Creating a sequential funnel works like this: users must go through all the steps in a specific order. For example, if someone lands on your site directly on a product page, they won’t be counted because they need to start at step one. This is the hallmark of a closed funnel.
Here’s how to do it:
1. Define Your Funnel Steps: In an eCommerce funnel, typical stages include product view, adding to cart, starting checkout, and completing the purchase. It’s crucial that all these steps are mandatory because a sequential funnel requires users to pass through them in order. A closed funnel counts only those who start from the very first step, like viewing a product. This focus helps you concentrate on users who genuinely go through the entire journey.
2. Extract Data: Start by pulling the necessary data from your Google Analytics 4 (GA4) events table. You’ll need events related to key user actions to track their movement through the funnel.
3. Create Joins: This is where it gets interesting! Combine the data for each step to count how many users make it to each stage. Make sure your joins only include users who completed previous steps in the right order. For example, step two will count only those who viewed a product and added it to the cart; step three will include only those who added an item to the cart and started checkout, and so on.
4. Don’t forget to check event timestamps: you want to ensure that users performed previous actions before moving on to the next steps. It’s also important that all actions happen on the same day to keep your data accurate.
5. Visualize Your Data: Once everything is set, save the results in a new BigQuery table and create visualizations in Looker Studio.
And that’s it—your sequential funnel is ready!
If you work with GA4 to BigQuery exports, be sure to check out my SQL cheat sheet.
