Follow user journeys
Last updated
A funnel tells you where people leave. Journeys show where they go instead. Use them to see how people actually move through your site or app, from page to page on the web or screen to screen in a mobile app, within a single session.
Open journeys
In your app, select Journeys. By default you see Journeys from session start: the pages people land on, and where they go next.
The chart shows the flow as ribbons between pages. The wider a ribbon, the more sessions took that route. Hover over a ribbon for its count, or switch to the table. Smaller routes are grouped as Other pages so the main ones stay readable.
Start from a page
To see where people go after a particular page:
- Type its path in Start page, for example
/pricingor/cart, and press Enter. - Or select one of the Top entry pages under the heading.
- Or select any page in the chart or table to re-centre the journey on it.
The heading changes to Journeys after the page you chose. Select the reset button next to Start page to go back to session start.
Choose how far to follow
Use the toolbar to choose how many steps to follow: 3 steps, 4 steps, 5 steps or 6 steps.
Chart or table
Choose Chart or Table in the toolbar. The table lists every move from one page to the next, step by step, with:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Step | Which move it is, such as 1 → 2 |
| From | The page people were on |
| To | The page they went to next |
| Sessions | How many sessions made that move |
| Share of From | The share of sessions on the From page that went to the To page |
Every page in the chart is a button you can reach with a keyboard, and the table has every count the chart shows on hover.
Split a journey
The date range and filters at the top work on journeys like everywhere else. Filter to people using a keyboard, people on Android, people from one campaign, or people who gave a low score in a survey, and see whether their route differs.
Filters other than source, medium, campaign and referrer apply to every page in the journey. If you filter by a page, only events on that page are kept, so the journey can come up empty. The screen explains this when it happens.
Ways to use journeys
- After a funnel drop-off. Start the journey at the step where your funnel leaks most, and see where people go instead of the next step. See funnels and goals.
- Search used as a back button. If many people go from the cart to search and straight back, the cart probably doesn't show what they came to change.
- Detours. When people take an unexpected route, open friction filtered to the page they detour to.
What journeys don't cover
- A journey covers one session. To see what happens across visits, use retention, or select a visitor on the Events screen to see their timeline.
- Journeys show pages and screens, not custom events. For a path made of events, such as "add to cart" then "apply coupon", build a funnel or a task: both accept events and pages.
- A session needs more than one page or screen to appear.
From exploring to being told
Journeys are for exploring. When a flow matters, save it as a task and protect it. If a release starts sending people the wrong way, Metrickle opens a case listing the attempts that wandered off the expected path. See protected flows.