What Is a Funnel Report: Types + Key Metrics to Include

Every customer journey starts with the first step: awareness. Moving someone from discovering your company to becoming a customer means guiding them down the sales funnel. But how can you assess this process? 

A funnel report gives you actionable insights into how well your marketing and sales efforts are converting leads into customers by breaking down metrics like the number of potential customers entering your sales pipeline, conversion rates at all funnel steps, and where your leads get stuck in the sales process.

Here’s what a funnel report can tell you about your sales funnel performance, the key metrics to include, and the benefits of regularly running these reports.

What is a funnel report?

A funnel report shows how well customers move through the sequential sales funnel stages: awareness (top of the funnel), consideration (middle of the funnel), and conversion (bottom of the funnel). It gives you a better understanding of how people discover your company, what actions they take along the way, and where they drop off before converting. 

You can create funnel reports in your customer relationship management (CRM) platform or using analytics and reporting tools like HubSpot or Google Analytics.

It’s important to distinguish a sales funnel from a marketing funnel—these are not interchangeable terms. A sales funnel focuses on turning potential customers into buyers, whereas a marketing funnel includes post-conversion stages of loyalty and advocacy. 

Metrics to include in a funnel report

To understand how well your sales efforts are performing, include these key metrics in your custom funnel reports:

• User acquisition/new leads. This refers to how many potential customers enter your conversion funnel within a defined period, such as people who view an ad or land on your site before converting. You can set a specific date range, for instance, to measure how many new leads your last marketing campaign generated.

• Lead attrition. Lead attrition measures the percentage of users who don’t progress to the next sales funnel stage. Identifying where prospects drop off helps pinpoint friction points in your sales pipeline.

• Cost per lead (CPL). This metric shows you how much you spend to attract a new potential customer. Benchmarks vary by industry, with business-to-business (B2B) CPL typically higher than business-to-consumer (B2C).

• Lead quality. Lead quality estimates the potential value of new leads. For example, a newsletter sign-up may represent lower intent to purchase than a lead who clicks an ad for one of your big-ticket items.

• Conversion rate.Conversion rate shows how effectively customers move through funnel stages, including completing a purchase. Data from Shopify analytics app LittleData shows the average conversion rate for Shopify stores is 1.4%—anything above 3.2% places you in the top 20% of Shopify stores benchmarked.

• Total revenue. This metric shows how much revenue your funnel generates within a certain time frame, such as the past quarter or fiscal year.

• Average deal time. This metric tracks how long it takes leads to move from initial entry to conversion. Breaking this down by funnel stage can reveal delays that slow overall performance.

Types of funnel reports

• Inbound marketing
• Outbound marketing
• Next-step conversions
• Funnel trend visualization

Funnel reports can contain different types of information, depending on which aspects of customer behavior you want to understand. Some reports focus on how prospects enter your funnel, while others examine movement between specific stages or performance changes over time. 

Applying these different analytical views helps evaluate how effectively your business attracts prospects, moves them through the funnel, and converts them into customers. 

Inbound marketing

An inbound marketing funnel report focuses on how customers enter your sales funnel through organic channels such as content marketing (like blogs and whitepapers), organic social media, and unpaid search engine results (SERPs). 

This type of report shows how well inbound marketing efforts are working to generate new leads at the top of your funnel, and how these leads progress toward conversion. For example, you can use an inbound marketing funnel report to see if popular posts on your Instagram result in more leads, or whether your blog content encourages actions like newsletter sign-ups or loyalty program enrollment.

An inbound marketing funnel report typically includes:

• New leads. Tracks how prospects reach the awareness stage of your sales funnel through channels like organic search and social media.

• Content engagement metrics. Measures how users interact with inbound content designed to move them from awareness to consideration.

• Conversion rates. Shows how organic content and SEO tactics contribute to movement between funnel stages and ultimately to conversion.

Outbound marketing

Outbound marketing funnel reports analyze how prospects move through your sales funnel when your company initiates contact through cold calling, direct mailers, paid ad campaigns, or other methods. 

This type of funnel report provides insight into the performance of your marketing and sales team, showing whether their outreach methods are moving potential customers from initial contact to conversion.

An outbound marketing funnel report typically includes:

• New leads. Measures the number of potential customers generated through outreach and advertising.

• Ad engagement metrics. Tracks engagement indicators like click-through rates to assess how prospects respond to ad campaigns.

• Cost per acquisition (CPA). Shows how much you spend on outbound marketing to acquire each new customer.

Next-step conversions

A next-step conversion funnel report focuses on conversion rates between specific funnel stages, such as getting customers from awareness to consideration or from consideration to purchase.

This type of report helps identify where users drop out of the purchasing process so you can make adjustments to improve performance.

For example, if a funnel report shows a significant drop-off between the consideration and conversion deal stages, you can investigate and identify bottlenecks and pain points. Maybe your sales team isn’t using the right closing approach with customers, or an error on your ecommerce site prevents people from completing a purchase.

Funnel trend visualizations

Funnel trend visualizations show how sales funnel performance changes over time. Using ecommerce tools like Shopify Analytics, you can track key metrics and see a visual representation of your sales funnel across different periods. Shopify provides funnel visualization by default, showing how sessions progress. Additionally, Shopify reports can help you track conversion funnel data across key stages, from landing page visits through checkout and purchase.

Viewing these stages over time helps spot recurring drop-off points and evaluate whether changes made to improve conversion rates are having the intended effect. 

You can also connect Shopify Analytics data with external reporting tools for visual trend analysis, including open funnel analysis (when customers enter the funnel at any stage) and closed funnel analysis (when customers follow a linear path, starting at awareness). 

Finally, Shopify’s conversion rate breakdown report can help you create visualizations of common customer paths through the funnel.

Benefits of using a funnel report

For ecommerce brands, funnel reports support growth by helping you:

• Understand why customers buy—or don’t. A funnel report reveals where customers drop off in the purchasing process, making it easier to identify bottlenecks.

• See how you acquire customers. Metrics like new leads, traffic sources, and cost per acquisition reveal how customers discover your company and what it costs to convert them.

• Assess marketing and sales effectiveness. Funnel data helps you evaluate return on investment (ROI) and return on ad spend (ROAS) from your marketing and sales efforts.

• Forecast more accurately. Historical sales data from a funnel report shows how many prospects move through each stage of the funnel and at what conversion rates, so you can project future revenue based on real‑time pipeline customer behavior instead of guesswork.