January 2, 2014

What does a drop off in a Google Analytics Visitor Flow Report mean?

This visitor flow of an older Zimana website reveals how people can even skip over a page to get to a conversion point (contact page)

This visitor flow of an older Zimana website reveals how people can even skip over a page to get to a conversion point (contact page)

"Drop off" reflects the page on which visitor left an identified "Visitors Flow" - the intended flow of your traffic - and went down a path different than the Visitors Flow. In taking this action, the visitor either clicked a link on your website that doesn't correspond with your Visitors Flow or they left your site altogether. The point is that they diverged from the "Visitors Path" as visualized and presented in GA (goals).

The takeaway from this detail is that a "drop off" indicate where your Visitor's Flow has holes through which people are "dropping off". The business value depends on how the site content is arranged. You may have some content on a page that visitors are not reaching because they exit the site before reaching it.

There is no set number, but consider common sense when determining if too many visitors are leaving the page. A small percentage is an inevitable, but if a large percentage is dropping off, the content or pages should be rearranged to make important information more prominent and more visible.

17 comments on “What does a drop off in a Google Analytics Visitor Flow Report mean?”

    1. Hi Stu,

      The drop off report focuses on navigation. A person reached the page, spent some time on it, and exited the site. It gives a idea of which pages visitors are navigating towards, and indicates what content is gaining regular visibility.

      Thanks for taking the time to ask your excellent question!
      -P

    1. Thanks for the suggestion about the drop off suggestions. A new follow up post is being created and will link to this - seeing if a few alerts or custom report ideas are a fit for this. Thank you, and certainly, stay tuned!

      -P

  1. The visitor flow and drop-off rate are interesting, because it shows the interest visitors have towards your content. Bounce rate shows the interest towards the site through a page... of course, that's different.

  2. The drop offs per cent could also increase if your site contains severa links to other websites. For eg. in case of recaptoday.com, the website contains 10-12 links in almost every post.

  3. Nice Post! Pdebois. I am new in the website business. I do not understand these technical terms. I want to improve searchibility of my site. Does drop off rate links to page ranking? Does it drop page ranking? My site http://www.jyotishstudy.in has too many broken links bcoz the site is currently under construction. I want to know when i complete my site fully will it improve drop-off rate?

  4. on my site people reached to my donation page and then drop off occurs. i m confused about their next step either they go to Paypal site to donate us or just leave my site without any payment..

  5. If you have a commerce site, and the person drops off on the final checkout page, can't it also mean they purchased and left?

  6. It simply defines that your content is not relevant for users need, what he came for,. to give it a quick fix try to rearrange your content or add some new information and services to it, that the particular page is being searched or visited for.

  7. I was unaware of this term from Google Analytics. Thanks for sharing this article with us and providable valuable information.

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