Does your institution know where your applicants are dropping off?

Do you know where your applications are abandoned

Every financial institution is focused on growing deposits and relationships—but here’s a critical question: Do you know exactly where applicants abandon your account opening process?

For many banks and credit unions, the answer is no. They can tell you how many applications were completed. They can’t tell you why the rest weren’t.

While overall application completion rates may be tracked, the why behind abandonment—and more importantly, the where—often remains unclear. Without this insight, marketing and digital teams are left guessing at optimization strategies, investing time and resources without clear data to guide decisions.

That’s where advanced analytics comes in, and why modern onboarding platforms like Terafina are reshaping how institutions approach conversion. Terafina recently released enhanced Google Analytics with added GA4 events to track each sales-application step with consistent naming. This enriched every event journey from flow, submission and user actions.

Digital account opening is no longer just about having an online application. It’s about delivering a frictionless, data-driven experience that continuously improves.

How to overcome tracking challenges head on

Historically, many onboarding flows relied on:

• Basic page view tracking
• Limited visibility into user behavior
• Inconsistent naming conventions across analytics tools

This led to fragmented reporting and an inability to answer critical questions like:

• Which step causes the most friction?
• When do applicants hesitate or exit?
• What actions signal intent vs. abandonment?

Without granular insights, optimizing conversion becomes reactive rather than strategic. If you don’t know where your applicants are dropping off, it’s not just a blind spot — it’s a growth opportunity left on the table.

Institutions can address these challenges head-on with platforms that have enhanced analytics capabilities. Powered by dedicated Google Analytics tagging and enriched journey tracking, this allows FIs the capability to:

1. Dedicate analytics tags for every application. This enables institutions to track interactions at a highly granular level and attribute user actions to specific flows, ultimately creating a stronger foundation for cross-channel measurement and connecting acquisition efforts to actual account opening outcomes.
2. Enrich event tracking across the entire journey. By capturing rich, event-level data throughout the onboarding journey, FIs get a complete picture of the user journey, allowing teams to understand not just where users go — but what they do at every step.
3. Standardize tracking for consistent reporting. One of the most common challenges with analytics is inconsistency. Upgrading existing page view tracking results in clean, reliable data that marketing and analytics teams can trust — without the need for constant reconciliation or manual cleanup.

Turning data into conversion

With these enhancements in place, financial institutions can move from observation to optimization.

Build step-level funnels

Marketing teams can now easily create step-by-step funnels that show:

• Entry points into the application
• Progression between steps
• Exact drop-off points

This level of visibility transforms onboarding analytics into a conversion engine.

Identify and reduce friction

With clear drop-off insights, teams can pinpoint:

• Lengthy or complex form sections
• Confusing instructions or unclear UX elements
• Technical issues impacting completion

Instead of guessing, teams can make targeted improvements that directly impact conversion rates.

Align marketing, product and digital teams

Enhanced analytics also foster cross-functional alignment by giving all stakeholders access to the same actionable data:

• Marketing can optimize campaigns based on performance
• Readable screen names
• Product teams can refine UX based on real user behavior
• Digital leaders can measure ROI with confidence

This shared visibility ensures that everyone is working toward the same goal: increasing completed applications and improving the customer experience.

Why this matters more than ever

In today’s competitive landscape, account opening is often the first impression a customer has with your brand. A fragmented or frustrating experience doesn’t just result in abandonment — it can drive prospects directly to competitors.

At the same time, customer expectations for digital experiences continue to rise. Consumers expect:

• Fast, intuitive applications
• Minimal friction
• Transparency throughout the process

Without the right analytics in place, it’s nearly impossible to meet — and exceed — these expectations.

The bottom line

If you don’t know where your applicants are dropping off, you’re missing one of the biggest opportunities to improve conversion.