Optimize Your Marketing Funnel for the Customer Journey

23/9/22, 9:27 The Marketing Funnel: Stages, Strategies, & How to Optimize | Hotjar Blog
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How to optimize your marketing funnel for the

customer journey
Ask 10 marketers about marketing funnels and you’ll probably get 10 different
answers. Why is that?
A marketing funnel isn't a one-size-fits-all
strategy; your marketing funnel is uniquely tailored to how your buyer buys.
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This works well if you know the habits of your target audience. Your marketing funnel
provides more value to your marketing strategy when you understand your customers
—then you can make informed decisions to improve the customer experience as they
move through the funnel.
Our goal with this piece is to help you get the most out of your marketing funnel. We
cover:
What is a marketing funnel?

3 stages of the marketing funnel
How to measure the success of your marketing funnel
3 tools to increase conversion rates throughout the funnel
TL;DR: every marketing funnel is unique and should be designed for how customers buy
—not how you want to sell. Combining quantitative and qualitative data will help you
understand how real customers shop and behave on your site, so you can optimize your
marketing funnel for the customer journey and increase conversions.
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What is a marketing funnel?
A marketing funnel is a series of stages to guide prospects through the customer
journey. The funnel helps marketing teams plan and measure efforts to attract,
engage, and convert prospects through content and other marketing materials, like
landing pages and ads.
Marketing funnels are commonly based on the ‘AIDA’ model:
Awareness
Interest
Desire
Action
But you can simplify the funnel into a three-stage model:
Top of the funnel (TOFU): awareness
Middle of the funnel (MOFU): consideration
Bottom of the funnel (BOFU): conversion
Note: you can rename or add stages like ‘loyalty’ and ‘advocacy’ to any funnel model, but
the function of the marketing funnel—to attract, engage, and convert leads—remains
the same regardless of how you identify specific stages.
For the rest of this article we'll look at the TOFU/MOFU/BOFU funnel model.
💡 Keep in mind: sometimes marketing funnels and conversion funnels are thought of as
interchangeable, but it’s important to understand the subtle differences between them.
Marketing funnels generate leads: they attract prospects at the top of the funnel, and
help marketers measure and track efforts to engage and convert prospects in the
middle and bottom of the funnel.
Conversion funnels generate sales: they capture the customer journey from awareness
to conversion, which could mean buying a product, completing a form, signing up to a list,
or another type of micro-conversion.
👉 Read more: learn how to optimize your ecommerce conversion funnel for the
nonlinear customer journey.
🔍 Learn what works (and what doesn't) at

each stage of the funnel
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Use Hotjar Heatmaps, Recordings, and Surveys to optimize
your marketing funnel for the customer journey—and
increase conversions.
Start now!
3 stages of the marketing funnel

The traditional funnel model is linear, beginning at the top of the funnel and ending at the
bottom, where your prospects convert.
The challenge is that marketing funnels don’t always work like this in the real
world. People don’t always jump into a funnel right at the top and progress step-by-
step through each stage until they come out the bottom, a new customer.
Many people bounce in, out of, and around the funnel before they convert. Or, they may
make it to the bottom of the funnel and then (gasp!) drop out, never to be seen or heard
from again.
The marketing funnel—like people's real-life buying behavior—is nonlinear, which is
why it's important to understand the customer journey from the moment of
awareness to the moment of conversion. And part of that is understanding how each
stage works in the traditional marketing funnel model.
stage works in the traditionalThemarketing
23/9/22, 9:27
funnel model.
Marketing Funnel: Stages, Strategies, & How to Optimize | Hotjar Blog
1. Top of the funnel: awareness

The top of the funnel (TOFU) is where prospects become aware of your brand and
engage with it for the first time. They might not know a lot about your product or
service yet, so this stage focuses on content and marketing material that promotes
brand awareness.
Use this stage to attract prospects, and show them what you have to offer:
Create a landing page or infographic that introduces your brand, service, or product
to new visitors.
Share a post on social media that highlights your unique selling proposition (USP).
Use paid ads on social media and in podcasts that are relevant to your target
audience.
2. Middle of the funnel: consideration
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Potential customers enter the middle of the funnel (MOFU) once they’ve engaged with
your brand in a meaningful way: maybe they’ve subscribed to an email list, are following
you on social media, or have signed up for a webinar.
Use this stage to engage with prospects—to earn their trust and set your brand apart:
Write an article or white paper that provides value, answers a question, and solves a
problem for your potential customers.
Invite visitors to participate in a survey to learn more about the drivers, hooks, and
barriers they encounter with your brand.
Share case studies and product comparisons.
Create landing pages specific to individual customer segments.

💪 Pro tip: surveying potential customers is an opportunity to learn how real people

shop and behave on your site. Ask open-ended questions like
Where did you hear about us?

What are you hoping to find on our site today?
What persuaded you to [take a specific action]?
What are your concerns or questions about [our product or service]?
👉 Read more: nobody knows more about what your customers want than your
customers themselves—here are 15 more website survey questions to ask.
3. Bottom of the funnel: conversion

The bottom of the funnel (BOFU) is the last place prospective customers go before
they convert. You’ve gotten their attention, built trust, and fostered a relationship with
them.
Use this stage to convert prospects—give them specific reasons to choose your brand
over your competitors:
Offer a trial or demo so visitors can experience your product or service first-hand.
Write a how-to guide or article that answers questions and eliminates any doubt or
blockers potential customers may experience.
Share social proof, like customer reviews and testimonies, to build even more trust.
Make feature and price comparison charts easy to access and understand.
Send segmented email marketing campaigns and use on-site surveys—for example,
send an email to users that have abandoned their shopping cart, or put an exit
survey
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on the checkout page.
💡 Keep in mind: every customer experiences your marketing funnel differently. You

might create content for the top of the funnel, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that
customers can only access it at that stage. For example, someone might jump directly to
the middle or bottom of the funnel because they’re already aware of their problem and
your solution, and are ready to purchase.
👉 Read more: create a unique marketing funnel tailored to how your buyer wants to
buy—not how you want to sell. Learn how psychographics and personas can help you get
to the truth about why and how people buy.
Measuring the success of your marketing funnel

Understanding your customers requires observing and communicating with them—
not just looking at numbers on a chart and making assumptions. To measure your
marketing funnel's success, you need both quantitative and qualitative data (more on
this later).
That said, there are still some key quantitative metrics to keep in mind when you
measure your marketing funnel's success and effectiveness.
4 marketing funnel metrics you should measure
1. Cost per acquisition (CPA)

CPA measures how much you’re spending on marketing to acquire each new customer.
Teams usually look at this number to analyze their paid advertising, email marketing,
social media, and other paid marketing efforts.
To get this number, divide the entire cost of your marketing campaign by the number of
conversions. From there, the idea is pretty simple: if the cost outweighs the gain, you
might want to consider ending the campaign or testing alternatives.
2. Customer lifetime value (LTV)

LTV measures the continuous value a customer brings to your company. This metric is all
about retention, which carries particular weight for SaaS (software as a service)
companies because subscribers pay regularly. However, LTV also gives insight to
industries like ecommerce and traditional sales—if you can predict the likelihood of a
customer making another purchase.
💡 Keep in mind: CPA and LTV are affected by factors like marketing and company costs
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and how you price your product or service. It's hard to know how much prospective
customers are willing to pay, especially if you're a SaaS startup. Market research alone
won't tell you how much to charge—you have to test prices and listen to your customers.
👉 Read more: learn which factors to consider when pricing your SaaS product.
3. Conversion rates
Conversion rate measures the frequency of conversions. Some marketers only focus on
the final conversion: sales—but you can measure each stage's success through micro-
conversions or goal conversions. For example:
1. TOFU conversion: how many visitors convert to marketing qualified leads (MQLs)
2. MOFU conversion: how many MQLs convert to sign-ups or subscribers
3. BOFU conversion: how many sign-ups or subscribers convert to customers
Measuring goal conversion rate allows your team to make more informed decisions
about each funnel stage rather than just the final outcome.
4. Conversion rate per channel

Each marketing channel has different goals, so it’s important to analyze the success of
each one. These channels might include
Organic search
Paid ads (Display, SEM, Social, Podcasts)
Referrals and influencers
Email
Like with goal conversions, teams with clear definitions for conversions in each channel
will have an easier time measuring success. Ask yourself:
Is clicking on a paid ad a conversion?

Is responding to an email a conversion?
Is signing up for a newsletter a conversion?
Answering questions like these will help you identify what you want from each channel, so
you can measure whether it’s working or not.
💡 Keep in mind: traditional analytics tools like Google Analytics work well for tracking
and measuring quantitative metrics like traffic, exits and bounces, cost per acquisition,
and goal conversions.
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But to measure the success of your marketing funnel, you need to understand how
people are using your website (beyond traffic and conversions) and why they behave a
certain way while they browse or shop. Then, you can optimize your marketing funnel to
increase conversions at each stage of the customer journey.
👉 Read more: learn how to combine the powers of Google Analytics and Hotjar to get
the full picture of user behavior on your site.

Start now!
3 tools to increase conversions throughout the funnel

Now you know: when you focus on measuring quantitative data (i.e. numerical data)
without considering qualitative data (i.e. how people experience your marketing funnel
and how they think or feel throughout their customer journey), you’re missing an
important part of the picture.
Here are three tools to give you qualitative data that'll help you increase conversions
throughout the marketing funnel:
1. Heatmaps: to understand user behavior
2. Session recordings: to understand individual journeys
3. Surveys: to get user feedback
1. Understand user behavior with heatmaps
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AN EXAMPLE OF A HOTJAR SCROLL MAP (LEFT) AND MOVE MAP (RIGHT)

Heatmaps show popular (red) and unpopular (blue) areas and elements on your page,
and reveal how people move on and interact with your site in aggregate. Analyze
website heatmaps to identify page elements that are (or aren't) working to get people
moving through your funnel.
Once you have insight into how users are behaving on key pages of your site, you can
focus on making changes that will have the most impact to increase conversions—and
either ditch the efforts with less rewarding outcomes, or A/B test alternatives.
🔥 A heatmap example for the top of the funnel (TOFU): look at heatmaps on pages
that are a part of your TOFU strategy, like blog and landing pages.
Let's say you want visitors to click on a call to action (CTA) you've placed at the bottom
of a landing page. A scroll heatmap might show that only 20% of your visitors are making
it to the bottom of the page—which means 80% of them aren't even seeing your CTA. In
that case, you could try moving the CTA (or adding another CTA) to the middle or top of
the page.
After you've optimized the page, look at heatmaps again to learn whether the change
impacted your conversions.
2. Understand individual user journeys with session recordings
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AN EXAMPLE OF A HOTJAR SESSION RECORDING
Session recordings capture website visitors' actions—like mouse movements, clicks,
taps, and scrolling—so you can see how real users engage with your website from page
to page.
Insight from recordings helps you identify blockers or pain points users experience
throughout their journey on your site—like broken elements, website bugs, or a
confusing design—which might reveal why users drop off at a particular stage of the
funnel.
🔥 A session recording example for the middle of the funnel (MOFU): use session
recordings segments and filters to find recordings of pages that are a part of your
MOFU strategy, like category and product pages, guides and how-tos, case studies, and
comparisons.
Let’s say you want users to add a product to their shopping cart from your product
comparison page, but the page has a high exit rate and hardly any conversions. A session
recording reveals that users are rage clicking on a non-clickable element and are exiting
recording reveals that users are rage clicking on a non clickable element and are exiting
out of frustration. In that case, you could try removing the element, or making it clickable
so the page is more intuitive to how real people interact with it.
After you've fixed the page, watch session recordings again to see whether the change
improved the user experience (UX).
Note: Hotjar integrates with Google Optimize; you can filter your Recordings by
Optimize experiments to test variants and measure results.
3. Get feedback from real users with on-site surveys
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AN EXAMPLE OF A HOTJAR SURVEY

On-site surveys are one of the fastest and easiest ways to get direct feedback from
real website visitors: find out what’s stopping them from converting, or poll customers
who’ve just converted to find out what does work.
Surveys give you a chance to engage with real visitors at each step in the funnel so you
can learn how to improve the customer journey and increase conversions.
🔥 An on-site survey example for the bottom of the funnel (BOFU): use on-site surveys
on pages that are a part of your BOFU strategy, like how-to or demo pages, category and
product pages, and shopping cart or checkout pages.
NPS surveys and post-purchase surveys help measure customer satisfaction so you can

learn from customers who've already converted.
Let's say a customer has just purchased on your site. Before they exit, you can ask them
to rate their experience on a scale, and follow up with another open-ended
question depending on the rating. For example, a high score might lead to a question like,
“what did you love most about the experience?” and a low score might lead to “how can
we improve your experience in the future?”
Note: you can also invite visitors to participate in an external link survey, giving you the
chance to ask more detailed, thoughtful questions to get even more insight from your
visitors.
Takeaways and next steps

Marketing funnels help you guide prospects through each stage of the customer journey.
There are many ways to approach the traditional marketing funnel, but the key to an
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effective funnel is understanding your customers.
Combining quantitative and qualitative insights using the tools and tips we cover above
will help you build a better funnel that speaks to your customers' unique needs, and
increase conversions as a result.

Start now!
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23/9/22, 9:27 The Marketing Funnel: Stages, Strategies, & How to Optimize | Hotjar Blog

LEARN / BLOG / ARTICLE

How to optimize your marketing funnel for the

What is a marketing funnel?

🔍 Learn what works (and what doesn't) at

3 stages of the marketing funnel

1. Top of the funnel: awareness

2. Middle of the funnel: consideration

💪 Pro tip: surveying potential customers is an opportunity to learn how real people

Where did you hear about us?

3. Bottom of the funnel: conversion

💡 Keep in mind: every customer experiences your marketing funnel differently. You

Measuring the success of your marketing funnel

4 marketing funnel metrics you should measure

1. Cost per acquisition (CPA)

2. Customer lifetime value (LTV)

4. Conversion rate per channel

Is clicking on a paid ad a conversion?

🔍 Learn what works (and what doesn't) at

3 tools to increase conversions throughout the funnel

1. Understand user behavior with heatmaps

AN EXAMPLE OF A HOTJAR SCROLL MAP (LEFT) AND MOVE MAP (RIGHT)

2. Understand individual user journeys with session recordings

3. Get feedback from real users with on-site surveys

AN EXAMPLE OF A HOTJAR SURVEY

NPS surveys and post-purchase surveys help measure customer satisfaction so you can

Takeaways and next steps

🔍 Learn what works (and what doesn't) at

Sharon Biggar Sharon Biggar

Product tour Heatmaps

Session recordings Feedback

Integrations Survey templates

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