Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is replacing Universal Analytics (GA3). To prepare everyone for the change, I’ve created a series of blog posts to help users understand the difference between the two versions. Today’s post is a brief comparison of the Funnel report and the Path Exploration report in GA4. Both reports provide you with insight into a customer’s journey throughout your website; however, there are times when it’s better to use one report over the other.

9 Reasons to Use the Path Explorations Report 

1. I want to learn more about the customer journey in general, regardless of whether someone completes the action I want them to complete. 
2. I want to see when someone starts and ends a session throughout their journey on my website. 
3. I have a specific ending point I want for a user, but not necessarily a specific starting point. 
4. I want to learn about the wide variety of paths someone took to complete a desired action. 
5. I have a specific starting point I want for a user, but not necessarily a specific ending point. 
6. When looking at how a user progresses through the website, I want to easily switch between visualizations of different breakdowns. 
7. I want to see the count of events, not just active users. If one user completes an event twenty times, that’s okay with me. 
8. I want to compare how the total users progress through the website and compare it to active users. I realize this may include some bot traffic.
9. I want to see where someone goes on my website whenever they’re not completing the action I want them to.

9 Reasons to Use the Funnel Report 

1. I have a specific list of actions I want a user to complete in a specific order. 
2. I want to quantify drop offs in a multi-step process by pulling metrics such as abandonment rate and completion rate. 
3. The analytics terminology sometimes loses me – I want to change the name of “Step 3” to “Fill Out Name” in my report. 
4. I want to understand how drop off in a multi-step process differs between session campaigns. 
5. I want to understand how drop off in a multi-step process differs between session sources. 
6. I want to understand how drop off in a multi-step process differs between first acquisition campaigns. 
7. I want to see the time elapsed between each step in a multi-step process, even though it may extend beyond one session. 
8. I want to timebox my desired actions – I only care about people that went from Step 1 to Step 2 in a certain about of time. 
9. I want to see an exact date that drop offs in a multi-step process sharply increased or decreased.

Summary

The Path Exploration report and the Funnel report have a lot of overlapping features. Still, it’s important to know why you default to using one report instead of the other. GA4 is continuously rolling out new features. Check back for updates or dive into other comparisons of Universal Analytics and GA4.