Funnel Analytics

Attribution to “marketing” isn’t just people clicking on your ad. A customer's road from first encounter to final click can be long and winding, or short and sweet. It includes everything that can reasonably be laid at Marketing’s door: emails, campaigns, ads, affiliate activity, SMS, display advertising, print - the list goes on, even where there’s no direct clickthrough to your store - so why just measure the final step?

With Distil's Funnel Analytics you'll know which channels to increase investment in and which need to be downgraded or withdrawn from the mix altogether.

Distil AI tracks engagement across all your platforms and uses this to understand each Customer's behaviour. Customer engagement is typically modelled as progress through a funnel, with several stages. This typically includes stages of acquisition, engagement (at which point they are revenue generating) and then becoming disengaged and lost. Maintaining engagement increases your overall Lifetime Value (LTV) and ultimately increases the Return On Investment (ROI) for the costs associated with acquisition.

If you're looking for information on the metrics in this view, we've included a helpful table at the bottom of this article under Metrics Definitions.

The Cohort

The Funnel Analytics view is based on the simple concept of the cohort. A cohort is a collection of Customers who were first seen during a specific month, a quarter or a year.

First seen cohorts important for marketing attribution because they tell us when a Customer first enters the marketing funnel. Distil is constantly working in the background to identify visitors to your store or website, to give you a complete picture of your Customers' journeys and which channels are serving up the best Customers.

Here's how it works: say you had a visitor who came to your store via paid search a couple of months ago. This visitor browsed your product catalogue focussing on a particular product category. They came back a couple weeks later for another look. Finally, this month they made a purchase, giving some unique identifying information such as an email address. Distil will link this Customer back to the first interaction, and tag them as first seen a couple of months ago, arriving via paid search.

For more detail you can read our articles on Marketing Attribution, and Tracking.

The information in this view is updated daily, and some values may change over time even for cohorts where the period was some time ago.

Funnel Metrics

To see the Funnel Analytics view, click the Funnel Analytics item on the left menu bar. Next, select the term for the cohort: monthly, quarterly or yearly. Finally select the period, for example April 2023 or 2023/2024 Q1 (Jan).

You can select two periods for a side-by-side comparison. Just be aware that the metrics indicating change (e.g. ) show the delta between this period and the previous period, and not the other cohort in the side-by-side comparison. For example, where the May 2023 cohort is selected, the delta figures show the change compared to April 2023.

First up this view shows your revenue, orders and number of Customers in this cohort, along with the change since the previous period. This first section also shows what percentage can be reliably attributed to your marketing efforts. For more information on this, read our article on Marketing Attribution.

Channel Performance and Projected LTV

Below Funnel Metrics is a super-useful chart with marketing channel performance and Lifetime Value (LTV), giving you an at-a-glance view of which channels are having the biggest impact on your LTV.

Distil is continuously working in the background to attribute Customer activity to a specific marketing channel. Where Distil hasn't yet been able to attribute a Customer to a channel, this Customer is attributed to Direct/Unknown. For more information, read our article on Marketing Attribution.

Lifetime value (LTV) is a critical metric for online businesses that measures the total revenue a customer is expected to generate over the course of their relationship with the business. LTV helps with your customer acquisition strategy, guides product development and improves customer retention.

Projected LTV is the expected lifetime revenue value of new Customers within the selected cohort, for the  marketing channel in the first column of the table. Remember that this data only includes Customers that were first seen in the select period (the selected cohort).

Projected LTV gives you a great view of how important each channel is to your overall LTV, and is a key driver for defining your customer acquisition strategy. If you're looking for more detail on how Projected LTV is calculated, skip down below to Metrics Definitions.

The table also shows number of Customers in this cohort (New Customers), and the average value of orders placed by Customers in this cohort.

Marketing Funnel

Marketing funnel stages are a framework used by marketers to visualise and understand the customer journey from awareness through to conversion into purchases. The funnel is modelled as customers passing though a number of stages, with each successive stage receiving (or converting) a percentage  of the Customers in the previous stage.

Its important to remember that this is just a useful model, and that not all Customers will start at the top of the funnel and work their way down. For example, some Customers will enter the funnel with a purchase.

The Distil marketing funnel view shows marketing attribution and key metrics for each stage in the marketing funnel, including your all-important conversion rate and time to convert.

For the full detail on how each of these metrics are calculated, skip down to Metrics Definitions below.

Funnel Stages

For each funnel stage we give you the number of Customers (or visitors) and the channel to which they have been attributed, along with the change compared to the previous period.

Depending on the stage, we also provide average conversion time, conversion rate and revenue. For the full detail on how each of these metrics are calculated, skip down to Metrics Definitions below.

First Visit

This funnel stage includes first time visitors for the current cohort (selected time period). Repeat visits are not counted here, only the first visit. For more information, read our introduction to Tracking.

Registered

Out of the  visitors in the first stage, this stage includes visitors who then went on to register as a Customer. Remember that this cohort only includes Customers who were first seen in the selected time period (i.e. only Customers who have passed through the First Visit stage within the selected time period).

For more information on what we mean by Registered, read our introduction to Tracking.

1st Purchase

This stage includes visitors first seen in the selected period, who have gone on to both Register and make their first purchase. It doesn't matter when the first purchase was made: it could be in the cohort time period or months later. Also, we count an order as a purchase when the Customer pays for the order.

2nd Purchase

This stage includes visitors first seen in the selected period, who have gone on to both Register and make exactly two purchases (no more and no less). It doesn't matter when the purchases were made: it could be in the cohort time period or months later. Also, we count an order as a purchase when the Customer pays for the order.

3rd+ Purchase

This stage includes visitors first seen in the selected period, who have gone on to both Register and make three or more purchases. It doesn't matter when the purchases were made: it could be in the cohort time period or months later. Also, we count an order as a purchase when the Customer pays for the order.

Metrics Definitions

Remember that all of the information on this view relates only to the Customers in the selected cohort.