In Analytics, conversions and Ecommerce transactions are credited to the last campaign, search, or ad that referred the user when he or she converted. But what role did prior website referrals, searches, and ads play in that conversion? How much time passed between the user's initial interest and his or her purchase?
The Multi-Channel Funnels reports answer these questions and others by showing how your marketing channels (i.e., sources of traffic to your website) work together to create sales and conversions.
For example, many people may purchase on your site after searching for your brand on Google. However, they may have been introduced to your brand via a blog or while searching for specific products and services. The Multi-Channel Funnels reports show how previous referrals and searches contributed to your sales.
In this article:Video introduction to Multi-Channel Funnels
Conversion paths
The Multi-Channel Funnels reports are generated from conversion paths, the sequences of interactions (i.e., clicks/referrals from channels) that led up to each conversion and transaction. By default, only interactions within the last 30 days are included in conversion paths, but you can adjust this time period from 1-90 days using the Lookback Window selector at the top of each report. Conversion path data include interactions with virtually all digital channels. These channels include, but are not limited to:
- paid and organic search (on all search engines along with the specific keywords searched)
- referral sites
- affiliates
- social networks
- email newsletters
- custom campaigns that you've created, including offline campaigns that send traffic to vanity URLs
To learn how these channels are displayed in reports, read About MCF Channels.
What the Multi-Channel Funnels reports show
In the reports, channels are credited according to the roles they play in conversions—how often they assisted and/or completed sales and conversions. The Assisted Conversions report shows how many sales and conversions each channel initiated, assisted, and completed, along with the value of those conversions and sales. To learn how to interpret this report, read Analyze channel contribution.
The Top Conversion Paths report shows the conversion paths that your customers took on their way to purchase. The Time Lag and Path Length reports show how long (in days and in interactions) it took for users to ultimately become customers. (Note that your chosen lookback window affects these reports.) To learn how to interpret these reports, read Analyze conversion paths.
Find the Multi-Channel Funnels reports
To see the Multi-Channel Funnels reports:
- Sign in to your Analytics account.
- Navigate to your view.
- Open Reports
- Select Conversions > Multi-Channel Funnels.
The reports include data for automatically detected channels. If you've set up tracking for Google Ads, this data will appear as well. Read Set up Multi-Channel Funnels for more information.
Related resources
To learn how channels are labeled in reports, read About MCF Channels.
To ensure that your Multi-Channel Funnels reports include all channels, read Set up Multi-Channel Funnels.
To learn how to interpret the reports, read the following articles.
- Analyze channel contribution explains the concepts in the Assisted Conversions report.
- Analyze conversion paths explains how to interpret the Top Conversion Paths, Time Lag, and Path Length reports.
- Segment conversion path data explains how to isolate and analyze specific subsets of conversion paths using Conversion Segments.
- Channel strategies describes how you can strengthen your marketing campaigns based on knowledge of your conversion funnel.
To learn more about how Multi-Channel Funnels data is collected and calculated, read About Multi-Channel Funnels data.
