he Conversion Paths report in Google Analytics answers an important question about your marketing efforts. Which channels, campaigns, mediums and sources generated traffic that converted visitors into leads or customers? Let’s find out…
Key takeaways
- The Google Analytics 4 Conversion Paths Report contains data about all the channels, campaigns, sources and mediums that generated traffic of users who triggered a conversion on your site, web shop or app.
- The report is populated automatically, but you need to have conversions set up in GA4.
- Conversion attribution is a hot topic of debate, but the Google Analytics 4 conversion paths report shows data you can’t find elsewhere.
What is the GA conversion paths report, anyway?
The Google Analytics 4 Conversion Paths Report contains data about which touchpoints your converted users visited before they landed on your site.
A customer journey that doesn’t happen on your site can be complex. But the report visualizes it in a way anyone can understand.
I took it a step further and pasted all the british student data steps of one journey from the report next to each other. GA calls these colored bars touchpoints. The number after the X shows how many times a user visited the touchpoint.
Unless you are a big tech giant with Find Your Site a search engine, a video platform, a popular browser.
Another smart part of the report is that it divides the touchpoints into three big steps, or blocks: early, mid and late touchpoints. I will get back to this further below.
Example of a conversion path
John Doe bought an amazing course on your site. Before the dude transferred his money to your bank account, he visited a lot of touchpoints that drove him to your site, web shop or app.
- He searched on Google and clicked an organic link to your site.
- Still not convinced, he searched again a week later. Now, he clicked a paid ad.
- Back he goes, but now to Facebook where he clicks on an ad that leads to your site.
- A week later, he goes directly to your site and finally buys your course.
All these touchpoints are listed in the GA4 Conversion Paths report
- in a chronological way
- with the amount of times a user visited them
- and only if the user converted during the selected period.
The example above is just one of the zillion possible customer journeys on the internet. Also note that it is different from what users do on your site. This information is available in the GA4 Conversion Report.
It would be a fatal mistake to Find Your Site draw conclusions from one path. So let’s find out what other conversion paths your users followed.
Where can you find the Conversion Paths report in Google Analytics 4?
To access the report, click Advertising on how to get more leads with a questionnaire? the left-hand menu. Then, go to the Attribution section and click Conversion paths.
The report contains two main sections. At the top, you can see the top 5 conversion channels.
In the table below the graph, you can see a detailed breakdown of all the conversion paths.
Let’s first look at the top of the report.
Top conversion paths in Google Analytics
The graphic in the GA4 Conversion Paths report shows the 5 best performing touchpoints.
To be clear, these touchpoints can be different from the ones that generate the highest number of visitors.
In the screenshot below, for example
- Organic search was a top conversion channel in the early and mid touchpoints of the customer journey.
- In the late touchpoints column, its importance dropped and direct traffic took over the first position.
In many cases, the direct traffic Find Your Site channel will be a popular converting channel. That is because people already know the site and the egypt data address is stored in their browser. No need to Google it again.
Before we get to the second section of the report, let’s answer another important question.
What are touchpoints in the GA Conversion Paths Report?
Google Analytics keeps track of the channels, sources, mediums and campaigns your converting users visited. These are called touchpoints and the complete path is by default split into three different stages.