What Are Marketing Funnels And How They Work?
The AIDA model created by Elias St. Elmo Lewis forms the basis of the marketing funnel. The model solves the relationship between a customer and a business in four stages.
The first stage is awareness about the business, the second is interest in product or service, the third is the desire and the final is action.
A marketing funnel can be easily built according to this model. Let’s learn more about marketing funnels in detail.
Know Marketing Funnels
We all know how a funnel is shaped. Wide from the top and narrow from the bottom, which stands for how leads narrow down in the conversion matrix.
Depending on what your goal is which can be a survey, selling, or a sign-up, the conversion process would be different. If we take the example of an eCommerce website, buying a product involves many steps.
The user visits the website, explores the pages, makes a choice, and clears the cart. Now, there are other steps as well, like changing the product name, applying a filter, changing search keywords, etc.
But, when your goal is selling the product, conversion means to purchase. And in this case, the AIDA steps will help decide the stages in the funnel.
The number of people keeps on reducing at each step and that’s why the conversion process is analyzed as a funnel.
Why Funnels Are Important?
A marketing funnel tells you where you are losing customers and then it will be easy to improve. For example, if you offer free trials and you are losing customers after that free trial, you might need to improve your demo.
As you will see in the funnel, the number of customers is reducing with each step, which is quite normal, but you can surely know what’s causing the maximum loss.
A marketing funnel is thus a great way to find flaws and strengths both at the same time.
How do Real-Time Funnels look Like?
Let’s create a real funnel with steps.
1. The customer visits an eCommerce website or enters the store.
2. Explores products
3. Likes something and adds it to the cart
4. Makes the payment
We can see the AIDA steps and a marketing funnel can be easily created with these details.
Let’s take 100 people visiting the store. Some of them will not even move to products and you will find the number decreasing with each step. Some might have visited by mistake, some might not like the products, some will not find what they are looking for, etc.
Even after this, everything in the cart is not purchased. Most people keep multiple options to decide in the end and that’s why the conversion is narrower than leads.
Understanding Google Analytics Funnel
What is that Google doesn’t have to offer us? Google Analytics funnel is a great way to see how your conversion narrows down.
Google Analytics is basic. It is really to start. If you don’t need much deeper information, it is great to go with.
The Google analytics funnel doesn’t allow going back and viewing past data. The funnel goes forward as new data comes in. No retroactive tracking is offered and there is no multi-session tracking as well.
So, the Google Analytics funnel is not sufficient if you are looking for something advanced. However, creating funnels with Google analytics is quite simple.
Marketing funnels form a great marketing strategy as it allows you to see how things are working for you. The funnels are easy to create and the only thing you need to do is choose the right steps.
