Flow visualizations help you understand the journey stemming from or leading up to a specific conversion event on your website or your app. It traces a path through your dimensions (and dimension items) or metrics.
Flow visualizations let you configure the start or end of the path you are interested in, or analyze all paths that flow through a dimension or dimension item.
Add a blank panel to your project, select the Visualizations icon in the left rail, then drag the Flow visualization into the panel.
Or
Add a visualization in any of the ways described in the “Add visualizations to a panel” section in Visualizations overview.
Anchor your Flow visualization using one of the following options:
Each of these categories is shown onscreen as a “drop zone.” You can populate the drop zone in 3 ways:
Calculated metrics cannot be used in the Starts with or Ends with fields.
If you choose a metric, you also need to provide a Pathing Dimension to use as your path leading to or going from your selected component, as shown here. The default is Page.
(Optional) Select Show advanced settings to configure any of the following options:
Setting | Description |
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Wrap labels | Normally, the labels on the Flow elements are truncated to save screen real estate, but you can make the entire label visible by checking this box. Default = unchecked. |
Include repeat instances | Flow visualizations are based on instances of a dimension. This setting gives you the option to include or exclude repeated instances, e.g. Page reloads. However, repeats cannot be removed from Flow visualizations that include multi-valued dimensions, such as listVars, listProps, s.product, merchandising eVars, etc. This option is disabled by default. |
Limit to first/last occurrence | Limit paths to those that start/end with the first/last occurrence of a dimension/item/metric. See the section below, Example scenario for ‘limit to first/last occurrence’, for a more detailed explanation. |
Number of columns | The number of columns you want in your Flow diagram. You can specify a maximum of 5 columns. |
Items expanded per column | The number of items you want in each column. You can specify a maximum of 10 items expanded per column. |
Flow container |
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The combination of Number of columns and Items expanded per column determine the number of underlying requests required to create the flow visualization. The higher those numbers, the longer it takes to render a visualization.
Select Build.
Example: Suppose that you want to trace the path that users took both to and from the most popular pages on your site.
To do this, you would
A summary of the Flow configuration appears at the top of the diagram. The paths in the diagram are proportional. Paths with more activity appear thicker.
To drill down further into the data, you have several options:
The flow diagram is interactive. Mouse over the diagram to change the details that are shown.
When you click on a node in the diagram, the details for that node appear. Click on the node again to collapse it.
You can filter a column to display only certain results, such as including and excluding, specifying criteria, etc.
Click the plus sign (+) on the left to expand a column.
Use the right-click options explained below to further customize the output.
Click the pencil icon next to the configuration summary to further edit the flow or rebuild it with different options.
You can also export and further analyze your Flow diagram as part of a project’s .CSV file by going to Project > Download CSV.
Above each column, a filter appears when you hover over it. By clicking the filter, you get the same filter dialog that exists in the Freeform table today. This filter works the same as it does in the Freeform table.
Option | Description |
---|---|
Focus on this node | Change the focus to the selected node. The focus node appears at the center of the Flow diagram. |
Start over | Returns you to the Freeform diagram builder, where you can build a new Flow diagram. |
Create filter for this path | Create a filter. This takes you into the Filter Builder, where you can configure the new filter. |
Breakdown | Break the node down by available Dimensions, Metrics, or Time. |
Filter column | The same filter options appear as are available in the Freeform table. For more information about the available options, see the section “Apply a simple or advanced filter to a table” in Filter and sort tables. |
Exclude item/Restore excluded items | Removes a specific node from the column and automatically creates it as a filter at the top of the column. To restore the excluded item, right-click again and select Restore Excluded Item. you can also open the filter at the top of the column and remove the pillbox with the item you just excluded. |
Trend | Create a trended diagram for the node. |
Show next column / Show previous column | Reveals the next (right) or previous (left) column of the visualization. |
Hide column | Hides the selected column from the visualization. |
Expand entire column | Expand a column to show all nodes. By default, only the top five nodes display. |
Create audience from selection | Creates an audience based on the column that is selected. |
Collapse entire column | Hide all nodes in a column. |
When using this option, keep in mind that:
Example series of events:
Home > Products > Add to cart > Products > Add to Cart > Billing > Order Confirmation
If “Limit to first/last occurrence” is disabled, then this single series of events would count 2 occurrences of “Add to Cart”.
Expected Flow Output:
“Add to Cart” (2) —> “Products” (1)
-> “Billing” (1)
However, if “Limit to first/last occurrence” is enabled, only the first occurrence of “Add to cart” would be included in the analysis.
Expected Flow Output:
“Add to Cart” (1) —> “Products” (1)
If Limit to first/last occurrence is disabled, then this single series of events would count 2 occurrences of “Add to Cart”.
Expected Flow Output:
“Products” (2) <— “Add to cart” (2)
However, if Limit to first/last occurrence is enabled, only the last occurrence of Add to cart would be included in the analysis.
Expected Flow Output:
“Products” (1) <— “Add to cart” (1)