Conversion Funnel

What is a conversion funnel?

A conversion funnel also referred to as a “sales funnel”, is used to

describe the route taken by a visitor to become a customer. It

explains the different stages of the journey that the customer

takes from becoming aware of a brand to making a final

purchase.

A conversion funnel is designed based on the customer’s buying

behavior with the primary goal of providing a great user

experience within the customer journey so that they are forced to

get converted. Hence, understanding the customer flow through

the funnel is essential as it assists in engaging prospective leads,

building trust, and encouraging them to become loyal customers.

Through the funnel, qualified prospects are moved from one stage

to the next, eliminating those who are unsuitable for your

business or don’t need your products or services at this point.

A simple example of a conversion funnel and its flow is shown

below:
Image source: dreamstime
Stages of a conversion funnel

There are 3 basic stages to any conversion funnel. Let’s take a

look at them:

1. Top of the Funnel (TOFU) – The awareness stage: The focus

of this phase is on attracting the customers’ attention by
getting your product or solution onto their radar at the right
time. An organic search is the best way to do just that. This
is the start of building a healthy pipeline for the rest of the
funnel.
2. Middle of the Funnel (MOFU) – The middle phase represents
a smaller and more qualified section of the visitors. This
phase can be broken into two sub-stages:
○ The interest stage: This is the stage where the
customer is aware of your product as an available
solution to their problems. The interest is piqued
concerning their requirements. Make sure to provide
unique selling points and relevant information to secure
their trust in your brand’s quality and expertise. A
 well-laid-out website and content will make the desired
first impression.
○ The consideration stage: This is where the customer is
in the comparison mode and exploring your
competitors also to make up their mind. Provide
beautiful product pages along with rich visuals,
supporting knowledge base, FAQs, and testimonials
from happy customers. This is the stage to target and
sell more aggressively.
3. Bottom of the funnel (BOFU) – The decision stage: This is
the stage to push hard the customer to take the final step.
Showcase offers, promotions, and incentives such as
discounts, coupons, and free shipping. Include compelling
CTAs to create a sense of urgency and keep the checkout
process frictionless.
4. At the end – The retention stage: Once you have
successfully converted a customer, it’s time to keep them
engaged and loyal to the brand. Provide personalized service
and keep them informed and educated. Providing sneak
peeks, webinars, tutorials, trend guides, etc through email
and on social media is a good way to maintain the
engagement level.

Importance of an optimized conversion funnel in the marketing

strategy
Having a conversion funnel can influence the purchase decision

of prospects and improve the conversion rate. A few of the clear

benefits of an optimized funnel include:

● A higher proportion of prospects entering and moving

through the whole funnel will lead to higher sales.
● An opportunity to plan an effective marketing strategy to
target the right audience at a certain given point in their
purchase journey.
● Identifying reasons why your product or service may not
appeal to every prospect, making you equipped to better
meet their needs.
● Having an edge over competitors who don’t invest time and
resources in improving their funnels.

Steps to building an effective conversion funnel

1. Research your audience

The foremost step is it research your target audience. Your

marketing efforts will be more effective and more likely to convert

prospects into paying customers if you know and understand

more about them. Find out answers to questions such as:

● Who do you want to target?

● What are their likes, and dislikes?
● What social media platforms users are more active on?
● Customer pain points
● How your product or service can help?
2. Create user personas

A detailed buyer persona can help you create marketing content

that is tailored to your target audience and optimize your sales

pipeline. Create user personas based on demographics such as

gender, age, income, education, interests, and so on.

 3. Lead generation

Once the research work is done, it is time to bring the right

customers to your website. Running lead generation campaigns

at different levels and platforms can be the right move. Various

strategies can be implemented to generate leads, such as:

● Social media advertising

● SEO
● Landing page optimization
● PPC campaigns
● Influencer marketing
● Guest postings
4. Engage leads

The leads generated in the previous step now need to be turned

into engaged prospects. The best way to do so is to educate the

customers about the features and benefits of your product or

service. This can be done by:

● Compelling content in form of blogs, informative videos

● Email newsletters
● Social media posts
● Influencer generated content
● Testimonials and reviews
● Appropriate supporting content
● Strong CTAs
5. Help leads to convert

An engaged customer is a game almost won. This is the time to

provide an easy transition for the customer to finish the action.

Some things to keep in mind:

● Simple sign-in and sign-up process

 ● Frictionless checkout and payment process
● Optimized site speed
● Easy site navigation
● Implement exit-intent pop-ups providing incentives to leaving
customers

How to optimize the conversion funnel

For the funnel to function at its best, it is essential to keep it

optimized at all times. This can be done by following the below

simple tips:

1. Understand page performance with user behaviour reports

VWO Insights helps you generate various tracking reports to

understand the user behaviour on your website. Some of the tools

available are:

● Heatmaps – helps understand visitor movement on the

website
● Scroll maps – show the scrolling activity of users
● Session recordings – analyze recordings of dropped-off
visitors
2. A/B test your pages

All the above-collected data can be put to use by running A/B

tests of the elements that contribute to conversions. With VWO

testing you can run dozens of tests at a time and track the test

impact across the entire funnel. Take a free trial to find out how.
Important metrics to track

For an ongoing improvement of your conversion funnel, it is

important to track the performance at regular intervals. Few

metrics that help in measuring a conversion funnel’s

effectiveness are below:

● Traffic: Find out from where the maximum of your traffic is

being generated- search, social media, etc. Use your budget
on those relevant sources.
● Conversion rate: You can get to know your audience more if
you track conversion rates across all offers. Test different
offers to determine which one gets the most engagement,
then apply what you’ve learned.
● Bounce rate: Knowing your bounce rate will tell you why
visitors leave your website and allow you to introduce more
incentives.
● Sales: Fluctuations in sales will help you focus on the funnel
stage that needs more attention.
 ● Cart abandonment: This will give you insights into why
people add products to carts and leave. You can look into
any improvements required to the checkout process or flow.

It can be challenging to create a conversion funnel, but if you

collect the right data, you can make your conversion funnel more

efficient by implementing improvements. That’s why it is

recommended to run tests continuously and gather data.