Unlocking the Full Potential of Conversion Funnel Mapping
Conversion funnel mapping is a powerful tool for identifying weak spots in your user journey, but many product managers fail to tap into its full benefits. In this article, we’ll explore the essentials of conversion funnel mapping and demonstrate how to use it to uncover more detailed and valuable insights about your users’ behavior.
What is a Conversion Funnel?
A conversion funnel is a pathway that a user takes from beginning to end, viewed from a business perspective. While a customer journey map looks at the experience from the user’s point of view, a conversion funnel provides a broader view of the process, focusing on the most critical business metrics.
The AARRR Framework
The most common type of funnel is based on the AARRR framework, which stands for:
- Acquisition: The starting line, where users are brought to your product from various sources, including referrals, SEO, paid ads, sales, and partnerships.
- Activation: Getting users engaged, where the exact definition of activation can vary depending on the product. For example, identifying engagement thresholds or “aha” moments that indicate a user is likely to stick around.
- Retention: Keeping users around, measuring whether users continue to use your product over time.
- Referral: Users bringing in more users, measuring referral rates, including the percentage of users who invite at least one person, successfully invite at least one person, and the average number of invites sent by each user.
- Revenue: The bottom line, focusing on the percentage of users that become paying customers.
Uncovering Insights through Conversion Funnel Mapping: An Example
Let’s say we’re building a product with a freemium business model. The process for mapping the conversion funnel might look like this:
- Map the Funnel: Create a basic funnel, including acquisition, activation, retention, referral, and revenue.
- Add Data: Add data to understand the funnel’s performance, using absolute numbers or percentages.
- Segment the Funnel: Segment the funnel to get more insights, such as by acquisition source, to reveal interesting patterns, like referred users sticking around the longest.
- Expand the Funnel: Dig deeper, breaking down the “revenue” step into smaller stages of the user journey to understand why users from SEO don’t become paying customers.
- Conduct Additional Research: Conduct qualitative research, such as user interviews and surveys, to understand why users don’t activate during the free trial period.
Wrapping Up
Conversion funnel mapping is a highly effective method for identifying the strengths and weaknesses of your product. By adjusting and diving deeper into your funnel based on the specific needs of your product and the insights you uncover, you can unlock its full potential. Remember to keep exploring and refining your funnel to make informed decisions about product and design changes that drive meaningful action.