The top conversion paths report is an awesome bit of kit; one of the five new multi-channel funnel reports in Google Analytics. The report shows a graphical table of the most common channels a user passes through to complete a site goal. The basic channel grouping is as follows:

Note that the channel listing follows an ordering process, in that visits which are not tagged as belonging to the first channel (Paid Advertising) fall through to the rule for the second channel, and so on. In the basic channel grouping, the direct channel also includes visits from a source/medium of “not set,” so that 100% of the site traffic is defined by this set of rules.

A classic example of how a visitor would interact with your site via different channels would be someone coming across your site via a Google search, bookmarking it, and then returning later via the bookmark to complete your goal:

This is great, and with a table full of information like this, there is plenty of information to extract. However, the real power of the report comes in defining your own channel groupings. For example, in the above we see that the user originally came across the site by an organic search. We could create two channels to replace this one, breaking it down further into searches that already knew of your brand, and searches that came across your site with no prior knowledge of it (filtering by keyword.)

In order to set up your own channels, a simple way to do so is to edit the basic grouping. An easy way to copy the basic grouping template is found in the channel groupings drop down above the data set:

To move the channel ordering, drag on the grey boxes on the left of the buttons. Highlight the right hand side of a button to edit:

The interface is the same as in the search filter and advanced segments, so to create another rule highlight the “add ‘AND’ statement,” and select the dimension of keyword as below. Enter your brand name, and relabel the channel title before saving. Your groupings will also then be able to be used in the assisted conversions report.

From here, you can edit and create more channels to suit your needs. Track campaigns, visits through your blog, visits from your twitter account, visits from retweets, visits from apps and much more; giving you the vital information on how all these channels interact.

Although this report is hidden away deep in the goals section of the standard reports in Google Analytics, the information gleaned from it is priceless for any site owner.

Over the last year we have received a barrage of great updates from the chaps over at Google Analytics, with everything from an interface redesign to real-time monitoring of site traffic.

However my favourite of these recent announcements has been the inclusion of five powerful new reports under the label of multi-channel funnels. These new reports are sure to be highly useful tools for advertisers and business owners alike by allowing a more detailed analysis of how they are attracting the most important traffic to their sites.

The reports are found under the Conversions section of the Standard reports, and so in order to be useful, a site must have some Goals enabled. Note that goals do not have to be e-commerce related, but are an essential part of tracking and reaching the targets of any site. For example, if you run a small business and want to know who the people are that click on your contact page, you can set that up as a goal, and then analyse who accomplishes it – who converts.

An interaction with a site is defined by the visit received from a specific channel.  A channel can combine many different dimensions such as source, medium, keyword, campaign etc. The standard channels that the reports use are the following (for more info see here:)

Previously when trying to establish a picture of how effective specific marketing efforts were, Google Analytics would provide information of only the last interaction that led to a conversion. These new reports are extremely valuable as they can show us channels of visits to a site that a user makes within the 30 days before a conversion (provided cookies have not been cleared.)This is important, as a large number of visitors will browse around before eventually deciding to make a conversion.
Under the “Multi-Channel Funnels” heading, we are provided with five reports:

Overview Report – Provides a standard graph of goal conversions over time, allowing you to choose and compare between the conversions and assisted conversions metrics. Also includes a visualizer that produces a Venn diagram of conversions and assists between up to 4 selected channels:

Assisted Conversions Report – Allows you to compare the assisted conversions and final interaction conversions metrics. Also includes a ratio of the two, helping the user to analyse which channels spread knowledge of the site, and which lead to directly to conversions.

Top Conversion Paths Report – Shows in picture form, the paths that users took to convert. Also gives statistics on the numbers of people who took the specific path. For more info see here.

Time Lag – Give us information on how long users took to complete their path to conversion. Produces this in the form as below:

Path Length – Report produces a similar looking set of data to the Time Lag report, but instead of “Time Lag in Days,” shows us “Path length.”

Put together these reports give us valuable new insight into how a sites most important visitors access its most valuable content. For more information on the power of the top conversion paths report and on custom channel groupings, see our blog post here.