General Information
Improve conversion rates by optimising your customer journey with funnel reports.
Heatmap Funnels is the newest feature from Heatmap. It is a quick, powerful tool designed to help you visualise and understand how visitors move (or don’t move) through your site. With clear, step-by-step breakdowns, you can pinpoint key drop-off points that create friction and cost you revenue.
Once you generate your funnels, Heatmap Reports allow you to analyze the data from them to make data-driven decisions about your CRO strategies. Each step will populate the number of users in your customer journey, and you can see which step sees funnel abandonment.
Funnel reports are a clear step-by-step breakdown to see where users drop off.
Getting Started
How to create Heatmap Funnels
Funnels help you understand how users move through your site and where they drop off before converting. This guide will show you exactly how to build a funnel, avoid common mistakes, and use the data to improve performance:
Before creating a funnel, decide your goal:
Checkout performance → Where users drop before purchase
Product performance → If users move from product to cart
Landing page performance → If traffic engages or leaves
Your goal determines how your funnel should be built.
Step 1: Create your first step (entry point)
Start with a broad step, such as:
“All Sessions” (first image) or
A page as seen in the second image below(e.g. URL contains /collections or /product)
This ensures you capture enough users entering the journey.
Step 2: Add the key actions
Add steps that reflect the natural user journey:
Example (eCommerce funnel):
Collection page
Product page
Add to Cart
Purchase
Keep it simple. 3–5 steps is ideal.
Step 3: Save your funnel
Once you click Save Funnel, your funnel is created and ready to analyse.
You won’t be able to add steps directly in view mode
But you can always go back and edit the funnel anytime
What you’ll see after saving
Each step shows how users progress or drop off:
Identify exactly where visitors are getting stuck.
➡️ Spot key drop-off points in the purchase journey to understand your user’s experience better.
For example, was your largest drop-off happening between cart and checkout? Adding a sense of urgency through cart abandonment emails could be an opportunity. Or was there a steep decline happening between your landing page and your product page? This could mean users are seeing a disconnect between what your landing page offers and your actual product.
Assess the health of your funnel
➡️ Determine whether your funnel includes the proper steps and actions to keep users moving towards conversion. Are you measuring the correct user behavior? Compare funnels between different dates to see if there is an improvement or decline.
Optimise for higher revenue and conversions
➡️ Funnels will help you focus on critical points in the journey to resolve friction, address user concerns, and drive measurable results. A funnel can give you data that can help drive data-driven decisions.
For example, your funnel shows a drop-off between your homepage sessions and moving to your recently launched collection. This is an excellent opportunity to use the data to A/B test landing page copy, CTA, and design. A funnel can show you and your team where to prioritise A/B tests, CRO efforts, UI/UX enhancements, and any bug fixes that cause your customers friction.
Different types of Funnels
You can create different types of Funnels depending on your goal. Here are some Funnel examples:
Purchase Funnel
A purchase funnel typically includes all top, middle, and bottom-of-funnel actions before a purchase is made. It tracks how many visitors move from discovery to conversion and the complete buyer journey from the first click to the final purchase. A purchase funnel is great for finding your Ecommerce store’s baseline data points, such as cart abandonment and conversion rates.
Example: Homepage > Product Page > Add to Cart > Checkout > Purchase
Product Funnel
A product funnel will typically narrow in on a specific product journey. It focuses on one product or a particular collection of products to see how users engage with them. A product funnel is great for finding the performance of a specific product and discovering where you can A/B test or improve UI and UX for the customer.
Example: Collection Page > Product Page > Add to Cart > Purchase
Landing Page Funnel
A landing page funnel typically includes paid ads or email campaigns and focuses on how users navigate through the site from specific starting points. Landing page funnels are excellent if you run multiple ads or email campaigns to discover real-time data on their performance. You can see if the landing page resonates with your customers who click through and where they fall off in the funnel.
Example: Landing Page > Add to Cart > Purchase
Cart Abandonment Funnel
A cart abandonment funnel typically focuses on bottom-of-funnel metrics to see how many users drop off in the final stages. Cart abandonment funnels are great for discovering lost revenue and help build a picture of why the buyer hesitated to click purchase at the most critical stage of the buying journey.
Cart abandonment funnels target high-intent users who are just one or two steps away from converting to customers. These funnels can help you optimize your recovery strategies, such as retargeting ads, email campaigns, and personalized offers.
Example: Add to Cart > Begin Checkout > Purchase
Analysing Funnel Reports
Once your funnel is created, you’ll see each step populated with the number of users who completed it and those who dropped off and abandoned the funnel.
It’s essential to understand what the percentages mean in a funnel report:
The completed percentage at each step shows how many users moved from the previous step to the current one, not from the start of the funnel.
The abandoned percentage shows how many users dropped out of the funnel before reaching the next step, highlighting the “loss” of users within your funnel.
This step-by-step view lets you pinpoint exactly where users are exiting the journey, so you can prioritise improvements where they’ll have the most impact.
Funnel Report Best Practices
Funnel reports can be complex, but following a few best practices can help you get valuable insights:
Set clear goals when building your funnel to generate a specific outcome.
Avoid overcomplicating your funnels and keep them focused. Too many steps and dilute your insights and data, making it hard to pinpoint what is causing drop-offs.
Ensure all key customer journey steps are properly tracked so your funnel reflects real user behavior.
When you notice a major drop-off, review the pages or events in the step or two before to identify potential causes. (Reviewing Heatmaps and Screen Recordings can help, too!)
Focus optimisation efforts on the steps with the highest abandonment rates; these represent the biggest opportunities for improvement (and revenue).
Limit the number of A/B tests running within a single funnel to avoid messy data.
Compare your funnels over time to track their performance and see if your optimisation efforts have improved or declined.
Integrate other tools such as surveys, heatmaps, and screen recordings to get a complete picture of your user behavior.
Funnels are not a set-it-and-forget-it tool. You should revisit your funnels regularly and update them as your site, product, and customers evolve.
Need Help?
If you have questions or run into any issues while using Heatmap, our support team is here to help. Contact us anytime at Support@heatmap.com.