How to Identify Bottlenecks in Your Conversion Funnel

Your site generates traffic, but your conversions are stagnating. You invest in acquisition, but the return on investment remains disappointing. The problem probably isn’t the volume of visitors. It’s what happens between their arrival and the final conversion.

Bottlenecks in your conversion funnel are those invisible friction points where your prospects abandon. Identifying them is the first step to unlocking your growth.

What Is a Bottleneck in a Conversion Funnel?

A conversion funnel represents the complete journey of a visitor, from their first interaction to the desired action: purchase, signup, contact request. Each step in this journey can become a bottleneck.

Specifically, a bottleneck is a step where the pass-through rate drops abnormally. It’s where your prospects accumulate, hesitate, then leave.

Example with numbers:

• 10,000 visitors on the homepage
• 3,000 click through to the product page (30%)
• 800 add to cart (27%)
• 150 reach checkout (19%)
• 45 finalize the purchase (30%)

In this example, the passage from cart to checkout (19%) is the main bottleneck. That’s where 81% of interested prospects drop off.

The 5 Steps to Identify Your Bottlenecks

1. Map Your Complete Conversion Funnel

Before looking for problems, you need to visualize the entire journey. List each step a prospect goes through:

• Landing page
• Content or product pages
• Contact or signup form
• Confirmation page
• Post-conversion follow-up

For each step, note the expected action and the path to the next step. This mapping often reveals more complex journeys than expected.

Questions to ask yourself:

• How many steps separate arrival from conversion?
• Are there alternative paths?
• Are some steps optional?

2. Collect Data at Each Checkpoint

Without data, you’re navigating blind. Each step of your funnel must be measured.

Essential metrics per step:

• Number of incoming visitors
• Number of outgoing visitors (to the next step)
• Pass-through rate (outgoing / incoming)
• Time spent on the step
• Specific bounce rate

Classic analytics tools give a global view. But to understand what’s really happening on your forms, you need finer data.

With Skedox, you access analytics for each form: completion rate by field, fill time, abandonment by step. This data reveals micro-frictions invisible in Google Analytics.

3. Calculate Conversion Rates Between Each Step

Once your data is collected, calculate the pass-through rate between each consecutive step.

Formula: Pass-through rate = (Visitors at step N+1 / Visitors at step N) x 100

Create a tracking table:

Step	Visitors	Pass-through Rate
Homepage	10,000	-
Product page	3,500	35%
Contact form	1,200	34%
Submission	180	15%
Customer response	95	53%

The bottleneck jumps out: the passage from form to submission (15%) is abnormally low.

4. Compare Your Rates to Industry Benchmarks

Is a 15% rate really problematic? It depends on your sector and type of form.

Average benchmarks by conversion type:

• Simple contact form: 20-40%
• Newsletter signup: 10-25%
• B2B demo request: 8-15%
• Multi-step form: 5-12%
• E-commerce checkout: 25-40%

If your rate is significantly below the benchmark, you’ve identified a priority bottleneck.

5. Analyze the Root Causes

Identifying the bottleneck isn’t enough. You need to understand why prospects abandon at that step.

Investigation methods:

• Session recordings: observe actual user behavior. Where do they click? Where do they hesitate?
• Heatmaps: visualize attention zones and ignored areas
• Form analytics: identify which fields cause the most abandonment
• User feedback: ask visitors directly what’s blocking them

The Most Common Bottlenecks

The Too-Long Form

This is the number one bottleneck. Each additional field reduces the conversion rate by an average of 4%.

Revealing signs:

• High abandonment rate in the middle of the form
• Abnormally long fill time
• Fields left empty or filled with fake data

Solution: reduce to the strict minimum. With Skedox, create adaptive forms that only display relevant fields based on context.

The Slow-Loading Page

53% of mobile visitors leave a page that takes more than 3 seconds to load. If your conversion step is slow, you’re losing prospects before they even see your content.

Revealing signs:

• High bounce rate on a specific page
• Conversion difference between desktop and mobile
• Immediate abandonments without interaction

Solution: optimize images, minimize scripts, use performant hosting.

Lack of Trust

Visitors hesitate to share their information if nothing reassures them.

Revealing signs:

• Abandonments on sensitive fields (email, phone)
• Low click rate on the submit button
• Frequent questions about data security

Solution: add visible reassurance elements. GDPR mention, customer testimonials, trust logos, guaranteed response time.

Poor Mobile Experience

Over 60% of web traffic comes from mobile. A funnel optimized for desktop but neglected on mobile creates a major bottleneck.

Revealing signs:

• Significant conversion gap between mobile and desktop
• Mobile bounce rate 20% higher or more
• Very short mobile session time

Solution: systematically test on smartphone. Large enough buttons, adapted forms, appropriate keyboard for each field.

No Post-Form Follow-Up

The funnel doesn’t end at form submission. If your leads don’t receive a quick response, they’ll look elsewhere.

Revealing signs:

• Good submission rate but low final conversion rate
• Average response time over 24 hours
• Prospects who contact you again to check on their request status

Solution: automate immediate responses, set up real-time notifications, define a response SLA.

How to Prioritize Your Optimizations

You’ve identified several bottlenecks. Where to start?

The Impact / Effort Matrix

Classify each optimization according to two criteria:

• Potential impact: estimated conversion gain
• Required effort: time and resources needed

Priority	Impact	Effort
1 - Quick wins	High	Low
2 - Strategic projects	High	High
3 - Continuous improvements	Low	Low
4 - Avoid	Low	High

Start with quick wins: reducing a form from 8 to 4 fields takes an hour and can double your conversion rate.

Calculating Potential Gain

Quantify the impact of each optimization to prioritize objectively.

Example:

• 1,000 monthly visitors on the form
• Current rate: 10% = 100 leads
• Target rate after optimization: 15% = 150 leads
• Gain: +50 leads/month

If each lead is worth 50 euros to your business, this optimization generates an additional 2,500 euros per month.

Tools to Detect Your Bottlenecks

Basic Analytics

Google Analytics 4, Matomo, or equivalent to track overall traffic and conversions by step.

User Behavior Tools

Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity for heatmaps and session recordings.

Form Analytics

This is often the missing link. Generic tools don’t detail what happens inside a form.

Skedox integrates advanced analytics for each form: visualize completion rate by field, identify abandonments, compare performance across your different forms. All in a unified interface with your other data collection tools.

Setting Up a Continuous Optimization Process

Identifying bottlenecks isn’t a one-time exercise. It’s a recurring process.

Recommended optimization cycle:

1. Measure: collect data over at least 30 days
2. Analyze: identify priority bottlenecks
3. Hypothesize: formulate testable explanations
4. Test: implement one change at a time
5. Evaluate: measure impact over 2-4 weeks
6. Iterate: start again with the next bottleneck

Document each test and its result. These learnings accumulate valuable knowledge about your audience.

Conclusion: Bottlenecks Are Disguised Opportunities

Each bottleneck in your conversion funnel represents an improvement opportunity. A corrected friction point is a percentage of conversions recovered without investing more in acquisition.

The method is simple:

1. Map your funnel
2. Measure each step
3. Identify abnormally low rates
4. Analyze causes
5. Test solutions
6. Iterate

Don’t let your prospects evaporate along the way anymore. Start by auditing your forms: that’s often where the most impactful bottlenecks hide.

Ready to optimize your conversion funnel? Discover Skedox and access detailed analytics for your forms, feedback, and newsletter signups. One platform, all your conversion data in one place.