FUNNEL DEEP DIVE — INTERNAL
Growth · Deep Dive · June 12, 2026

12 months down the funnel:
where the orders went

Daily GA4 funnel data, July 2025 → June 2026. The decline isn't a checkout problem and it isn't one event — it's a structural shift in September that weakened the top of the funnel, compounded by a traffic step-down on May 29.

The Verdict
The Leak
Land → PDP → Cart

Since last July: visitors reaching a product page −10%, add-to-cart rate −29%, traffic −35%. The funnel loses people before the cart, not after. Orders are the product of all three declines.

Not Broken
Checkout

Cart-to-purchase and checkout completion have been roughly stable for 12 months. Bottom-of-funnel CRO is not where the recovery is.

Prime Suspect
Sept PLP shift

In September, collection pages went from 20% to 45% of sessions — and collection landers click through to product pages at half the old rate (40% → 21%). The funnel never recovered its July shape.

01 — The Structural Shift

September changed the funnel's shape

Weekly view. Watch the purple line (share of sessions on collection pages) cross above the gray line trajectory while product-page reach falls. That crossover in September 2025 is the origin of the upper-funnel weakness — it predates every later break.

Collection-page share of traffic vs. product-page reach — weekly

PLP share = % of sessions that include a collection page. PDP rate = % of sessions that view a product page. PLP→PDP = % of collection sessions that continue to a product page.

Add-to-cart rate and conversion rate — weekly

ATC rate fell from ~4.5% to ~3.1% after September and never recovered outside BFCM. CVR follows ATC.
02 — The May Breaks

Then traffic stepped down

Daily zoom, mid-April → June 11. Two distinct breaks, matching the May Break investigation exactly: CVR breaks May 10, traffic breaks May 29 (~33k → ~26k sessions/day, −20%, no recovery since).

Daily sessions — April 15 → June 11

Markers: May 10 (CVR break), May 29 (traffic step-down). June is the lowest-traffic period of the entire 12 months.
03 — Timeline

When things occurred

September 2025

The PLP shift — origin of the weakness

Collection pages go from ~20% to ~45% of all sessions in six weeks. Product-page reach falls 45% → 30%; add-to-cart falls ~4.5% → ~3%. Whatever drove this (landing-page strategy, site navigation, paid destinations), the funnel has been structurally weaker ever since.

October 1–6, 2025

Tracking anomaly — disregard

Transactions exceed add-to-carts (impossible). The sheet's own "Bad Removed" column blanks these days.

Late November 2025

BFCM — normal seasonal peak

ATC 5.3%, CVR 3.4% peak week. The funnel can still convert when the offer is strong — evidence the leak is motivational/structural, not mechanical.

Week of January 26, 2026

One-week cold-traffic surge

Sessions +40% for one week at 1.23% CVR (the year's worst), PLP share spiking to 45%. It ended and metrics snapped back — a preview of how PLP-heavy cold traffic behaves.

April 2026

Traffic begins a steady slide

~253k weekly sessions early April → ~225k by month-end, while funnel rates hold. This is a volume story, not a conversion story.

May 10–11, 2026

CVR break #1

2.95% (May 9) → 1.81% → 1.48%. Coincides with PLP share peaking at 50% of all sessions. Matches the May Break investigation's first break date.

~May 18, 2026

New finding: begin-checkout tracking breaks

From this date the "begin checkout" event frequently undercounts — completed purchases exceed recorded checkouts (110–130% on many days; 251% on May 27, whose 4.49% "CVR spike" is an artifact). Something changed in checkout tracking around May 18 and we are partially blind at the bottom of the funnel. Needs a trace.

May 29, 2026

Traffic break #2

Sessions step down from ~33k/day to ~26–27k/day overnight, with no recovery since. Matches the May Break investigation's second break date.

June 2026

The low point

~26.9k sessions/day (vs 41.5k last July, −35%), ATC 3.16% (vs 4.45%, −29%), CVR 1.72%. Every lever is below last summer simultaneously.

04 — The Compounding Math

July 2025 vs. June 2026

Funnel stageJuly 2025June 2026Δ
Sessions / day41,47226,900−35%
Reach a product page41.7%37.4%−10%
Collection → product page click-through~40%~21%−48%
Add to cart4.45%3.16%−29%
Session conversion rate1.87%1.72%−8%
Checkout completionstablestable*~flat

*Checkout completion unreadable after ~May 18 due to the begin-checkout tracking break; stable through mid-May.

→ What to do with this

  1. Re-weight the landing mix. The variable that moved in September and never moved back is collection-page-heavy traffic, and collection landers reach product pages at half the old rate. Test shifting paid destinations toward PDPs / dedicated landers and measure PDP-reach + ATC, not just CVR.
  2. Trace the May 18 checkout-tracking change. Purchases exceeding recorded checkouts means a pixel/event change shipped around then. Until fixed, all begin-checkout analysis is unreliable.
  3. Treat traffic recovery (May 29 break) as a separate workstream. It's a volume problem living in media/spend/algorithm-land — fixing funnel shape won't restore the missing ~6k sessions/day. The May Break investigation covers this break.
05 — Method

Source: "MUD: Performance Deep Dive" Google Sheet (GA4 export), Funnels tab — daily sessions, PLP/PDP/ATC/checkout/transaction sessions, July 1 2025 → June 11 2026. All dates fully processed (no intraday data used). Known-bad ranges excluded or flagged: Oct 1–6 2025 (transactions > ATC), May 18+ begin-checkout undercount, May 27 CVR spike (artifact).

Related: The May Break investigation (break-date forensics) · CVR Pulse: Intelligems shutoff (hourly, June 11–12).