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Mother’s Day is a key moment for consumers looking to show appreciation for the moms and mother figures in their lives — and they’re willing to spend big to do it. In 2024, the holiday drove a record-breaking $33.5 billion in spending, and that enthusiasm isn’t slowing down. As shoppers search for the perfect gift, Connected TV offers brands a powerful way to reach them with timely, relevant messaging. This guide will break down how to tap into Mother’s Day audiences and maximize your impact during this high-intent shopping season.
Performance TV: What Is It & How Does It Work?As the TV landscape has continued to shift over the past few years, viewers have migrated from linear TV to streaming, and brands have followed suit, adjusting their strategies to find their target audience where they watch.
But the rise of streaming TV gave advertisers an additional benefit: with streaming TV’s digital DNA, they can now use the largest screen in the house as a performance marketing tool known as Performance TV.
Performance TV is MNTN’s brand for what streaming ads should be like everywhere. Performance TV is a form of TV advertising designed for one primary purpose: delivering measurable results.
Unlike traditional TV advertising, which primarily focuses on brand awareness and mass reach, Performance TV is all about achieving specific and measurable outcomes related to vital marketing metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs).
Connected TV advertising (or CTV advertising) is TV advertising delivered to a CTV device, like a smart TV or streaming device such as a Roku stick. These ads are delivered during the ad breaks of streaming content. CTV advertising includes any type of advertising done on CTV, both performance and brand-awareness-focused. Performance TV is a type of CTV advertising that focuses, first and foremost, on performance.
Over-the-top advertising (or OTT advertising) is often used interchangeably with CTV advertising. Technically, OTT refers to how content and advertising are delivered — via an internet connection rather than a cable or satellite — and refers to the method of ad delivery through internet-connected devices. Performance TV is a type of OTT advertising that focuses on driving measurable results for brands.
Addressable TV is a term used to describe the technology that delivers specific ads to individual households or viewers within households based on data-driven targeting. Performance TV takes addressable TV to the next level by allowing brands to reach their target audience to accomplish their specific performance goals.
Linear TV may be thought of as “traditional TV” — the kind you would watch via cable or satellite. Linear TV advertising was a broad-reach play that allowed advertisers to buy based on the content they thought their target audience was watching. Performance TV, on the other hand, uses an audience-first approach that reaches viewers no matter where they spend their digital time.
During the heyday of linear TV advertising, there was only so much marketers could do to track how much their efforts actually contributed to a brand’s growth. But, with Performance TV’s unique advantages, marketers now know more about how to maximize an ad campaign’s effectiveness.
Performance TV allows advertisers to target specific demographics, interests, and behaviors precisely. This level of targeting — known as “precision audience-based targeting” — helps ads reach the most relevant audience and maximizes the chances of engagement.
Using IP-based targeting, advertisers can go beyond demographics and target viewers based on their geographic location. This hyper-local approach is especially valuable for businesses with localized offerings.
Performance TV benefits from the high video completion rates of CTV, meaning that advertisers can be sure that their entire message reaches their target audience.
One of the standout features of Performance TV is its ability to provide real-time data on ad performance. Advertisers can track impressions, view-through rates, clicks, conversions, and more, allowing for immediate campaign optimization. At MNTN, we created our own Verified Visits™ method, which uses an additional layer of verification to ensure that only the conversions driven by Performance TV are counted as such.
Performance TV offers automated optimization, which outpaces and outperforms manual campaign optimizations by several orders of magnitude. Simply enter a budget and goal, and the system optimizes over 651,000 times per day to find and achieve the best possible outcomes.
Performance TV advertisements are shown within ad breaks on participating streaming channels. MNTN Performance TV advertisements, in particular, only run on premium streaming TV networks, including CNN, ESPN, Peacock, and more, thanks to our 150+ direct deals with those publishers.
So, how exactly does a Performance TV ad reach its target audience?
First-party data is information a business or organization collects directly from its own customers, website visitors, and users. It provides insights into customer behaviors, preferences, and interactions with the brand and can include demographics, purchase history, website activity, email interactions, and more. Advertisers who use Performance TV can use their first-party data and CRM lists to create a campaign and reach this key audience.
Third-party data is information from external sources, which may include data providers, data brokers, and other third-party entities that compile data from various public and private sources. Access to third-party data allows for even more audience refinement and often includes demographic information, consumer behaviors, interests, and more.
Internet protocol (IP) targeting is a strategy that allows advertisers to deliver ads to specific audiences based on their unique IP address. By pinpointing the IP addresses associated with particular geographic areas, advertisers — particularly local ones — reach the right audience at the right location.
A frequency cap is a limit an advertiser sets on the number of times they’ll show a specific ad to an individual viewer within a defined time period. These caps create a more balanced experience for the viewer: they prevent overexposure and viewer fatigue and improve the likelihood of retention.
Given the vast quantities of data that drive Performance TV, measurement and reporting are essential elements of success on the platform. Armed with these comprehensive statistics, marketers are much better equipped to decide if their campaign is working and how to continue to optimize in the future.
There are a variety of metrics that an advertiser may use to assess the effectiveness of their campaign. Here are a few to keep in mind for CTV measurement:
One impression equals one ad served to one user. As a metric, impressions are the number of times an ad has been served within the campaign, allowing advertisers to know how much they have spent and how many times their ad has been seen.
This metric quantifies the revenue generated for every dollar spent on advertising, helping advertisers to assess a campaign’s profitability.
This represents the price paid per full view of a specific ad. Advertisers who buy on a cost-per-completed view (CPCV) model only pay for ads that are watched in their entirety.
CPA measures the advertising cost of acquiring a new customer or lead, helping advertisers evaluate the efficiency of their ad campaign.
Reach is the number of unique viewers exposed to an ad campaign, enumerating the size of the audience that has seen it.
Advertisers use this metric to manage ad exposure (see: frequency caps, above) by tracking how often viewers see the same ad, preventing viewer fatigue and extending the life of effective ads.
GRP is a metric carried over from linear TV that evaluates the effectiveness of an ad campaign by multiplying the reach by the frequency of a campaign. This was a method used before the more precise measurement of CTV was available.
Also a part of linear TV buying, CPP calculates the cost of achieving one rating point, offering insights into the cost-efficiency of reaching a specific audience.
To gain an accurate look at the big picture, cross-screen measurement gathers viewing data from multiple devices to gain a comprehensive perspective of an audience’s viewing behavior.
This represents a GRP specifically targeted toward a particular demographic or audience segment, effectively providing a clearer, more detailed look at the particulars.
Analyzing such metrics gives advertisers a much clearer perspective on how to design their campaigns. Performance TV advertising methods provide them with the tools and opportunity to meet a wide range of specific business needs.
Effectiveness in Performance TV advertising relies on strategic implementation. Here are a few things to keep in mind when to get the most out of it:
Want TV advertising that delivers measurable performance? MNTN’s Performance TV platform combines the power of premium CTV inventory with digital-style targeting, optimization, and attribution. That means your campaigns don’t just generate awareness—they drive real, trackable results.
Here’s what you get with MNTN Performance TV:
Bring performance-driven precision to CTV—sign up today to get started with MNTN’s self-serve software.
Today, Performance TV advertising is a transformative force, aligning the power of television’s reach with the precision and measurability of digital marketing. Its ability to target specific audiences, measure results in real-time, and optimize campaigns for maximum impact makes it an invaluable tool if you’re seeking tangible, accountable outcomes.
As technology continues to advance, Performance TV evolves alongside it, offering brands new opportunities to engage with viewers. By adhering to best practices, embracing data-driven insights, and staying agile in response to changing viewer behaviors, Performance TV opens doors to effective, results-oriented advertising in the ever-evolving media landscape.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.
For Mother’s Day, great Connected TV ad creative isn’t just attention-grabbing — it also captures sentiment and drives action. In 2024, spending for the holiday hit a record $33.5 billion. And with consumers eager to celebrate their mothers (or mother figures) again this year, brands have a major opportunity to make an impact. This guide is packed with insights and strategies to help you craft compelling Mother’s Day creative for CTV that resonates with shoppers and drives results.
What Is a Sales Funnel and How Does It Work?When visualizing your buyer’s journey from prospect to actual customer, a conceptual framework can help you understand how to interact with them at different points of their journey. That’s where the model of the sales funnel comes in.
A sales funnel is a structured path that guides potential customers from initial awareness to final purchase, optimizing every touchpoint along the way.
There’s natural attrition, of course, as sales leads filter down. But by visualizing the sales funnel and its stages, your task of maximizing conversions and inspecting each stage for “leaks” is that much easier.
Before we continue, if you’re looking for an article with more of a B2B slant, check out our B2B sales funnel piece.
There are subtle differences between sales and marketing funnels.
The marketing funnel typically precedes the sales funnel and focuses on building awareness and interest in the product or brand. The sales funnel is the buying journey, starting from that initial awareness to becoming a customer. Before entering the sales funnel, a potential buyer may be designated a marketing-qualified lead or MQL.
MQLs are potential customers who have interacted with your brand in some capacity, perhaps by clicking on a banner ad or reading some of your materials. When they’re interested enough to talk to your team about your products or are seriously considering a purchase, they become sales-qualified leads or SQLs. That means they’re worth your sales team’s attention.
There are numerous benefits of sales funnels:
A well-structured sales funnel guides potential customers through a seamless journey, delivering relevant messaging at each stage. This ensures prospects stay engaged, reducing drop-off rates and increasing the likelihood of conversion.
By qualifying leads and addressing objections early, sales funnels help move prospects from awareness to decision faster. Targeted touchpoints ensure the right message reaches the right audience, driving more efficient conversions.
With a structured funnel, businesses gain clearer visibility into their pipeline, making revenue projections more accurate. Consistent tracking of lead progression enables data-driven decision-making and resource allocation.
Sales funnels collect valuable data on customer behavior, revealing patterns that inform marketing and sales strategies. These insights help optimize campaigns, refine messaging, and improve overall customer experience.
Automating key steps in the funnel reduces wasted ad spend and improves ROI by focusing efforts on high-intent prospects. Marketers can allocate budgets more effectively, ensuring campaigns drive measurable results.
How is a sales funnel structured? There are five sales funnel stages, from abstract interest at the top of the funnel to action and engagement at the bottom.
During the awareness phase (top of funnel marketing), your customer may be curious about switching coffee brands, for example, and is doing some research — a little web searching and visiting some recommended sites and blogs.
This is your chance to let customers know who you are and what you stand for, which you could do via social media, YouTube, or Connected TV (CTV) ads. When planning these advertisements, prioritize authority and quality.
During this phase (mid-funnel marketing), your potential customer’s interest is solidifying. They’re committing to the idea of a new coffee brand and are perhaps weighing up different brands, including yours. Maybe they’ve signed up for an email newsletter or are actively engaging with your site.
Help firm up your presence in their mind with informative blogs and videos that subtly push the benefits of your coffee — for example, “Did You Know? Not All Coffees Are Created Equal.”
In this stage, your product has become one of a few final choices. Video testimonials can help sway consumers, providing “social proof” that they’re making a smart choice.
Your consumer is about to buy at the bottom of the funnel. But even if they have your coffee beans in their cart, they may still walk away and forget about it. A special offer or discount can encourage them to follow through with the purchase.
Ideally, you want to build an ongoing relationship with your customers. That means offering inducements to keep them coming back, by providing good customer service and sending friendly follow-up emails, for example.
Funnel building may sound complicated, but the steps you can take to build a functional and effective sales funnel are simple.
Create an “ideal buyer” character or persona based on data and demographics for your product, including their age, gender, education level, geographic location, and so on.
You can define multiple specific audiences, and then target each separately. The more data you have, the more accurate your target audience will be; but if you’re just starting, you can guesstimate your target audience by modeling them on those of your competitors.
A lead magnet is something you offer prospective buyers in exchange for their contact information. It could be something as simple as a discount or something you create, such as an e-book or informative webinar. Your product and your target audience will dictate the kind of lead magnet you use.
The landing page is the page prospects arrive at after clicking on your ad, email, or video link. It’s distinct from your homepage and has to be enticing, so make sure yours is unique and attractive.
It’s up to you to create an ongoing relationship with your leads through content that’s funny, appealing, and shareable. When you’re considering your strategy here, remember that emails containing videos can increase your click-through rate by 200-300%.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink — you can, however, make the water look fresh, crisp, and thirst-quenching. So make sure your offer addresses a genuine customer pain point and is clear, well-priced, and attractive.
A sales page is designed purely to sell your product: it clearly sets out the product’s benefits and how it will solve the potential customer’s problem. When designing your sales page, think about how to make yours stand out — what would make you pull the trigger on a purchase?
Order forms should be simple, clear, and frictionless. Make sure yours is as straightforward as possible; for example, customers shouldn’t have to enter the same information multiple times.
Your customer’s journey doesn’t end with the purchase. Reliable tracking emails, offers, and helpful tips on using the product all help create an ongoing sense of the relationship between your brand and your customer.
Even if you’re a small business, you can always improve, whether by making your videos more compelling or by strengthening your sales funnel. That doesn’t mean you need to overspend; keep things efficient so you can always pivot and tweak.
Once you’ve built your sales funnel, the next step is funnel optimization. Here’s how to do it:
Using your site data, you can see where you’re losing sales leads and where you need to tweak your strategy or reallocate resources.
You can’t improve your sales funnel if your goals aren’t measurable. There are many ecommerce key performance indicators (KPIs) that can help you quantify success. One such KPI is your click-through rate, which measures how many people are actually clicking on your ads.
You can conduct real-time experiments by testing two or more different lead magnets and landing pages to see which one gets more clicks. This is very helpful if you don’t already have a lot of data to analyze.
Just as you can retarget consumers with CTV, you can constantly refine your messaging and tone.
Try different sales pages to see if your audience responds more to maximalist or minimalist design approaches.
If your customer gets frustrated, they may question how much they really need your item. Make sure that doesn’t happen! The fewer clicks to purchase, the more likely a potential customer is to convert.
Make sure you’re not bombarding your customers with surveys and offers they don’t want. You want your communications to be amusing, informative, and useful. Leading with emotion always helps.
Different industries have slightly different approaches to what a sales funnel is. For example, software-as-a-service (SaaS) funnels may involve more product demos than most ecommerce funnels. Other sales funnel examples include:
There are many others, but they all play on the basic five-step structure.
Sales funnels are ultimately defined by the sales conversion rate. If your sales funnel isn’t driving conversions, you’ll need to rethink your approach. But conversions aren’t the only KPI that matter — you might have funnel metrics you want to use to measure your success. These may include lead generation and lead attrition (awareness), blog post or video views (desire), and number of positive reviews and customer lifetime value (retention).
Optimizing your sales funnel starts with reaching the right audience—and MNTN Performance TV makes that easier than ever. MNTN’s performance-driven CTV advertising platform helps marketers move prospects seamlessly through the funnel with targeted, measurable campaigns. Here’s how:
Turn CTV into your most efficient funnel-driving channel with MNTN’s self-serve software. Sign up today.
So what is a sales funnel? When used correctly, it’s an effective way of understanding your customers and their buying journey so you can effectively guide prospective buyers to purchase your product.
With the right partner, like MNTN, that can be an enjoyable, creative, and tech-enabled endeavor — one that gets you the results you want.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.
As a marketer, you know the power of a marketing funnel. Meeting your customer at the right time, through the right channel is essential to serving their needs, and a well-defined funnel can make that happen effectively.
But there’s a common mistake marketers make that can seriously hurt their overall strategy: only focusing on the bottom of the funnel—on sales conversions.
The most successful marketing strategies make use of the full funnel. A full-funnel marketing strategy considers customers at all stages of the funnel, from awareness to purchasing.
So what exactly is a full-funnel marketing strategy? And how can you build one that brings in results? Let’s explore the fundamentals of full-funnel marketing.
Full-funnel marketing is a strategy that guides consumers through every stage of the buying journey—from awareness to conversion—using targeted messaging and data-driven optimization. Throughout every stage, marketers focus on nurturing a relationship with the customer, putting the customer’s needs first.
Rather than focusing solely on sales, a full-funnel marketing strategy is more concerned with building a better brand experience.
Before we continue, if you’re looking for an article with more of a B2B slant, check out our B2B sales funnel piece.
While marketing funnels and sales funnels are closely related, they have distinct purposes.
A marketing funnel is about the relationship between the customer and the brand. It starts the moment when someone learns about your company, and it ends the moment when they become a sales-qualified lead (SQL). The marketing funnel focuses on how customers interact with your brand’s content and experiences, from scrolling through your website to seeing your ad on TV.
The sales funnel, meanwhile, takes the leads who have already gone through the marketing stage and guides them through to a conversion. In the sales funnel, customers are already aware of your brand. Now, it’s about convincing them that your brand is the best choice when compared to the competition.
There’s clearly some overlap between the two, but the sales funnel generally takes over where the marketing funnel ends. Even in the moments when the two funnels come together, they each offer valuable insight into the same customer journey, just through different lenses.
If you already have an effective sales pipeline, you might be wondering: why bother moving to full-funnel marketing? If it ain’t broke, right? Well, there are several benefits of a sales funnel that you might not be aware of:
A full-funnel strategy ensures your brand stays top of mind by delivering the right message at the right time. Consistent exposure across channels builds brand awareness and keeps your audience engaged throughout their buying journey.
By tailoring content to each stage of the funnel, brands can create more meaningful interactions with their audience. This approach fosters trust, encourages repeat engagement, and keeps potential customers moving toward conversion.
A well-structured funnel delivers targeted messaging that speaks to audience needs at every touchpoint. By providing valuable content and timely follow-ups, brands can guide prospects through the decision-making process more effectively.
Aligning messaging with audience intent increases the likelihood of turning interest into action. When consumers receive relevant content at critical moments, they’re more likely to move from consideration to purchase.
A full-funnel strategy optimizes ad spend by focusing efforts on the highest-impact touchpoints. With data-driven insights, brands can refine their campaigns in real time to maximize results and reduce wasted budget.
A potential customer can come across your brand through any of the digital channels at their fingertips. With a full-funnel strategy, you can meet the customer where they’re at—and give them exactly what they need to move on to the next stage.
Here are the three main sales funnel stages:
At the top of the funnel, it’s all about brand awareness. A customer’s awareness of your brand includes your name, your messaging, your values, and so on—the basic whats of getting to know someone (in this case, your brand).
To drive awareness, brands must meet their target audiences in the spaces where they spend the most time—for example, digital advertising, social media campaigns, television ads (traditional and Connected TV), radio ads, content marketing, and more.
While awareness alone usually isn’t enough to inspire a purchase, it puts potential customers on the path to learning more about what you offer. The goal is to keep your brand top of mind for the customers who need your goods or services most.
After you’ve captured someone’s attention comes the consideration stage. At this point, the middle of the funnel, customers may not be fully invested, but they have your company floating around their mind as they search for the best solution to their problem.
In this stage, it’s important to produce marketing content that highlights why someone should choose you. Think about the kinds of pain points your target audience might have, and how your brand can offer a solution. Or consider the ways your brand stands apart from the competition.
After all that hard work, you could already have your prospects convinced. But just to be safe, they might need a little nudge to convince them to finally click “buy.”
At the final stage, the bottom of the funnel, your goal is to inspire confidence in the purchasing decision. Testimonials, case studies, and customer reviews can be especially critical here. You can also help leads through the conversion funnel with additional benefits, like free trials, discounts, coupons, and free shipping.
A full-funnel marketing strategy isn’t just about doing more at each stage of the funnel. To craft a successful strategy, you need to understand how all of the stages work together to inform the buyer’s journey.
Here are a few key steps to building a full-funnel marketing strategy.
Before you start building a full-funnel strategy, you first need to know who you’re planning to target. This step shapes the rest of your marketing approach because your messaging has to align with the needs and preferences of this audience.
Think of a few personas for the “ideal” customers you have in mind. Demographics like age, gender, and employment status can help you construct a profile of who they are, the challenges they’re facing, and what they’re looking for in a brand. Most importantly, this will also help you decide the right channels to use to reach these buyers. Some brands even give their personas names to make it easy to keep them in mind throughout a campaign.
Now that you have a target in mind, it’s time to develop something that can reel them in. A “lead magnet” is an incentivization tool that attracts people into your funnel. Remember, customers can enter your funnel at any point, so a full-funnel approach will require you to focus on lead magnets that can draw leads into your funnel—and keep them there—at all stages of the buyer’s journey.
Examples of lead magnets include:
Once you’ve caught the eye of a potential customer, it’s time to make a powerful first impression. Whether someone clicks an ad or simply searches for your brand on Google, the landing page is where they’ll end up.
The purpose of this page is simple: to convince visitors to take action. “Action” doesn’t necessarily mean a purchase, yet, either; it can also be a webinar registration, free consultation booking, or newsletter sign-up.
The landing page is often the first thing people will see on your website, and it takes only a fraction of a second to make a first impression. The landing page should deliver the relevant information quickly and effectively with a clear call to action.
Email marketing is one of the most effective strategies for nurturing leads. Once you have potential customers on an email list, you have a direct line of communication to the customers who are already on the verge of purchasing. This has the highest ROI of any marketing strategy, at $36 for every $1 spent.
You can also use email at every stage of the funnel. Creating email content based on a customer’s location within the funnel lets you address them with the right messaging at the right time.
No funnel can succeed without one thing: an appealing offer. Whether you’re offering a product or a service, it’s the offer that draws customers deeper into the funnel.
Think about the kind of value you provide, and make sure it’s reflected in your content. Encourage customers to act with powerful CTAs. Or you can even make an offer using incentives like free add-ons, trials, bonus resources, and more.
A sales page is a standalone page on your website with the sole purpose of boosting sales. On this page, a potential customer can learn everything they need to know about your product or service. Think of it like a landing page, but far more detailed and thorough.
A sales page typically includes a detailed description of your product or service (i.e. “how it works”), a breakdown of all its benefits, and an explanation as to how you can solve a customer’s problems. It clearly demonstrates the value your brand brings to the table.
This is also a place where you can address customers’ questions or concerns through FAQs, highlight your best reviews and testimonials, and showcase case studies that demonstrate great results you’ve delivered in the past.
Every touchpoint for your brand matters in a full-funnel strategy, and that includes your order form. An online order form guides customers through the order process and takes their payment with just a few buttons. The easier it is to buy, the more likely they are to actually convert.
In an effective marketing funnel, customer relationships don’t end with a sale. In fact, the sale can be just the beginning. A post-purchase sequence can improve customer retention, keeping them coming back again and again.
To start your post-purchase sequence, set up an email to go off automatically. This is an opportunity to inform customers about their order, thank them for their loyalty, and show off a little personality along the way. It’s also a chance to upsell or remind them about future promotions you may be running.
Even when you have everything you need for a successful funnel, your job still isn’t over. Every marketing funnel is unique to the type of customers you’re looking to attract.
That’s why it’s so important to keep testing and optimizing your process based on customers’ behaviors. Once you know how customers are engaging with your brand’s touchpoints, you can optimize the marketing funnel to meet them where they are—and, ultimately, increase your conversions.
A successful full-funnel advertising strategy improves the customer experience using a data-driven approach. By understanding how each brand touchpoint is connected, you can better invest in the stages of the funnel that need it the most.
Let’s break down funnel optimization in more detail.
It all starts with your existing sales funnel. Try visualizing your funnel to get a bird’s-eye view of the current customer experience. Then use data to get a clearer picture of customer behaviors, conversion rates, and any potential bottlenecks in your funnel.
It can be hard to optimize if you don’t know what you’re aiming for. Set clear and specific goals you want your funnel to accomplish for you. The right goals will be different for everyone, but it can help to identify metrics and KPIs to track, such as revenue or customer churn rates.
Split testing—also known as A/B testing—involves releasing slightly different versions of the same marketing content to see which performs better. For example, something as simple as the size of your CTA button could impact the number of conversions you generate.
Split testing can be a powerful strategy for optimizing your lead magnets and landing pages. First, create a modified version with just one change that you think could impact your sales. Then, randomly assign half of your website visitors (or email recipients, etc.) to the original content and the other half to the modified version. Based on the results, you can adjust as you go.
Refresh your outdated campaigns. This might mean updated messaging or occasionally clearing your email list to ensure it’s primed for engagement.
Just like with your webpages, you can use email lists to split-test what works and what doesn’t. Keep an eye on analytics to see which campaigns are performing well and which ones are falling short.
Split testing is something you can do for all of your webpages, including your most critical sales pages. Whether it’s a new design choice or a simple adjustment to your sales copy, look for ways to better resonate with your audience and put them to the test.
If your checkout process is slow, clunky, or outdated, you could be losing customers at the bottom of your sales funnel—the most crucial moment! By optimizing your checkout process, you minimize abandoned carts and ensure conversions follow through.
Make sure your order form is intuitive and straightforward. Other helpful adjustments include optimizing the form for mobile, capturing email addresses early in the checkout process, and being upfront about shipping fees so you don’t scare off potential customers.
Testing can be a powerful tool for your post-purchase sequences, too. Whether you want to inspire customer loyalty or convince someone to make another purchase, the right post-purchase email can help you meet your goals. Try new messaging, a different subject line, or different design choices to see how buyers respond.
To measure the success of your full-funnel marketing strategy, you’ll need to keep a close eye on the numbers. Establish the most important metrics and KPIs you want to track—about 5-10 is a good place to start. Those KPIs should be tied to your long-term goals for marketing success.
Here are a few examples of sales funnel metrics to consider:
Connected TV (CTV) isn’t just an awareness play—it’s a performance powerhouse that drives results at every stage of the funnel. With MNTN Performance TV, marketers can launch Connected TV marketing campaigns that build brand recognition, nurture engagement, and convert high-intent audiences with precision. Here’s how:
Bring full-funnel strategy to CTV with MNTN’s self-serve software. Sign up today.
With so many touchpoints on a wide range of digital channels, the path to purchase isn’t as straightforward as it used to be. A full-funnel marketing strategy helps you reach more potential buyers, wherever they are in the funnel.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.
In sales, conversion—the change that happens when a potential lead turns into an actual sale— is the holy grail of metrics. As a consumer yourself, you know a myriad of products and services are always competing for your attention.
While you may be glancingly—or even actually—interested in them, you probably won’t pursue every cool shoe you see on Instagram. If you’re selling shoes, however, you need to know how to best move your prospects from contemplation to active purchasing.
That’s where the conversion funnel comes in.
The conversion funnel is a model that represents the path some prospective customers—hopefully many of them—will take to become actual committed buyers of your brand’s products. Your brand will have many prospective customers and far fewer committed buyers, hence the funnel shape. Conversion funnels are also known as sales funnels.
They are both similar, and they work together, but they’re distinct processes. A marketing funnel maps the customer journey, guided by marketing efforts, from brand awareness to conversion.
Your marketing funnel helps you first identify Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) as genuinely credible leads (rather than mere lookie-loos). These MQLs may fit your buyer profile, or they may simply have put an item in their cart or signed up to receive an email from your company. Once those MQLs have indicated more sustained interest in your product, they become Sales Qualified Leads (SQLs), ripe for sales outreach. At this point, SQLs enter the sales funnel, and the effort to win their business becomes the sales team’s responsibility.
In reality, marketing and sales efforts will overlap often, and that’s good—both teams share the same end goal: conversions. But there are specific techniques you can use to make your full-funnel marketing efforts more effective.
There are many sales funnel benefits, including:
A conversion funnel helps you understand how customers interact with your brand at each stage, from awareness to purchase. With this insight, you can refine your messaging and remove friction points to create a seamless buying experience.
By delivering the right message at the right time, a conversion funnel keeps prospects engaged and moving toward a sale. Optimized touchpoints ensure fewer drop-offs, turning more high-intent visitors into actual customers.
A structured funnel helps allocate your budget where it matters most, focusing resources on the strategies that drive conversions. Instead of wasting ad spend on broad, unqualified audiences, you invest in high-value prospects with a proven path to purchase.
By analyzing behavior at different funnel stages, you can tailor your approach to specific customer needs. This ensures your marketing efforts resonate with the right audience, increasing engagement and long-term brand loyalty.
With clear data on how prospects move through your funnel, you gain the ability to optimize campaigns in real time. Insights into drop-off points and conversion drivers help fine-tune your strategy for continuous improvement.
While marketers have different ways of conceptualizing the conversion funnel ecommerce stages, the basic progression is always the same, consisting of five classic sales funnel stages: awareness, engagement, desire, action, and re-engagement.
We’ll explore these stages sorted into upper, middle, and lower levels of the conversion funnel.
At the top of the funnel (sometimes referred to as “ToFu”), shoppers know they’re looking for a certain product, like a new mattress or bar of soap. Maybe they’re doing generic web searches or researching multiple sellers.
Your challenge here is to create a positive brand association for your product, and encourage consumers to bridge the gap between asking, “What’s the best mattress brand?” and deciding your brand is the answer.
The awareness stage involves presenting general information related to your product. Thoughtful blog posts on the merits of a good night’s sleep, the science behind rest, maybe even clever videos about the purpose of dreams. A pithy explainer video can also help your brand stand out. The idea here is to capture attention and establish your company as an expert and/or a leading producer of the product or service.
At the middle of the funnel stage, customers have narrowed down their search to a few brands. They’re taking active steps to consider your product. They may be following links in your marketing emails or signing up for newsletters.
Now’s your chance to prove why your product deserves active consideration. Testimonials are a highly effective technique in moving prospects down the sales funnel. Different types of testimonials can be useful at different points of the funnel. In-depth explainer videos about your product’s merits can also move the needle during the consideration stage. Videos that highlight your sustainability processes or anything else you’re especially proud of are also effective here.
The moment of truth arrives at the bottom of the funnel: your customer either makes a purchase—or doesn’t. They may put an item in an online cart and then neglect to click “buy,” in which case discount offers, special deals, and limited-time offers can be helpful techniques to nudge them toward conversion. At this stage, you want to combat any reconsideration about or procrastination on the purchase, as these situations may diminish the chances of conversion.
Finally, after customers buy your product, the goal is re-engagement— to create an ongoing relationship with them.
The good news here is that it’s easier to retain a happy customer than start from scratch. (Consider how many resources you’ve already invested into getting customers to the sharp end of your funnel.). Good customer service, ongoing discount offers, emails, and videos that extoll the value of your product—not to mention your customers’ brilliance for choosing it—are all good strategies here. As most social media platforms have begun to merge with ecommerce functions, lower-funnel videos on platforms like TikTok have become increasingly important to encourage consumers to take that final leap.
How do you build an effective marketing strategy for your conversion funnel? Conversion rates are statistically low, with a median conversion rate of 2.5%. What kind of effect can you really have? Luckily, there are methodical steps you can take when funnel building.
Create an ideal buyer profile. Start with general demographic factors, such as age, gender, geographical location, income level, house ownership, and education level. Then narrow the field by identifying your potential customers’ characteristics—social media habits, hobbies, professions, and so on. Your audience may change based on your product, too; for example, you may offer casual sneakers to a broad audience, but high-performance athletic shoes to runners in a certain economic bracket.
If your company doesn’t have any existing customer data, make use of your competitors’ demographic profiles to give you a sense of where you should focus your efforts. Then create distinct buyer personas and gear your strategies to reach that audience.
A lead magnet is a way to get prospects’ emails and contact information via a product discount or other special offer, like a giveaway or even access to valuable information. If you’re wondering whether your lead magnet is effective, ask yourself if it’s addressing your customers’ pain points. If it does, your customers will not only provide their contact information in exchange for the offer, but they’ll share the offer with people they know, generating more leads for your company.
A landing page is a subpage on your website you can use to capture your leads’ contact information, a stepping stone that often offers a form of goodwill (like an ebook, discount or whitepaper) in exchange for information before leading the customer further into the sales funnel. A good landing page is well-designed, uncluttered, engaging, and inviting.
Email is an effective, direct way of creating a relationship with your leads and moving them down the funnel—particularly if the email includes video. Tailor your message’s tone to your brand, and use emails to reinforce your brand’s virtues and help establish it as the authority in its field. You never know when their need to buy a new pair of shoes, for example, may turn into an urgent one; when that happens, you’ll want to be top of mind.
Seasonal content, user-generated content (UGC) like testimonials (or videos shot to look like UGC), and any content that has the potential to go viral can help you stand out.
Creating a psychologically compelling offer is paramount to keeping clients in the sales funnel. Your offer must be clear, offer great value, require an immediate response, and provide a warranty or guarantee without any fine print.
A sales page is a standalone part of your website meant to turn potential customers into buyers. It should include a short description of the product or service, its benefits (including reviews and testimonials), special offers that might sway an uncertain buyer, and any other relevant information. Your sales page should paint a clear picture of your product or service, both literally (if possible) and figuratively. A clear call to action (CTA) is also important here.
A sales page should be direct in its tone, but also remember that you are still trying to nurture a relationship with your lead, so avoid pushiness or abrasiveness.
Order forms are simple pages that detail the sales transaction. As a consumer yourself, you’re likely familiar with these from shopping online. After you click “buy,” you’re taken to a page that clearly defines how many items you’re buying, allows you to fill in your credit card information and shipping/billing address, and tells you how much you’re paying in additional tax and shipping fees.
Order forms should be clear and straightforward — you don’t want customers falling out of the funnel during this last step. Analytics can be helpful in telling you if there’s something about this page that’s putting customers off, be it higher-than-expected shipping fees or a confusing design.
A post-purchase sequence (or flow) involves the emails and communication you engage in with your customers after they’ve made a purchase. These can be part of the fun of making a purchase —for example, tracking something they’re excited to receive through the mail—as well as the logistics of making sure the item is delivered.
Businesses that value their customers can provide alerts in case of delivery delay. Some businesses follow up with a survey, though many consumers find these irritating (or ignore them entirely). Better to balance these out with surprise and delight emails that offer additional coupons and special deals “just for you,” as well as any informational videos that might be helpful, like a product demo/tutorial. Offering an easy return process if the product doesn’t meet expectations is also a great way of building trust.
It’s impossible to build a perfect system, let alone right away. But over time, you’ll amass enough data and insights to see what works for you and what doesn’t. If something is not working, or there’s an obvious point in your conversion funnel where customers are getting lost, you can take the necessary actions to correct your issue.
There are multiple funnel optimization techniques proven to help you improve your conversion funnel.
What’s your conversion rate? Of course, you want it to be as high as possible. Is it higher than the above-quoted median of 2.5%? Or lower?
Investigate your sales funnel’s strengths and weaknesses using Google Analytics or a similar platform. Have you defined your ideal buyer? Do you have a poor lead magnet? Is your landing page confusingly designed? Find where customers are falling out of the funnel, and try to figure out why. User Experience, or UX, surveys can help, but simply examining your data can put you on the right track for honing your funnel.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are concrete measures of how well your business is doing. Remember that a good goal is SMART: specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. So something fuzzy like “raising awareness” is not as good a goal as “improving our click-through rate (CTR),” a metric that indicates how many people actually click on your banner ad, and can tell you if you’re expending your resources wisely.
Try out different lead magnets and landing pages simultaneously. Direct traffic at random to one or another—for example, to one of two different offers—to determine which strategy works best.
Email success can be simple to measure. Are your readers opening them, or are they ignoring them? When they do open them, are they reading them all the way through? You may be sending too many communications, which can border on spam. Your information could be too dense or even unrelated to your customers’ needs.
Keep analyzing and honing your emails until you’re satisfied with the metrics you’re seeing.
Sales pages, too, can be divided into two styles, so you can see what’s resonating with your audiences. Consider variables like:
You don’t want to have taken your customers on a journey only to have them tune out before the conversion point because of an overly complicated checkout process. Make it as user-friendly and frictionless as possible.
While you may start with an ideal buyer model, keep in mind that models aren’t people—the more customers you amass, the better you’ll understand actual buyers and their actual needs. They may want more or less communication from you, more hard offers or more friendly communiqués—but you won’t know until you experiment. See what types of communication methods resonate best with your customers, and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Many conversion and sales funnels are built on their lead magnet. Sales funnel examples include “the tripwire,” which starts with a low-priced special offer, and “the webinar,” which starts with an informational webinar to lure customers.
But different industries require different models for conversion funnels. These can include:
You can tailor your own conversion funnel to your needs, audience, and industry.
There are many ways of measuring your conversion funnel’s success. Choose one that aligns with your goals now; then, if those goals change, you can change your sales funnel metrics to match.
Obviously, the end-all goal of a conversion funnel is your conversion rate. But to get there, you could also consider your customer acquisition cost (CAC). Are you spending too much to get one sale? Can you use your resources in wiser fashion to get to your goal? A high click-through rate (CTR), a low CAC, and a high conversion rate are all signs of a healthy conversion funnel.
A high-performing ecommerce conversion funnel starts with the right marketing—and CTV is the missing piece that turns awareness into action. MNTN Performance TV helps you attract, engage, and convert high-intent shoppers with measurable, performance-driven Connected TV advertising. Here’s how:
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Conversion funnels are only as good as the information you feed into them. CTV lets you access meaningful data while creating campaigns that are winning—and fun.
Discover how Performance TV delivers revenue, conversions and more through the power of Connected TV. Request a demo today to speak to an expert.