How to create a sales funnel that converts in 5 steps

Sales funnels help you visualize the pages your customers visit, from landing page to goal completion. They might not be the paths you expect (or even want) customers to follow, but tracking how they perform will help you understand where—and why—users drop off.

This guide offers a 5-step method for building and monitoring your most important conversion funnels. Read on to discover how data from best-in-class platforms like Contentsquare helps you optimize for improved user experience (UX) and conversions where it matters. 

1. Map out your main paths to conversion

Every visitor who lands on your website and eventually converts will take their own unique path. But after a while, you’ll start seeing recurring patterns and common checkpoints. 

To map out your funnel, start from the end goal (e.g. an ecommerce order confirmation page) and work backward to find the most common paths and pages that get people there. Here are a few ways to do it:

Using Google Analytics 4 (GA4)

In GA4, go to Explore > Path exploration. (You may need to click the blue ‘Start over’ link if your chart is populated with data that you’d like to remove.)

Select the ‘Ending point’ box to add an event or page representing your end goal. GA4 will then display the pages or steps that came immediately before:  

Use path exploration in GA4 to see what pages led visitors to make a purchase

Using Plausible

With Plausible, you can filter by goal conversion (e.g. ‘Signup’) and view the top entry pages that converting visitors landed on—these will be the pages at the top of your funnel:

Using Contentsquare

Use Journeys Analysis to discover how users navigate your site

Contentsquare’s Journey Analysis shows you all the various paths your users actually take.

Use the ‘Journey selection’ mode to drill down into particular page sequences to see the exact steps someone takes before landing on key pages.

Contentsquare Journey Analysis details every step your users take—no matter where they go on your site

Use Funnel Analysis to study how many users go through specific steps you've defined

Now you know the most common paths users take to complete a purchase, use a tool like Contentsquare’s Funnels to visualize them and

• Identify the high-traffic exit pages where you lose most visitors 

• Focus your conversion rate optimization (CRO) efforts on the biggest opportunities 

• Compare how different segments convert to identify your most valuable cohorts

To build your funnel, head into Contentsquare’s Funnels and click Add step. 

Add the pages you’d like to analyze and click Apply to view your funnel.

Compare user segments to understand how different cohorts behave. For example, you can filter by

• Device, to view desktop vs. mobile conversions

• Referrer URL, to compare the performance of organic search vs. social media traffic

• Country, to see how traffic from different markets converts

3. Fix leaks to reduce drop-offs

Most sales funnels indicate where you’re losing conversions, but that data alone won’t help you improve conversion rates. Instead of guessing why people drop off, watch how they browse, see where they click, and ask them what they need.

If you’re using Contentsquare’s Funnels, click the play icon to jump straight over to a session replay playlist and discover

• Users who dropped off. Find out what they did before they left. Did they encounter any errors or rage-click in frustration?

• Users who converted to the next step: Find out whether they spent time on the page. What elements did they interact with?

Click the play button in Contentsquare’s Funnels to go straight to relevant Session Replays

Use Contentsquare’s Heatmaps on the page(s) where you’re losing the most users to review clicks, scrolls, and mouse movements. You can filter to view heatmaps of users who did and didn’t reach the next stage of the funnel.

For example, filter by

• Exit page to view the actions of users who left without converting

• Clicked element to see the behavior of users who did or did not click a call to action button (CTA)

• Event to see browsing differences between users who made a purchase and those who didn’t

A click map showing an aggregate view of user clicks

Let’s look at an example. Say you review a heatmap that shows users who didn’t convert. The heatmap indicates that people toggle between the monthly and yearly pricing plans and tend to click on menu elements and the ‘contact us’ link. 

What could this mean? 

This may suggest that these users need more information before converting. If this is the case, your next steps could include

• Triggering an on-site survey to ask visitors what they’re missing

• A/B testing changes to the page, like adding testimonials or changing the main CTA

Create a survey with Contentsquare’s Surveys to find out what information visitors need

💡Pro tip: if your funnel analysis reveals multiple drop-off points, fix the one closest to the end goal first. It’s like repairing a leaky bucket: the hole right at the bottom is the most pressing issue if you want to keep any water in. 

4. Bring more traffic through the top of the funnel

Once your funnel is fixed, you’re ready to bring more people in. Instead of jumping straight onto a shiny tactic that mightn’t work for your user personas and most valuable customers (TikTok! Lead magnets! Email marketing!), go back to your analytics data and find your highest-performing traffic sources first.

Here are a couple of ways you could do this:

• In GA4, go to Reports > Traffic acquisition and sort rows by revenue to see which channel drove the most sales:

• In Contentsquare’s Funnels, filter by referrer URL to compare the conversion performance of different traffic sources: 

A funnel in Contentsquare’s Funnels comparing mobile and desktop traffic

Once you know the best-performing traffic sources for your business, you can confidently work on new marketing campaigns, knowing that you’re targeting a high-converting channel.

💡Pro tip: supplement your quantitative analytics data with insights from your target audience. For example, run surveys and interviews (both available via Contentsquare) to develop a holistic understanding of the customer journey. The funnels you build are focused on your website, but you’ll want to know how and where people heard about you in the first place.

5. Monitor, optimize, and repeat

Creating a sales funnel is not a one-and-done activity: user behavior changes, website code breaks, and new products get added—so you need to keep a watchful eye on how traffic flows through your website. 

Use Contentsquare’s Dashboard to monitor your most important funnels. When you spot a drop in conversion rate, you’ll be in the right place to troubleshoot the issue before it becomes a bigger problem.

Create a funnel that shows you why users drop off

Funnels will show you where you’re losing users, but they won’t help you understand why. 

For a complete picture of what’s happening on your website, supplement your funnel data with recordings of how visitors navigate, heatmaps showing you where they click, and qualitative feedback about their pain points. 

If you create your funnels in Contentsquare, you’re only one click away from all these insights 😉

FAQs about creating funnels