Percentages, not counts
Absolute numbers always shrink down a funnel, so they tell you nothing. The share surviving each step tells you where the loss is unusual.
Write the steps down and put a percentage next to each one. The bad step is usually obvious the first time anyone does this, which is why it is worth doing before anything else.
The worst step is rarely the last one
Attention lands on checkout because that is where money is visible. The larger loss is usually earlier, at the point where a visitor decides this is not for them.
That decision often happens before anything is clicked, which is why the step will not appear as an event unless you look for it deliberately.
Ask why the survivors survived
Numbers show where people leave. They do not say why. The fastest route to why is asking a handful of recent customers what nearly stopped them.
Five conversations will explain a number that months of dashboards will not, and they cost an afternoon.
- Which step has the worst survival rate
- Whether it is worse on phones than on desktops
- Whether it is worse for one traffic source
- What recent customers say nearly stopped them
Fix one step, then measure again
Changing several steps at once produces a number that moved for reasons nobody can identify, which teaches you nothing for next time.
One change, one cycle, one measurement. Slower in the moment and much faster over a quarter.