12. Funnels
A funnel is an ordered sequence of steps you want visitors to complete — View product → Add to cart → Checkout → Purchase — and the analysis of how many make it through each one. Funnels show you exactly where people drop off, why, and let you jump straight into the sessions behind every lost conversion. They build on segments ([Chapter 11 — Segments]), with which they share their underlying model.
Funnels are available from the Growth plan ([Chapter 17, section 17.1]) and require the view funnels permission. If you don't see Funnels, it isn't included in your plan or allowed by your role.
12.1 Building a Funnel
A funnel is a named set of ordered steps. Each step is a condition a visitor must satisfy, in sequence, to keep advancing through the funnel.
Step types
A step can be any of four types:
Visit page
Loads a particular page/URL
A URL (with a match operator like is / contains)
Click
Clicks a specific element
A CSS selector or the element's text
Changed input
Changes an input field
The field's selector/text
Custom event
Fires one of your FUS.event(...) events
The event name
Each step has a name, a value (the URL, selector, text, or event name), a match operator, and an order in the sequence.
Defining steps
Open Funnels and create a new funnel.
Add steps in order — for example:
Step 1: Visit page
/productStep 2: Click the Add to cart button (by selector or text)
Step 3: Visit page
/checkoutStep 4: Custom event
purchase
Name the funnel and save.
Scoping to a segment
A funnel is analyzed within a segment. By default that's Everyone ([Chapter 11, section 11.1]), but you can select any saved segment to analyze the funnel for a specific audience — "the checkout funnel, for mobile users in Germany."
Processing — when a funnel is created or its definition changes, FullSession may need to compute it. You might briefly see a processing state (in queue / processing) before the results are ready.
Funnels are linear. Steps run in a single ordered sequence — there's no branching or alternative paths. Model distinct paths as separate funnels.
12.2 Reading the Results
Once computed, a funnel shows headline metrics plus a step-by-step breakdown. The view is organized into tabs — Funnel Overview, Funnel Steps, and (where enabled) Funnel Trends.
Headline metrics
Conversion rate
The share of visitors who completed the whole funnel
Time to convert
The median time from the first step to completion (shown as days/hours/minutes/seconds)
Users completed the funnel
How many visitors finished all steps
Step-by-step breakdown
The chart shows the count reaching each step and the drop between steps, so the biggest leak is obvious at a glance. FullSession also highlights the largest single drop-off to point you at the step most worth fixing.
Sessions vs. unique users
Funnels can count sessions or unique users at each step — switch depending on whether you care about per-visit behavior or per-person reach.
Breakdown dimension
Add a Breakdown to split the funnel by a dimension and see how conversion differs across groups:
Browser · Operating System · Country · Device · Region · UTM Source · UTM Medium · UTM Campaign · Referrer · Browser Version
Funnel Trends
Where the trends feature is enabled, the Funnel Trends tab plots funnel performance over time, so you can see whether conversion is improving or degrading across days, weeks, or months.
Filtering
Funnel analysis respects the date range (the global time filter), the selected segment, and your breakdown and step-scope choices (you can focus on "all steps" or a single transition like Step 2 → Step 3).
No conversion window. There's no setting that requires visitors to complete the funnel within a fixed time. FullSession reports the median time to convert, but it doesn't constrain conversions to a window.
12.3 Effort Analysis
Beyond raw conversion, FullSession measures the effort visitors expend between steps — a strong signal of friction even where people eventually convert.
For each transition between steps, effort analysis reports (as medians):
Conversion
The share of visitors who advanced to the next step
Interactions
How many interactions visitors made between the two steps
Time Engaged
How long visitors spent between the two steps
Revisit Rate
The share who left before advancing
High interactions or time engaged between two steps — even with decent conversion — usually means that part of the flow is harder than it should be. Effort analysis surfaces that hidden friction.
12.4 Drop-off Analysis & Watching Sessions
The most actionable part of a funnel is understanding why people drop off — and watching it happen.
Conversion analysis
For a given transition, FullSession surfaces the issues correlated with drop-off — for example dead clicks, rage clicks, network errors, or specific custom events — each with:
Event / issue
What happened (e.g. a rage click, a network error)
Location
Where it occurred (e.g. a CSS selector)
Lost conversions
Conversions estimated lost to this issue
% of lost conversions
Its share of the drop-off
Impact
Its overall impact on the funnel
Affected sessions / users
How many were affected
This turns "people drop off at checkout" into "people who hit this failing request at checkout were far less likely to convert."
Watch the sessions behind a drop-off
Click into an issue (or a step) to open the sessions behind it, split into:
Dropped off — visitors who did not complete the funnel.
Converted — visitors who did.
Watching a handful of dropped-off sessions usually reveals the concrete cause — a confusing form, an unresponsive button, a slow request — which you can confirm against the player's console and event panels ([Chapter 6 — The Session Player]).
12.5 Top Issues and Conversion Analysis
Funnels include several higher-level reports to help you interpret a funnel without reading every session.
Top Issues
The Top Issues report ranks the problems most affecting the funnel's conversion — each with its affected sessions/users, estimated lost conversions, impact, the step it relates to, and a likely cause.
AI failed-conversion analysis
Funnels also offer an AI analysis of failed conversions: FullSession examines sessions of visitors who dropped off and produces a written explanation of why they likely didn't convert — a fast, plain-language read on a step's problems.
Funnels vs. Lift AI. The AI explanation here is part of Funnels — it interprets drop-off for a step on demand. The deeper, ongoing AI capability — AI goals, scheduled AI runs, and tracked AI issues linked to a funnel over time — is the separate Lift AI feature, covered in [Chapter 14 — Lift AI].
12.6 Comparing Across Time & Segments
Unlike standalone segments, funnels support comparison — putting two or more views of the funnel side by side. This is how you measure whether something changed or whether two audiences behave differently.
Time-period comparison
Compare the funnel against a previous period: previous day, week, month, quarter, or year. Ideal for answering "did our checkout conversion improve after the redesign?"
Segment comparison
Compare the funnel across up to three other segments at once — for example Free vs. Pro vs. Enterprise users moving through onboarding. This reveals where different audiences diverge in the same flow.
Comparison is time- and segment-based. You can compare against earlier periods and against other segments; there's no separate cohort-comparison mechanism beyond these.
12.7 Managing & Exporting Funnels
Funnels live in their own list, separate from segments.
Managing funnels
Create
Requires the create funnels permission
Edit
Update steps, breakdown, comparison, and saved selections (Save funnel selections)
Favorite (star)
Pin frequently used funnels to the top
Delete
Remove a funnel (requires the delete permission)
Like segments, funnels are owned by their creator. Conversion analysis is gated by its own permission.
Exporting
Funnels can be exported: FullSession produces the funnel's data — the overall numbers plus the lists of converted and dropped-off sessions — as CSV files in a downloadable archive. This is useful for sharing results or cross-referencing converters and non-converters in another tool.
As a dashboard card
A funnel can also appear as a funnel card on a dashboard ([Chapter 9, section 9.5]), so its conversion rate and step progress sit alongside your other metrics.
What funnels don't have
To set expectations: there's no funnel duplication, no templates/library, no branching (steps are linear), no version history, and no built-in goals/targets (targets live in Lift AI, [Chapter 14]).
The big picture — define an ordered funnel from page / click / input / custom-event steps, scope it to a segment, and read conversion rate, median time-to-convert, and completions with a step-by-step breakdown (sessions or unique users, optionally split by a breakdown dimension or over time in Trends). Effort analysis exposes hidden friction, drop-off/conversion analysis ranks the issues and opens the sessions behind them, Top Issues/Events and an AI explanation interpret the leaks, and time/segment comparison plus CSV export round it out. There's no conversion window, duplication, branching, or templates.
Next up: [Chapter 13 — Feedback & Surveys] covers the in-page feedback widget and survey responses — and how feedback connects back to the sessions and funnels in this and earlier chapters.
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