A funnel breaks a key journey, like sign-up or checkout, into ordered steps so you can see exactly where visitors continue and where they stop. This guide covers how to read a funnel in Zenovay and how to act on what it shows.
Where funnels live
Open your website from Domains, select the Journeys tab, then the Funnels sub-tab. Pick a funnel from Your funnels to load its report. If you have more funnels than fit in one row, click Show all N funnels to see every one. The funnel you selected always stays visible.
- The period selector at the top is shared with the Goals sub-tab: Last 24 hours, Last 7, 14, 30 or 90 days, Last 6 months or Last 12 months. Longer periods depend on how much history your plan includes.
- Your dashboard filters and saved segments apply to funnels too.
- Every open funnel and every open drop-off view is a link. You can share it, and it stays open when you reload the page.
Understanding multi-step funnels
What makes a good funnel?
Good funnels are:
- Sequential: a clear, ordered path from start to finish
- Measurable: each step is a page, an event or a goal Zenovay can detect
- Actionable: you can change each step
- Meaningful: it reflects a real journey your visitors take
Funnel anatomy
First step → Step 2 → Step 3 → Last step
↓ ↓ ↓
stopped stopped stopped
How steps are defined
Each step is one of three types:
| Step type | Counts when a visitor... |
|---|---|
| Page | Opens a page whose address matches (Is exactly, Starts with, Contains, Ends with, Matches a pattern or Regular expression) |
| Event | Sends a custom event with this name |
| Goal | Completes one of your goals |
A funnel has between 2 and 10 steps. Steps only count in your order, and one page view never fills two steps in a row.
Reading the report
The key numbers
| Number | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Started | How many reached the first step |
| Finished | How many reached the last step |
| Conversion | Finished as a share of Started |
| Median time to finish | The typical time from the first to the last step |
Each of these is compared with the period before, so you see right away whether things got better or worse.
The ribbon chart
Under the key numbers, a ribbon chart shows the funnel: one bar per step, sized by its share of the start, with ribbons flowing from each step to the next and the drop between two steps marked on the ribbon. Hover a step (or move to it with the keyboard) to see:
- How many reached it, and how many reached the previous step
- The drop-off from the previous step
- The conversion from the previous step and from the start
- How long it usually takes after the previous step
- Its top channels and countries
On phones, and for funnels with many steps, the chart runs from top to bottom, so nothing is cut off.
The step list
Click the chart, or Show steps and drop-offs under it, to open the step list. For every step you see how many reached it, its share of the start, and its share of the previous step. Between two steps a line reads, for example: "120 stopped here (40%) · usually 3 minutes to the next step · See why".
Sample funnel data
Step 1: Product view 10,000 (100%)
↓ 6,000 stopped here (60%)
Step 2: Add to cart 4,000 (40% of start)
↓ 2,000 stopped here (50%)
Step 3: Checkout 2,000 (20% of start)
↓ 800 stopped here (40%)
Step 4: Purchase 1,200 (12% of start)
Conversion: 12%
Interpreting the numbers
| Step | Share of previous step | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Step 1 → 2 | 40% | 60% leave without adding to cart |
| Step 2 → 3 | 50% | Half of the carts are abandoned |
| Step 3 → 4 | 60% | 40% stop at checkout |
| Overall | 12% | 12% of product viewers buy |
Counted per visit or per visitor
The time window of a funnel decides what is counted:
- Same visit (default): counted per visit. All steps must happen in the same visit, in your order.
- Within 1 day, Within 7 days, Within 30 days: counted per visitor. The same visitor can finish the steps on a later visit.
You can switch the time window right in the report to compare, for example, how many finish in the same visit versus within 7 days. Editors can click Save as default to keep the new window for that funnel.
Warning
On websites that run without cookies, a returning visitor gets a new anonymous ID every day. The 7-day and 30-day windows therefore count fewer finishers than really happened, and the report shows a note about this. Same visit and Within 1 day are not affected.
Any period, including the past
Funnels are calculated from the data Zenovay already recorded, at the moment you look at them, for exactly the period you selected. That means:
- A funnel you just created shows results for the past right away
- Every period works, also periods before you created the funnel
- When you edit a funnel, its numbers are recalculated for the past too
Compare by
Under Compare by, split the funnel by Device, Country, Channel, Host or Entry page. Each row shows Started, Finished and Conversion, so you can see, for example, whether mobile visitors finish less often than desktop visitors.
Drop-off and the worst step
The step with the biggest drop is usually where the most opportunity lives. The ribbon chart shows it at a glance. Open the step list (click the chart or Show steps and drop-offs) and click See why between two steps to open the drop-off panel. It shows where those visitors went instead, who stops most often, the latest visits that stopped, and a short AI explanation on request. See Funnel drop-off analysis.
Funnel ideas
Under Funnel ideas from your visitors, Zenovay suggests funnels built from the paths visitors really took in the last 30 days, including paths that end in one of your goals. Click Use to open the funnel builder with the steps already filled in. Nothing is created until you save it yourself.
Funnels from your code (for developers)
Developers can create a funnel from code. The first call creates the funnel:
zenovay('defineFunnel', 'checkout_flow', [
{ name: 'Cart', event: 'cart_view' },
{ name: 'Checkout', url: '/checkout' },
{ name: 'Purchase', event: 'purchase' }
]);
Each step has a name and either an event or a url. The older call zenovay('track', 'funnel_step', ...) is only recorded as a normal custom event named funnel_step. Use page or event steps instead.
Connecting to visitors and sessions
To understand the "why" behind a drop-off, look at real visits:
- In the drop-off panel, each of the latest visits that stopped links to that visitor's timeline in the Users sub-tab.
- Open the Sessions tab for the same website and filter recordings to the page you are investigating, then watch how real visitors move through that step.
Session replay requires a Pro plan or higher.
Optimization framework
A simple loop works well:
- Find the step with the biggest drop in the funnel.
- Investigate with See why, session replays and heatmaps for that step's pages.
- Change one thing, for example simplify a form or fix an error.
- Evaluate by comparing a period before the change with a period after it.
Step improvement checklist
For each problem step:
- Open See why and check where visitors went instead
- Review session recordings for that page
- Analyze heatmaps for the page
- Check error and frustration signals
- Test the page on different devices
- Simplify the step if possible
Best practices
- Change one thing at a time so you can tell what made the difference.
- Compare periods of the same length before and after a change.
- Editing a funnel recalculates all its numbers, also for the past. To keep the old version for comparison, duplicate the funnel first and edit the copy.
- Note what you changed and what happened, so your learnings add up.