The best way to use Lucky Orange Conversion Funnels

As an account manager at Lucky Orange, I get the pleasure of helping customers solve their most important website challenges.

This includes showing them where CRO tools can give them the visitor data they need to make great optimization decisions. 

Most of these conversations involve using conversion rate optimization (CRO) strategies to get more of their hard-earned traffic to turn into customers. And one great way to pinpoint conversion issues is using Lucky Orange Conversion Funnels. 

Before moving forward, let’s define the Conversion Funnels tool in relation to the concept of a funnel in general. 

Conversion funnels describe visitor journeys across all channels, both on and offline—highlighting when visitors complete a series of desired actions leading to a conversion. Website conversions specifically can be anything from a purchase or webinar signup to clicking through to a product page from a site search. 

Lucky Orange Conversion Funnels

The Lucky Orange Conversion Funnels tool tracks visitor journeys around your website, highlighting where people abandon the funnel.

They help you spot potential optimization opportunities. Applying Conversion Funnels to your site is where you can get creative, with the following do’s and don'ts being your best friend along the way.

Do's and Don'ts for using the Conversion Funnels tool

The flexibility of this tool means you can add more than 20 steps and use any page or custom event in the course of the conversion funnel. Many of the questions I get about using funnels are simply asking which pages make sense to track and in which order. So, let’s start there.

DON’T: Start your funnel with a vague first step

Visitors coming to your home page is a great entry point into your site but it is too broad to start an effective conversion funnel. This is because there are several different actions they can take from that page. And since they can head in so many directions from your home page, the drop-off between those steps will be huge and won’t really provide an insightful value. 

Great conversion funnels will start with a very specific entry point on a page with a clear goal/intent. This might be an individual product page, a landing page with one call-to-action or a content block linking to  new ebook download page.

DO: Track steps that CAN work in a specific order

Lucky Orange Funnels tracks visitor activity in a specific order. And because things must happen in that order, it’s vital your first step begins with a very particular action. 

Here's how it works. If your funnel steps are 1, 2, 3 ...

Visitor A does 1, 7, 2, 9, 3 so they would be counted as a funnel completion since they did all steps and performed them in the right order.

Visitor B does 1, 7, 3, 9, 2 so they would not be counted as completion since they did all your steps but out of order.

This allows you to really dig into one set of behaviors on your site.

DON’T: Forget about your final conversion

While Conversion Funnels require a tight set of inputs to be effective, keep the broader customer experience in mind when analyzing results. Never forget the ultimate goal of people visiting your website—even if that’s not the goal of the funnel you’ve created.

When you go to study funnel results, be sure to account for any other variables that may be changing in the customer journey. Something as simple as new advertising copy or a shortage of product size/colors can lead to vastly different results in a funnel over time. 

DO: Create custom events to use in your funnels

Creating custom events in Lucky Orange allows you to create funnels that go beyond simple page visits. With this feature you can track interaction with links or other page elements or something behavior-related like add-to-cart or purchase.

Once you create an event, you can choose it from the Select event dropdown for each conversion funnel step. Here’s where you can find Events setup inside Lucky Orange:

Analytics → Events → Add New Event 

Depending on your industry or site type, events might represent clicking a button to add to cart, hovering over a content block (indicating reading behavior) or clicking a section title.

Inside a funnel tracking how people interact with your shipping information page, this might look like:

Step 1 - Click add to cart

Step 2 - Visit cart

Step 3 - View shipping information page

Step 4 - Visit cart

DON’T: Forget to choose the right URL structure 

When setting up a new Funnel, you’ll be prompted to provide a URL if the step is a page visit. You’ll have two options:

1. Exact: The system will only track the exact URL address in its entirety including any fragments or UTM parameters. 

2. Contains: If you’re tracking visits to a group of pages on your site using some combination of query parameters, the Contains option is best. You can also use wildcards (*) to create more complex rules. This could be used for analyzing how people navigate through a section of your store or a category of blog posts. Use “contains” when your specific starting point only requires someone to be on one of several pages.

DO: Be prepared to do further research

Conversion Funnels sometimes lead to a clear change to make on your site. Most of the time, though, you’ll need to do further research to dig into what’s causing the results you see. Within Lucky Orange Conversion Funnels, you’re able to access Session Recordings for visitors who completed the funnel or those who fell short. 

This helps answer the ultimate question: “Why do some people abandon the funnel before the last step?” If you’re unsure of what to do next, consider adding a survey to ask what people are trying to accomplish, if there’s an issue with your website or anything else that might help clarify what’s actually happening. 

Lucky Orange Surveys allow you to choose which pages and audience segments see your survey. Ask first-time visitors how they found out about your store or returning visitors what products they’d like to see you add in the future.

Conversion Funnel examples to apply on your website

With these guidelines in mind, let’s explore some conversion funnel examples you may want to consider for your own website. The list of ideas below is certainly not exhaustive but hopefully serves as a jumping-off point for your own conversion funnel work.

Making a purchase

This common funnel type lets you track people who reach the ultimate goal, buying something from your site. Since people likely bounce all over your site before making a purchase consider building a funnel that tracks people in the step or two directly before making a purchase. 

If possible, start your funnel by tracking visitors who reach a specific product page. Then, follow them as they add-to-cart or beyond. This tight funnel will by hyperfocused on what happens between people seeing and evaluating your product and deciding to take that major step forward.

For sites with dozens or hundreds of product options, we recommend setting up a few funnels at a time for product representing something that’s important to you at the time. This could be a new product, something being promoted by paid channels or an item that’s struggling compared to similar things elsewhere on the site.

See how ApproveMe.com used Lucky Orange Funnels and Dynamic Heatmaps to increase its revenue by 211%.

Signing up for a new account or member sign in

Any funnel involving the completion of a form can be challenging, primarily because so many actions can happen before that desired action occurs. In this instance. It’s best to focus on a specific driver to complete the form. 

For example, if you’re encouraging people to sign in to view their order status, they may land on an order status sign-in page and then fill out the form, leading them to the order status itself. In this instance, there’s potentially a unique identifier in the URL for their account or order number, so you’ll want to use Page URL “contains."

With new account signup, again you’ll want to focus on a specific driver, since signups can happen in so many different ways. If you’ve just launched a new content series or added a signup form to the bottom of certain blog posts, track interaction with the form from those pages. 

In that instance, you’ll likely track a page visit and then an action of form completion for your signup form. If you offer a thank you page with action items or content to consume, track a third or fourth step beyond signup to see how people behave immediately after signup.

Finding and using your help center

You’ve created a few dozen help documents and want to make sure you’re surfacing these docs at specific points in their journey. Track visitors from a specific page like a related blog post, shipping information, or anywhere else a help doc could provide additional context. 

And within your help documents, it’s possible you want to see how people navigate through sections once they’ve arrived. Add a third or fourth step using the “contains” option to follow people deeper into your help center.

Using blog content as entry to your sales content

Blog posts are great for driving newsletter signups and interest in more content, but they can also be great drivers for purchases or leads. 

If you’re looking to drive attention from your blog further into the funnel, track visits from all blog posts (or a certain, middle-funnel post) into a specific sales page. This might look something like:

Step 1 | Page URL | Contains .com/blog

Step 2 | Page URL | Contains .com/pricing

How to set up Conversion Funnels inside Lucky Orange

To find Funnels inside Lucky Orange, go to Analytics 🠖 Funnels, then click New Funnel.

After adding a name, it’s time to add steps to the conversion funnel. With the tips provided above in mind, add a few steps to your new funnel. This can include visiting a page or set of pages or triggering an event. 

Using custom events for funnel steps is a great way to align your analysis with the exact behavior you want to study. If you’re not familiar with this feature, be sure to check out our custom event tracking guide.

To start tracking visitor behavior, click Done and your funnel is published.

Once you’ve begun collecting data, click View Results to see what’s happening inside your funnel. Are people dropping off at a much higher rate after a specific step? Is there an audience segment (UTM, visit number, arrived via email, etc.) behaving differently than another?

This information is the perfect jumping off point for further analysis—and the next step is to watch behavior play out in real-time. Next to Summary, click Visitors to see people who (at a minimum) began your funnel. 

Here you’re able to filter people by the number of steps they took in the funnel. Watching sessions for people who completed all steps versus those who fell off is a great way to spot optimization opportunities. If you don’t notice anything at first, don’t fret. All it takes is one recording to shine a light on something interesting and you’re off and away to more conversions.

New to Lucky Orange tools? Here are the top five things we recommend you do within your first month.