This article describes several ways to use the Users Flow report to compare volumes of traffic from different sources, examine traffic patterns through your site, and troubleshoot the efficacy of your site.
In this article:Compare traffic volume and marketing channels
You can compare relative volumes of traffic from different sources within the same dimension: for example, the traffic from different search engines, campaigns, or mediums. Overall comparisons let you make some initial determinations about which channels are most effective or offer the best return.
For example, if one campaign is delivering a lot more traffic than another, you can shift resources to make the more successful campaign even more visible. Or if one medium, like email or cpc, is outperforming the others, you can invest more heavily in that medium.
If you do find that one source is outperforming the others in terms of traffic volume, you can then examine that traffic more closely by viewing just that one segment. Click the starting dimension node in the first column, then click View only this segment. (This is different from applying a user- or session-based Segment, as described below).
With just that traffic visible, you can see whether those users are following the paths through your site that you want them to, whether they’re reaching your Goal screens in sufficient numbers, and where they’re leaving your site.
Refine your analysis with Segments
In addition to viewing just traffic from a particular source, you can further refine your view by applying a Segment. For example, if you’re viewing traffic from a specific country, you could use the Segment builder's Condition options to display only users from that country who also completed a specific Goal or who spent over a certain dollar amount. By combining options like these, you can focus on a very specific element of your audience.
Measure engagement
Depending on the purpose of your site, you may want to know how many pages users traversed after the initial page. Did they go right from product pages to checkout without any additional shopping? Did they read articles in U.S. and World News, but not any in Politics or Entertainment?
Start by determining the minimum engagement you want to see from users. Users Flow shows the first three interactions by default, and currently supports up to eight. Add as many steps as necessary to meet your minimum requirement. Once you have added the requisite number of steps, you can then click the starting dimension node and use the Highlight traffic through here option to see whether traffic from that source reached as far as your minimum engagement threshold (for example, four or five interactions).
In addition to measuring the level of engagement, you can also see the extent to which traffic diminished as users progressed through your site. If users aren’t progressing as far as you had hoped, or if traffic is dropping off at a faster rate than you'd like, you can consider redesigning your site navigation or graphic design to allow for easier movement between pages, adding additional calls to action, like teasers for related articles or products, or reworking your site content to better address the interests of your audience.
Explore your content
Users Flow lets you examine a number of content-related issues.
A/B Testing
If you’re testing different versions of a web page, and each version has its own URL, you can see which of them better serves purposes like encouraging site engagement, or funneling traffic on to a Goal page.
Browser and Screen Resolution
Use Browser or Screen Resolution as the starting dimension so you can see whether traffic is distributed among browsers or screen resolutions as you expect, and to see whether there are any pages that experience an unusual drop-off with a particular browser or screen resolution. If you notice a significant drop-off from a page, it might not be rendering properly in that browser or at that resolution. For example, your page may not render correctly on a mobile browser or at a smaller resolution, causing links or buttons to be unavailable or not easily seen.
Path Analysis
Are there paths through your site that are more popular than others, and if so, are those the paths you want traffic to follow? You may have a path in mind for your users like Home Page > Product Page > Shopping Cart > Checkout, but you may uncover a more popular path like Home > Product > Search > Search Results > Search > Search Results > exit. That unexpected path can indicate things like users not finding products they want, or your internal search not returning results that are helpful.
You might also discover something like an unusually high drop-off from a new page you've introduced, like a new home page or new product page. Investigate whether the design of the new page might be obscuring the links or controls that lets traffic flow to the pages you want them to see next.
