Multi-Channel Funnels analysis through Google Analytics will give you a gold mine of information that would help you plan your digital marketing and budgeting strategies. Through Multi-Channel Funnels, you can focus your efforts on the marketing channels that are most beneficial to your business.
Multi-Channel Funnels (MCF) Reports
In Google Analytics, go to ‘Conversions’ and select ‘Multi-Channel Funnels’
Top Conversion Path Analysis-
See which channels bring you the most conversions and revenue through – top conversion path analysis. For eCommerce businesses, most conversions happen for a single path or during the first interaction. Therefore, the channels that bring the traffic that converts during single path interaction are crucial. It tells you that these channels have the potential to bring in traffic that immediately converts.
Choose Time Period –
Select one month or four weeks for channel analysis with path length 1 and Lookback Window of 30 days.
Path Length=
The path length gives you data about various Acquisition Channels customers interacted with before converting.
Path Length= 1. Customer interacted with acquisition channel and converted without the involvement of any other channel.
Look Back Window-
All channels and visits customers make before final purchase. Ie. A customer came to the website on 2nd September and converted on 15th September. 30 Day lookback window will see all acquisition channels customers interacted with.
For easy visualization choose percentage or pie chart view.
Note– The percentage of Conversions and Conversion Value attributed to single path conversions. If it is equal to 50% or more, you know your business needs to focus more on the channels that are converting customers during their very first interaction with the business. The focus on these channels will also help you reduce your acquisition cost.
Through this report, you know that the credit for these x% conversions (of total conversions) and y% Revenue (of total revenue) can be taken by individual channels without sharing credit with any other channel. That is x% times a customer visited through a channel and made the purchase in the single path without coming to the website multiple times. This is the best approximation to give pure credit for conversions to each marketing channel.
For panning and budgeting purpose, you can create marketing spend chart to compare with the MCF reports of Google Analytics to analyze the percentage of conversions a channel brings against its marketing spend.
For example, Paid Search has pure credit for a% conversions against q% Marketing Spend. Email Marketing has b% pure conversions against r% Marketing Spend and so on.
(Extra credit to paid search can be given because, in a few cases, a customer repeatedly comes exclusively through the paid channel until making a purchase. Depending on business type, in most cases, however, customer visits through different channel each time)
***Pro Tip- Exclude Direct Conversions
To further refine the report, you can exclude Direct conversions (Direct conversions is recorded if customer bookmarked, saved cart, directly typed the URL, Refreshed page, or Used hidden path where Google couldn’t track any other source) ***
Also, analyze the source/medium by choosing them as the primary dimension to further analyze the channel by its source and medium components.
Assisted Conversions Report
Assisted conversion report shows how different channels contribute to the customer journey towards the final purchase.
Choose Time Period – 1 month or 4 weeks
Look Back Window – 30 Days
The report will show you ‘Total conversions’, for example 1000 conversions and ‘Assisted Conversions’, example 400 conversions. It conveys that out of 1000 conversions, 40% conversions were such that customers interacted with multiple channels before converting, and 60% conversions were such that a single channel could take the credit for them.
You can choose up to 4 marketing channels and see how they overlap with each other. This report can only show conversions and not conversion value (Average order value, AOV of certain channels like Email tend to be higher).
Through this report, you will get a picture of the involvement of particular channels in the overall conversions.
Example, Paid Search – Involved in x% of conversions (against marketing spend of a %)
Social Media – Involved in y% conversions (marketing spend of b %) and so on.
You can see the overlap between the two channels and realize the impact one channel has on the other.
You can also take similar data from time lag and path length reports and induce Urgency Marketing in those particular channels to get conversions in a shorter time period and at lower path lengths to save marketing spend on customer acquisition. Also, look at the ‘Acquisition’ segment of the Google Analytics report to get an overview of channels that customers finally interact with before making the purchase.
Overall, Google Analytics can give you information that should be considered, such as Cohort Analysis, Life Time Value, Cross-Device Reports, and a plethora of other customizable reports that can prove critical for your digital marketing strategy.
