How to Find and Plug the Leaks in Your Conversion Funnels?

Ever seen a funnel? It’s characterized by a wide opening at the top and a narrow opening at the bottom. 

Errr.., we are pretty sure that you know what a funnel is. 

But have you ever given thought to its specific shape?

Well, it serves a very distinct purpose - to direct a liquid into a container with a small opening without any spillage. 

Now imagine the same funnel filled with holes. It’s going to leak pretty badly, right? In fact, the very purpose of its existence is defeated. 

The same rule applies to your conversion funnel. When a conversion funnel has holes, most of your potential customers are going to slip through them, meaning they are not going to convert. 

This can impact your sales, bottom line, margins, and every other business jargon you have ever heard of :(

Now before these sales funnel leaks become all too powerful and consume your business (not literally, of course!), you need to plug them. 

And that’s where this post can help as we take you through a clear step-by-step process to plugging leaks in your e-commerce sales funnel. 

1. Find the leaks

Tools like Google Analytics are the best places to find the leaks in your conversion funnel. Once you set up your goals, you need to create a visualization funnel, which will show you the flow of visitors from the first step (Home Page) to the last step (Check out). 

In the funnel, look specifically for areas where a large number of visitors are dropping off. These areas are potential leaks in your conversion funnel. 

Apart from this, you can also use metrics like bounce rate and exit rate to determine those pages from which most visitors are leaving your website. 

2. Analyze the leaks

Once you have found the pages from where leaks are occurring, it’s time to wear your thinking hat.

Take a closer look at the data in hand and understand why visitors are leaving those pages. 

Some common causes of leaks in a conversion funnel include

• Slow loading pages
• Confusing navigation
• Unattractive design
• Lack of clear call to action

Look for possible patterns and trends in your data. Use a heat mapping tool like Hotjar or Crazy Egg to narrow down the cause even further. These tools can show where your users have clicked on a page and where they have not. This will tentatively indicate where visitors are getting stuck. 

3. Supplement your analysis with user research

Proofs! You need more proof before you start taking action…Conduct thorough user research to supplement your findings in step 2. It will confirm why customers are actually leaving your website. This will give you more confidence to take appropriate action to plug the leaks.

You can conduct surveys, interviews, or even simple user testing to get valuable insights about the leak. Also, don’t forget that user research is an ongoing process. Why? Because times change, people change. Doing research frequently will ensure that you are keeping up with the changing user behavior and needs.

4. Prioritize the leaks

Being an e-commerce store owner, you must have a lot on your plate. We understand that. We also know that it’s not possible to fix each and every leak in your conversion funnel immediately. 

So after you have identified the pages with the highest bounce rates and the reasons for drop-offs, prioritize which leaks to fix first. One way to prioritize is by starting with the pages that have the highest impact on your conversion rates. 

The other way is it fix all those leaks whose reasons are quite obvious in your analysis and also are easy to fix.

5. Test and implement the solution

Now that you have prioritized the leaks, it is time to implement the solution, aka take corrective actions. There could be multiple solutions to fix a leak. Not all of them might work for your website. This is where testing comes into the picture. 

You need to test all the solutions and see which one has the greatest impact on conversion rates. You can either perform A/B testing or multivariate testing to test the solution and its impact. 

6. Monitor and optimize the results

Once you have tested and implemented the most promising solution to fix the leak, the next step is to monitor the data. Your job is not over once the solution is implemented. You need to measure the results and keep tweaking your website to further improve conversion rates. 

7. Rinse and Repeat 

The process of identifying, analyzing, and fixing leaks in your conversion funnel is not a one-time event. It is a never-ending process. You must continuously look for new leaks (even if your business is doing exceedingly well) and repeat all the above steps to keep your conversion rates high.

Wrapping Up

Identifying and plugging leaks in the e-commerce funnel is crucial for increasing conversions and improving the performance of your website. By following the above conversion funnel optimization techniques, you can achieve a better conversion rate in no time. 

If you are looking to multiply your sales, then you need to be present on more than one channel. Enter Vajro. We are an instant app factory who can help build your dream e-commerce app in a matter of few hours. To know more about us, book a demo now.