag" shows the amount of time it takes from an interaction with your first marketing channel to a conversion

"Top Paths" shows different routes through your marketing funnels on the route to conversion.

"Assisted Conversions" provides access to additional information where you can assess what channels, campaigns or keywords assisted along the way to a sale or other website conversion.