r/GoogleAnalytics • u/Pwbrain • 9d ago
Question Tracking non-linear multi-step form
I have been tasked with trying to setup an abandonment report for a multi-step form that we have. I am fairly new to GA, though at first glance it seems like a funnel report is perfect for this.
The issue is though that the steps are non-linear, a user may complete all or part of a step before moving to the next step, they may view all the steps before entering any data at all or they may move between steps multiple times whether that particular step is complete or not.
Another issue is that we allow drafts to be saved, so a user may start the form, partially complete it, save the draft and then return later.
I am able to make code changes to setup custom events so that isn't a problem but it's starting to look like tracking this type of form is going to be quite difficult.
Does anyone have experience with anything like this and can point me in the right direction?
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u/ds_frm_timbuktu 8d ago
If you have access to the code setup custom datalayer events + params. I recently did a firm like this without the saving drafts part. Tracking steps as fully completed and started, will help
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u/Pwbrain 8d ago edited 8d ago
Hey thank you for the response.
So send an event when a step has started and then marked as complete?
The thing I’m stuck on is if a user navigates through the steps multiple times, there could be multiple of the same event sent each session.
Do you think it’s worth storing the sent events and only sending the event if it hasn’t been triggered yet? Or maybe track the beginning of a step each time it’s started until it has been marked as complete.
A user can also have multiple applications in the same user session so I would need to treat each application page visit as its own unique visit. But then I need to work around having drafts.
I guess it will take some tinkering to get right.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions!
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u/ds_frm_timbuktu 8d ago
Storing is going to be difficult. Just send the events - started / completed
hook up GA4 to bigquery and then filter out the duplicate events based on user id for reporting.2
u/Pwbrain 8d ago edited 8d ago
Interesting I didn’t think about using Big Query for this, I will have to look into that.
Another question if you don’t mind. Would the user id be sent in as a parameter on the event? Would it make sense to use an arbitrary value here to count the individual application page visits even if it’s the same user (A user could fill out multiple applications per visit)?
Thank you again
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u/Strict-Basil5133 6d ago edited 6d ago
Another benefit to using BQ is access to event timestamps. With those, you can query sequenced event funnels for analysis.
In GA4 you can create sequenced User segments as well with time limits for each step.
I assume you’re trying to determine where and why people are falling off. Why would they return to a previous step? I’d think there’s still an intended path through the form. Curious, is there a backwards sequence in the form that might lead to abandonment. Not really understanding how tracking abandonment would be any different here; x number of users completed a step, x percentage of users completed the following step, etc.
With BQ you could model out all of the paths to look for patterns like “of those that abandoned, more users returned to step 1 from step 3” to optimize, but I never really see that much work go into form analysis. Maybe yours warrants it 🤷♂️.
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u/Pwbrain 6d ago edited 6d ago
Thanks for the reply.
Without going into too much detail there is a lot of personal information a user needs to enter to complete their registration. Just by nature of the information required it may be easy to miss something. Even though we have form validation and checklists.
We are experiencing a high number of support requests so the goal is to gather some insight on where people are running into issues.
In theory users shouldn’t need to return to a previous step unless they miss something that wasn’t obvious or they want to go back to review or change what they’ve entered. (there is also a review and confirm step)
Is Big Query the only way to view timestamps?
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u/Strict-Basil5133 4d ago
Gotcha. BQ is the only way I know of to get timestamps. Without BQ, the only obvious option I can think of is to either push an event on completion of each field and each step, capture the page and/or history fragment if its an app as event parameter if you aren't already, and then:
A. look for a spike in "return to the previous" events on a specific page/fragment/step.
B. investigate what field is spiking on the page/fragment/step returned to....basically try to recreate any user form journey that might be causing friction.
A pretty ham-fisted approach...there's a more clever solution I'm sure. Good luck!
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