Funnel Reports: How to Build, Utilize, and Interpret Them Effectively

To understand a business, you need good data. But just having data isn’t enough. You need to interpret it, find useful insights, and make sure others understand it too.

This is true for marketing and sales funnels. Funnel reports help you see trends over time or focus on specific stages. Alternatively, you can drill down into the contacts that entered a given stage in the specific time period. Or, you can do both at once to develop a truly comprehensive report that covers all the relevant information.

The quality of a report depends on the metrics you choose and how you present them. Modern tools make it easy to customize dashboards and reports. This helps you see the customer journey clearly and fix any issues quickly.

This article will help you build high-quality funnel reports by covering the following:

• What Is a Funnel Report?
• Types of Funnel Reports
• Reporting for the Inbound Marketing Funnel
• Reporting for the Outbound Sales Funnel
• Benefits of Using a Sales Funnel Report
• Interpreting Your Marketing Funnel Metrics
• Funnel Reporting in HubSpot
• Funnel Reporting in Google Analytics 4 (GA4)
• Funnel Reporting in Mixpanel
• Free Funnel Report Templates
• Differences Between Marketing and Sales Funnels
• Take Your Marketing and Sales Funnel Reports to the Next Level

What Is a Funnel Report? 

A funnel report shows how a prospective customer discovered your brand and what led them to either complete the funnel to conversion or abandon it.

Funnel reporting provides valuable insights into the effectiveness of your marketing efforts, the number and demographic of people coming into the funnel, and conversion rates. It also helps you better understand lead generation and sales, revealing how many leads are being generated and how many reach the end of the funnel (e.g., subscribing, signing contracts, or making purchases).

Overall, a well-made funnel report allows you to develop a more effective contact-to-conversion pipeline, build better systems, and address any flaws in the current structure. For tips on improving your funnel conversion rate, check out this guide by Databox.

Types of Funnel Reports

There are several types of funnel reports that businesses can use to analyze their marketing and sales processes:

Contacts, Deals, or Company Funnel

This type of funnel report tracks how contacts, deals, or companies move through various stages of your sales process. It helps identify where prospects are dropping off and which stages are most effective.

Inbound Marketing Funnel

An inbound marketing funnel report focuses on how leads are generated and nurtured through content marketing, SEO, social media, and other inbound tactics. It typically includes stages like awareness, consideration, and decision.

Outbound Marketing Funnel

This funnel report tracks the effectiveness of outbound marketing efforts such as cold calling, email campaigns, and paid advertising. It helps measure the success of these proactive outreach strategies in generating and converting leads.

Reporting for the Inbound Marketing Funnel

An inbound report covers any kind of marketing-related program, from search engine optimization (SEO), social media, content marketing, paid advertising, CTAs, webinars, sponsorships, and so on.

In order to build a report for the inbound marketing funnel, you need to identify the right metrics. For that, you should go through the entire process and compare the inbound marketing budget with the number of acquired leads and conversions.

It’s likely you’ll need the total budget, number of leads (of all types), cost per lead, cost per MQL and SQL, customer acquisition cost, revenue per customer, etc.

Figuring out the cost per lead is simple; all you have to do is divide the marketing budget with the number of leads acquired over the course of a campaign. Continue through the steps of the funnel to get the number of Marketing Qualified Leads and Sales Qualified Leads. Do note that the cost is increasing progressively.

Reporting for the Outbound Sales Funnel

Outbound reports cover activities related to sales processes like the sales team outreach to the target audience or all types of sales prospecting. Building one looks a bit different from building a report for inbound marketing. 

Normally, you start by building a list of prospects. You can make them yourself, purchase them, or generate them automatically using specialized software. In addition to the cost of the list, you need to factor in the outbound sales budget. With these items, you can check the number of positive replies, CVR, and SQLs — they can’t really be called MQLs because they didn’t come from marketing programs but sales effort.

CPO and SQL costs are a lot higher in this case, as is the cost of customer acquisition. However, if you’re still getting the same amount of money and have the same long-term value, the ratios should be fine. Beaking even during year one is fine, as you can expect to make it back in the following years.

Benefits of Using a Sales Funnel Report

Sales funnel reports offer several key benefits for businesses:

1. Identify bottlenecks: Funnel reports reveal where prospects are dropping off, allowing you to focus on improving those specific stages.
2. Optimize resource allocation: By understanding which stages are most critical, you can allocate resources more effectively to maximize conversions.
3. Improve forecasting: Funnel reports provide data that helps in more accurate sales forecasting and revenue predictions.
4. Enhance customer journey: By analyzing the funnel, you can improve the overall customer experience at each stage of their journey.
5. Measure marketing effectiveness: Funnel reports help evaluate the success of marketing campaigns in generating and nurturing leads.

Sales funnel reports reveal vital indicators about a business, such as the number of potential customers at each stage and how they change.

Solving Issues and Bottlenecks in Your Sales Funnel Report

Identifying and addressing issues in your sales funnel is crucial for improving conversion rates. Here are some common problems and solutions:

Leads Not Converting Past Qualification Stage

• Review your lead qualification criteria
• Improve lead nurturing content
• Provide more educational resources

Leads Not Converting Past Meeting Stage

• Enhance sales presentation skills
• Improve follow-up processes
• Address common objections more effectively

Leads Not Converting Past Proposal Stage

• Refine proposal creation process
• Ensure proposals are tailored to client needs
• Improve pricing strategy

Leads Spending Too Much Time in One Stage

• Implement automated follow-ups
• Set up stage duration alerts
• Review and optimize stage processes

Leads Being Neglected in Favor of Admin Tasks

• Automate administrative tasks where possible
• Implement a CRM system to manage leads efficiently
• Prioritize lead follow-up in daily schedules

How to Get the Most Out of Your Funnel Report

To maximize the value of your funnel reports:

1. Regularly review and update your funnel stages to ensure they reflect your current sales process.
2. Use cohort analysis to understand how different groups of customers move through your funnel.
3. Combine funnel data with other metrics like customer lifetime value for a more comprehensive view.
4. Set up alerts for significant changes in conversion rates at key funnel stages.
5. Use A/B testing to experiment with different approaches at each funnel stage.
6. Share funnel insights across teams to align marketing, sales, and product development efforts.

Interpreting Your Marketing Funnel Metrics

The return on investment and the cost per opportunity are your most important metrics. The costs can range from hundreds to thousands of dollars, and your model will ultimately depend on how costly your service or product is and how long you can retain your customers.

On average, you should try to go for at least 5X ROI on any marketing spend. Minimizing marketing expenses makes sense, as you have more room for quality improvement and can increase profits.

When looking at your funnel metrics, you should consider the following questions:

• Why is the ROI this high/low?
• Why is CPO this high/low?
• Is it possible to get a better conversion rate for MQL to SQL?
• Which channels are top performers?
• Which channels should you invest more in?

Answering these questions will help you understand how to optimize the funnel and provide material for further research on making the metrics look even better in the next report. Additionally, visualizing the data can make interpreting data much easier. When you can compare graphs and charts and see exact spots that are performing well or need extra attention, you’ll be able to formulate ideas and draw conclusions much more quickly.

Optimizing Your Sales Funnel

To improve your sales funnel performance:

1. Analyze drop-off points and address issues at each stage
2. Personalize content and messaging for different funnel stages
3. Implement lead scoring to focus on high-potential prospects
4. Use automation to nurture leads and maintain engagement
5. Continuously test and refine your funnel strategies

Enhancing the Customer Journey with Funnel Reports

Funnel reports can significantly improve the customer journey by:

1. Identifying pain points in the customer experience
2. Tailoring content to address specific needs at each stage
3. Streamlining the conversion process
4. Providing insights for personalized follow-ups
5. Helping create a seamless transition between marketing and sales

The Importance of Visualization in Funnel Reporting

Visual representation of funnel data is crucial because:

1. It makes complex data easily understandable
2. It highlights trends and patterns more effectively
3. It facilitates quicker decision-making
4. It improves communication of insights across teams
5. It allows for easier comparison of performance over time

Funnel Reporting in HubSpot

HubSpot is an excellent reporting tool and can be used to create funnel reports that allow you to monitor the progress of your marketing and sales teams. They can also be used to aid you in the analysis of conversion rates between stages, no matter if it’s lifecycle or a deal pipeline or in a custom event funnel.

You can build two different report types, depending on how you want to measure data and what you want to focus on. These can be either contacts that have gone through all stages or contacts that have gone through any stage(s). 

The former shows the number of contacts or deals in each stage that moved through each stage of the funnel in the designated order during a specific time period. You can use it to track a specific progression of lifecycle and deal stages.

The latter displays the number of contacts or deals that have completed any of the lifecycle or deal stages during the designated time period. This type of report is useful if you want to have a general idea about how various stages of your funnel are performing.

• When Should You Use HubSpot Funnel Reports?
• How To Build a Funnel Report in HubSpot
• How to Interpret Data from a HubSpot Funnel Report

When Should You Use HubSpot Funnel Reports? 

This depends on the type of funnel report. Ideally, you should use HubSpot funnel reports when you want more information about the funnel as a whole or some specific stage of the funnel.

How to Build a Funnel Report in HubSpot

HubSpot is fairly simple to use and creating a funnel report is a relatively simple procedure.

• First, you need to navigate to ’Reports > Reports’ and click on ’Create custom report.’
• Select ’Funnels’ from the left panel.
• Then you can select ’Contacts’ or ’Deals’ and click ’Next’ in the top right.
• You can name the report by clicking the pencil icon.

This covers the creation itself. Next, we need to set up filters and customize the metrics and the appearance of the report.

• Click ’Filters’ on the upper left and select properties that will narrow down your dataset.
• Specify the date range for your report.
• NOTE: You can set up multiple filters using AND logic to narrow down records.
• Select a chart type. This can be Column, Table, or Funnel bar.
• Under ’Configure funnel,’ click the ’Add stage’ dropdown menu and select stages you want in your report. You can reorder them by dragging and dropping them and remove them by clicking x to the right.
• Pick the type of funnel report by clicking the all dropdown menu.
• Click ’Run report.’
• If you want to get a file with all the data, click ’Export’ to start the export process.
  • Select the ’File type.’
  • Enter the email address that will receive the file.
  • Click ’Export.’
• Click ’Save’ to add the report to your list of saved reports.

How to Interpret Data from a HubSpot Funnel Report 

Comparing metrics from the HubSpot funnel report will allow you to see how your funnel is performing and which stages (if any) need to be modified. You’ll be able to make the whole process more efficient and cost-effective, and allow sales reps to focus on what they do best — sales.

Funnel Reporting in Google Analytics

Google Analytics also allows you to check how your funnel is doing. With it, you’ll be able to understand task completion and abandonment by looking at the most important behavioral metrics: Bounce Rate, Goal Conversion Rate, and Click-through-rate.

A custom funnel report will help you track and analyze customer journey in Google Analytics. Like with every funnel, the journey consists of one or more stages, and each stage has one or more steps.

• When Should You Use Google Analytics Funnel Reports?
• How To Build a Funnel Report in Google Analytics
• How to Interpret Data from a Google Analytics Funnel Report

When Should You Use Google Analytics Funnel Reports? 

No matter the stage your business or project is in, tracking its performance is crucial. Using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) funnel reports allows you to understand user behavior on your website or app, improve performance, and minimize inefficient or abandoned customer journeys. Funnel reports help you visualize the steps users take towards a goal and identify where they drop off, enabling you to optimize each stage for better conversion rates.

How to Build a Funnel Report in Google Analytics 4

Creating a funnel report in GA4 involves using the Funnel Exploration feature, which provides detailed insights into how users navigate through a series of events. Here’s how to build a funnel report in GA4:

• Open Your GA4 Account and select the property for which you want to create the funnel report.
• In the left-hand menu, click on “Explore” to access the Explorations workspace.
• Create a New Funnel Exploration:
  • Click on “Funnel exploration”. If you don’t see this option immediately, you can select “Blank” to start from scratch and then set the technique to “Funnel exploration” in the setup panel.
• Name Your Report
  • At the top left, click on the default title “Untitled exploration” and give your report a descriptive name, such as “My First GA4 Funnel”.
• Define the Steps in Your Funnel
  • In the “Steps” section of the configuration panel on the right, click on the pencil icon to edit the steps.
  • For each step in your funnel:
    • Step Name: Enter a clear, descriptive name for the step (e.g., “Product View”, “Add to Cart”, “Begin Checkout”, “Complete Purchase”).
    • Condition: Define the condition that represents the step by selecting an event or page view. You can use predefined events or custom events you’ve set up in GA4.
      • Click “Add new condition” and select the parameter (e.g., event_name, page_location).
      • Set the operator (e.g., equals, contains) and specify the value (e.g., purchase, /checkout).
    • Sequence Options: Choose whether steps should occur in order:
      • “Immediately follows”: The step must occur right after the previous one without any other intervening events.
      • “Directly follows”: The step follows the previous one, but other events may occur in between.
      • “Occurs in any order”: Steps can occur in any sequence.
  • Add as many steps as necessary to represent your funnel stages.
• Configure Additional Settings
  • Time Window: Set the time frame within which users must complete the funnel (e.g., “Within 30 minutes”, “Within 7 days”).
  • Funnel Type:
    • “Closed funnel”: Only includes users who entered at the first step.
    • “Open funnel”: Includes users who entered at any step.
• Apply Segments (Optional)
  • In the “Segments” panel on the left, you can add segments to focus on specific user groups (e.g., new users, mobile users).
  • Drag and drop the desired segment into the “Segment comparisons” area.
• Apply the Report
  • Once you’ve configured the steps and settings, click “Apply” to generate the funnel visualization.
  • The funnel chart will display in the main workspace, showing user progression through each step.
• Customize the Visualization (Optional)
  • Use the “Visualization” options to adjust how the funnel appears.
    • Choose between “Standard funnel” and “Trended funnel” to see data over time.
    • Enable “Show elapsed time” to view the time users take between steps.
  • Adjust other settings like date range and filters to refine your report.

How to Interpret Data from a Google Analytics Funnel Report

GA4 provides a clear visual breakdown of funnel performance with numerical data, showing customer drop-offs, completion rates, and abandonment points. This helps you quickly identify where users exit the funnel and which stages need optimization.

To act on this data you can:

• First, you can create segments based on stage criteria and then apply them throughout Analytics to gain a better understanding of what led to the behavior shown in that stage.
• Second, you can create remarketing audiences — this allows you to pick users who did not complete a specified stage and automatically run a Remarketing Campaign in Google Ads to target them.

Funnel Reporting in Mixpanel

Mixpanel’s Funnels allow you to explore how users perform events in a series. You can use this function to calculate how many users convert from one stage to another with a specific timeframe. That way, you can identify where users drop off, which steps have the highest conversion rate, and other important factors related to the customer journey.

Mixpanel’s Funnels report measures the conversion rate of a series of events, including unique users, total conversions, and total sessions, and can track the time to convert and frequency of events between steps.

• When Should You Use Mixpanel Funnel Reports?
• How To Build a Funnel Report in Mixpanel
• How to Interpret Data from a Mixpanel Funnel Report

When Should You Use Mixpanel Funnel Reports?

As a rule, you should use Mixpanel Funnel reporting if you want to answer some important questions about your business and how your funnel is performing. Questions like:

• What departments complete the payment funnel most often?
• At what step of the funnel did most users drop off?
• How did the A/B test impact conversions in the funnel?
• What percent of users converted through your signup funnel within seven days?
• How long does it take for the majority of users to complete your payment funnel?

How to Build a Funnel Report in Mixpanel

Mixpanel uses loose ordering to calculate conversions. That means that a customer must complete all the steps designated in the funnel. They can complete them in any order and can take actions in between, and it will count as a conversion. But if they miss a single step (even if they do make a purchase in the end) it will not be counted as a conversion.

In order to build a report in Mixpanel first, you need to choose events. They are the basic elements of a Funnels report.

• Within the ’Steps’ section, add one event for each step in the funnel
• Set up ’Filters’ to exclude unwanted data
• Choose ’Breakdowns’ to segment data into groups

How to Interpret Data from a Mixpanel Funnel Report

Mixpanel can provide multiple visualizations that can help you interpret the data. The information will be segmented depending on your choices when creating the report.

The Funnel Steps chart displays the percentage of customers converted to the following step of the funnel.

• The Funnel Trend chart will show you changes in the conversion rate over time [while]
• Time to Convert will allow you to view how long it takes for a user to convert.
• The Frequency chart will display how many times users complete a stage before abandoning the funnel or converting.

Free Funnel Report Templates

Do you want free funnel report templates that will make the whole process much easier? Databox has your back. We created a wide range of sales funnel dashboards that track a variety of metrics and allow for one-click integration with some of the most popular sales and marketing tools.

In addition, lead generation dashboards will help you track the most common lead generation metrics and KPIs. With just a few clicks, you’ll be able to analyze your lead generation performance and gather information that will help you improve your process. 

With these dashboards, you’ll have no trouble generating actionable reports, leading to better ROI and increased overall efficiency.

Here are some useful free funnel report templates from Databox:

• Basic HubSpot Marketing Funnel Dashboard
• Hubspot Full Funnel Analysis Dashboard
• Ecommerce Full Funnel Dashboard
• Top of Funnel Website Performance Dashboard
• HubSpot CRM Sales Funnel Dashboard
• HubSpot Marketing & Sales Basics Dashboard
• HubSpot Marketing Funnel Report

Basic HubSpot Marketing Funnel Dashboard

You can use this HubSpot Marketing Funnel dashboard to get a holistic overview of your marketing funnel and gain insight into what happens at each stage. It covers the most important metrics like new contacts, new MQLs, new customers, and many more. It will allow you to monitor the progress of your prospects through the funnel and help you understand how the funnel is performing.

HubSpot Full Funnel Analysis Dashboard

This is funnel analysis dashboard provides full information drawn from HubSpot metrics. You can easily understand how your marketing and sales teams are working together, check which stages of the funnel aren’t performing well, and develop an actionable plan to help your leads along. 

It allows for one-click integration with both HubSpot Marketing and HubSpot CRM and provides information about new contacts, new leads, sessions, deals created, new SQLs and MQLs, etc. The dashboard will help you figure out where you should focus your effort and provide a starting point on how to fix any existing issues.

Ecommerce Full Funnel Dashboard

Here’s a free ecommerce full funnel dashboard template that will help you learn how each stage of your funnel is performing. You’ll get unique insights into your funnel data, and key metrics will inform you which parts of the conversion funnel need to be optimized.

If you connect your Google Analytics, Google Ads, Facebook Ads, and Mailchimp account, you’ll understand how effective your campaigns are when it comes to moving prospects through the funnel and how to optimize costs at each stage and channel.

Top of Funnel Website Performance Dashboard

With this customizable top of funnel website performance dashboard, you can gain valuable insight and a full understanding of user acquisition and behavior on your website. 

The data is pulled from Google Analytics and HubSpot Marketing platforms allowing you to learn what pages on your site received the most page views, the average amount of time users spend on any given webpage, what devices are they browsing from, and how to access key information about website’s visitors.

HubSpot CRM Sales Funnel Overview Dashboard

Using this HubSpot CRM sales funnel overview dashboard will allow you to track the overall health of your sales campaigns. You’ll be able to quickly measure your sales pipeline, deals won vs. lost, top sales performers, funnel revenue, and more.

Thanks to Databox’s deep integration with HubSpot CRM, you’ll be able to pull even more metrics and learn almost anything about leads, sales, and revenue.

HubSpot Marketing & Sales Basics Dashboard

If you want to ensure your marketing and sales funnels are operating at their peak, you need actionable information from reliable sources. This HubSpot marketing and sales basics dashboard template will give you all that information and more. It directly integrates with HubSpot Marketing and HubSpot CRM, and you’ll be able to quickly measure marketing’s impact on sales and the efficiency of your sales funnel.

HubSpot Marketing Funnel Report

You can use this HubSpot Marketing Funnel dashboard to provide information to marketing and sales teams about their conversion rates. In addition, it will provide you with a clear view of the full funnel and a detailed analysis of day-to-day information based on the time contacts enter different funnel stages.

Differences Between Marketing and Sales Funnels

While marketing and sales funnels are closely related, they have distinct characteristics:

Top of Funnel (TOFU)

• Marketing: Focuses on awareness and attracting potential customers
• Sales: Concentrates on initial contact and qualification

Middle of Funnel (MOFU)

• Marketing: Emphasizes lead nurturing and education
• Sales: Involves deeper engagement and needs assessment

Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)

• Marketing: Provides decision-making content and final push
• Sales: Focuses on closing deals and overcoming objections

Understanding these differences helps in aligning marketing and sales efforts for a more cohesive customer journey.

Take Your Marketing and Sales Funnel Reports to the Next Level

Understanding how your funnels are performing is essential if you want to improve performance in both the long and short term. In order to get the information you need, you need to be able to extract data from data sources and then collect it into a useful report.

Fortunately, there are tools that can significantly speed up the whole process. With Databox, you’ll be able to build high-quality reports in just a few clicks. 

And it gets even better than that.

Thanks to over 120 integration options, you’ll be able to pull data from practically any source. Pre-built, customizable templates allow you to tailor your reports in any way you see fit. Bring focus to your top metrics and collect dashboards into comprehensive reports about how your funnel is doing, which stages are performing well, and which need to be optimized for better conversion.

Sign up for Databox now and start building informative and actionable funnel reports that will help your business develop in the best way possible.