Google Analytics Flow Visualization Date Range Comparison

The Visitors Flow report in Google Analytics, located under Standard Reporting > Audience > Visitors Flow, now allows users to compare data with past date ranges to better understand how users interact with a website over time.  The official announcement was made on the Google Analytics blog in the post entitled Better Insights with Flow Visualization Enhancements.  The following is a screenshot of how the Visitors Flow report looks before you click “Apply” to assign a comparison with a past date range.

Notice that after you click “Apply,” the flow updates with green increase percentages or red decrease percentages indicating how this data compares to the time frame you just set.

This report can help answer questions like:

What pages on what paths of my website increased in visitors over this time frame?

Are more people reaching the “thank you” page or “order completion” page than before?  Are certain pages delivering more traffic to this page than before?

Visitors Flow is one of three Flow Visualization reports currently available in Google Analytics.  Our next blog post will touch on the three different Flow Visualization reports currently available: Visitors Flow, Goal Flow, and Events Flow.