How to Create a Funnel Chart in Google Analytics with AI

A funnel chart is one of the most powerful ways to visualize how users move through a series of steps on your website, but getting one out of Google Analytics has always been a bit complicated. We'll show you how to build a clear, actionable funnel chart using GA4’s built-in tools and then demonstrate a much faster, AI-powered way to get the same insights without the manual hassle.

What Exactly Is a Funnel Chart Anyway?

Think of a funnel chart as a map of your customer’s journey. It helps you see where people are successfully moving from one stage to the next and, more importantly, where they're dropping off.

For an e-commerce store, a classic marketing funnel might look like this:

Step 1: Saw a product on a category page (view_item_list)
Step 2: Clicked a specific product (view_item)
Step 3: Added the product to their cart (add_to_cart)
Step 4: Started the checkout process (begin_checkout)
Step 5: Completed the purchase (purchase)

A funnel chart visualizes this process, typically as a series of bars that get smaller at each step. The initial bar represents 100% of the users who started the first step. The second bar shows the percentage of that initial group who made it to the second step, and so on. The space between the bars represents the "leak" or "drop-off" - the people who didn't continue.

This visualization instantly tells you things like:

"We lose 70% of our customers between adding an item to their cart and starting checkout. Is our cart page broken?"
"Only 5% of people who view a product actually add it to their cart. Are our product descriptions compelling enough?"
"Our B2B lead funnel looks great until the 'Request a Demo' step, where we see a huge drop-off. Is the form too long or intrusive?"

Without a funnel, you're just looking at disconnected metrics. With one, you're looking at a story - the story of what it takes for a customer to convert.

How to Manually Create a Funnel Chart in Google Analytics 4

In the days of Universal Analytics, creating funnels was rigid and limited. Google Analytics 4 gives us a much more powerful and flexible tool called "Funnel exploration" in the Exploration reports section. It takes time to get used to, but it's where you can build custom funnels to match your specific user journey.

Here’s how to do it, step-by-step.

Step 1: Navigate to the Exploration Reports

Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property. In the left-hand navigation menu, click on Explore. This will take you to the Explorations hub, where you can create detailed, custom reports that aren't available in the standard reporting interface.

Step 2: Create a New Funnel Exploration

In the Explorations hub, you'll see a template gallery. Click on the box that says Funnel exploration. This will open a new, unsaved exploration report with a pre-configured, generic funnel that you can now customize.

Step 3: Configure Your Funnel Steps

This is the most important part. On the left side of the screen, you’ll see the "Tab Settings" column. Find the section labeled "Steps." This is where you'll define your funnel.

Click the pencil icon to edit the steps. You can remove the default steps and start fresh. For each step, you need to provide:

A name for the step (e.g., "Viewed Product").
The event that defines this step (e.g., view_item).

As you type in the event field, GA4 will suggest recognized events. You need to know the exact names of the events your site uses. For a standard e-commerce site with proper GA4 ecommerce tracking, the events are usually:

Step 1: view_item (User views a product details page)
Step 2: add_to_cart (User clicks the "Add to Cart" button)
Step 3: begin_checkout (User starts the checkout flow)
Step 4: purchase (User completes the purchase successfully)

You can add more steps by clicking "Add step." You can also specify the time between steps - for example, if you want to see who added to cart within 5 minutes of viewing a product. Once you have defined all your steps, click Apply in the top-right corner.

Step 4: Analyze the Funnel Visualization

GA4 will now generate the funnel chart based on the steps you defined. You'll see the traditional bar chart showing the number of users at each stage and the completion rate from the previous step.

Below the chart, there’s a data table that breaks it down even further, showing you the exact number of users and the drop-off rate at each stage. This table is super useful for seeing where your biggest leaks are.

Tip: Use Dimensions to Dig Deeper

The standard funnel is a great starting point, but the real power comes from segmenting it. In the "Variables" column, you can add "Breakdowns" using dimensions. Drag-and-drop a dimension like Device category or Session source / medium into the "Breakdown" area under "Tab Settings."

Now, your funnel chart will segment the data by that dimension. You can compare the funnel performance for mobile users versus desktop users, or see if traffic from Google organic search converts better than traffic from Facebook ads. Maybe you'll find that mobile users add to cart at the same rate, but abandon checkout twice as often - a clear signal that your mobile checkout experience needs work.

The Challenges of Building Funnels Manually

While the GA4 Exploration reports are powerful, they come with a learning curve that can be steep for marketers, founders, and anyone who isn't a dedicated data analyst.

Technical Knowledge Required: You need to know the precise names of your GA4 events. If you type "added_to_cart" instead of add_to_cart, your report won't work.
Slow and Click-Heavy: Building a funnel report, adding breakdowns, and refining the steps involves a lot of clicks and page reloads. Answering a simple follow-up question ("How does this look for Canadian traffic?") requires you to go back, add another dimension, and wait for the report to regenerate.
Not Intuitive for Beginners: The interface isn't always user-friendly. Understanding the difference between variables, tab settings, breakouts, and filters can feel like learning a whole new piece of software - because it is. For many, this process turns into a half-day of looking up YouTube tutorials to perform a five-minute analysis.

The AI Shortcut: Creating Funnel Charts with Simple Questions

Instead of manually learning a complex interface and clicking through dozens of settings, there's a simpler way: just ask for what you want in plain English. This is where AI-powered analytics tools come in, completely changing the game for data reporting.

Picture this workflow: instead of digging through the GA4 Exploration hub, you connect your Google Analytics account to an AI data platform. Then, you simply type a question like:

Create a funnel chart from people who viewed a product to making a purchase for last month.

The AI understands your intent. It knows that "people who viewed a product" corresponds to the view_item event, and "making a purchase" corresponds to the purchase event. It automatically identifies the common steps in between (add_to_cart, begin_checkout) and instantly generates the exact funnel visualization you need.

Asking More Complex Questions Becomes Easy

The real advantage appears when you want to dig deeper. Instead of going back and adding filters manually, you just ask a follow-up question in the same conversational chat.

You can start with a simple funnel, look at the results, and then immediately refine your analysis:

Initial Prompt: "Show a funnel of users going from session start to purchase."
Follow-up #1: "Now, break this down by device category." The AI would rebuild the chart showing separate funnel lines for mobile, desktop, and tablet.
Follow-up #2: "Just show me the funnel for USA traffic from Google Ads." Again, the report updates in seconds.
Follow-up #3: "Make this a line chart and show me the trend for the last 90 days."

This approach moves you from a "report builder" to a "data investigator." You are no longer spending your mental energy on how to build the chart, you're focused entirely on the questions you want to answer. This democratizes data analysis, taking it out of the hands of highly trained specialists and giving access to anyone on the team who is curious.

Final Thoughts

Learning to build funnel reports directly in GA4 is a valuable skill that gives you a granular understanding of user behavior. You can use the Exploration tool to define custom steps and segment your audience to find a wealth of information about how visitors navigate your site. However, this manual approach takes time and a certain level of technical fluency.

For teams who want answers faster, this is where we built Graphed to help. By securely connecting your Google Analytics account in just a few clicks, we let you use plain, natural language to get the insights you need. Asking Graphed to show me the conversion funnel for my holiday campaign traffic gives you an instant, live-updating dashboard without you needing to know a single GA4 event name. This turns hours of manual report building into a 30-second conversation, giving you back the time to act on the data instead of just looking for it.