Upper-Funnel vs. Lower-Funnel Marketing: What’s the Difference?

Insights

TL;DR

5 Quick Takeaways

What marketers need to know about upper- and lower-funnel marketing.

1. 1

   Upper-funnel marketing builds awareness before prospects are ready.

2. 2

   Lower-funnel marketing converts informed prospects by removing final barriers.

3. 3

   Each funnel stage requires distinct audiences, messaging, tactics, and metrics.

4. 4

   Full-funnel strategies connect brand building with measurable performance outcomes.

5. 5

   Connected TV supports awareness, precise targeting, conversions, and growth.

To make the most of your marketing budget, you need a carefully crafted strategy based on your goals. But those goals will differ depending on where your target audience is in the sales funnel. Attracting prospects at the top of the funnel requires different messaging and tactics than converting prospects at the bottom of the funnel.

If you’re new to sales funnels in general, the difference between those two stages might not be so obvious. However, once you understand the difference between the upper and lower funnel, you’ll be well on your way to launching campaigns that actually resonate with your audience. And the best part is, this knowledge is transferable across channels, whether it’s CTV advertising, social media marketing, or an email campaign.

Let’s look at how these two sales funnel stages differ and the unique strategies you’ll need for each.

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What Is Upper-Funnel Marketing? 

Upper-funnel marketing, or top-of-funnel marketing, focuses on building awareness and initial interest. At this stage, you’re introducing potential customers to your brand and helping them understand how it may address a relevant need or pain point.

Think of the buying funnel as a framework for understanding potential customers based on where they are in the purchasing journey and what they know (or don’t know) about your brand. Someone at the top of the funnel may be starting to recognize a need, explore a category, or learn that your brand exists for the first time.

Importance of Top-of-Funnel Marketing

Top-of-funnel marketing helps you reach potential customers before they’re ready to buy. Building awareness and interest early creates demand that mid- and lower-funnel campaigns can later nurture and convert. If people recognize your brand, they may consider you when a need arises. If they don’t recognize your brand, you’ve got some heavy lifting to do to make a sale.

Outbrain notes that almost 96% of website visitors are not ready to make a purchase. Now, if you have 4 out of 100 site visitors who are interested in your product, that’s a good start. But eventually those warmer leads will dry up if you’re not addressing the other 96 visitors with unique messaging.

This is what upper funnel campaigns are actually all about. It’s about convincing that 96% that you might have a solution for their problem. And it’s incredibly important to get this part right, or you’ll create unnecessary friction and inefficiencies throughout the rest of the funnel.

• 95% Winning vendor on the Day One shortlist

  6sense’s 2025 study collected nearly 4,000 responses from B2B buyers across North America, EMEA, and APAC. The eventual winning vendor was already on the buyer’s Day One shortlist 95% of the time, up from 85% the prior year.

• 71% Hidden buyers had little or no sales interaction

  Edelman and LinkedIn surveyed 1,934 U.S. business executives about thought leadership and B2B buying. Among hidden buyers, 71% said they never, rarely, or only occasionally interacted with sales representatives.

Strategies for Top-of-Funnel Marketing

Because the goal of top-of-funnel marketing is to build awareness and attract potential customers, strategies at this stage help people discover your brand and understand why it’s relevant to them. A few proven tactics are:

• Programmatic Display Ads: Build awareness by serving visually compelling ads across relevant websites and apps.
• Paid Social Prospecting: Introduce your brand to new audiences and generate initial engagement.
• Content Marketing: Publish blog posts, reports, and videos that educate potential customers and establish credibility.
• Influencer Partnerships: Collaborate with relevant creators or industry voices to extend your brand’s reach and credibility.
• Television Ads: TV advertising builds broad brand awareness by reaching large audiences through scheduled programming.

When you’re creating top-of-funnel ads for these channels, use messaging that earns attention (quickly) and makes the next step feel easy.

For example, a paid social campaign might promote a webinar or gated guide (also known as a ‘lead magnet’) that addresses an early-stage problem. The ad should lead with the resource’s value, giving potential customers a clear reason to learn more.

This is where, hopefully, you’ll capture some basic information, such as a name or email address. Some people may register, while others may follow your brand or explore more content. Both actions can keep your brand in consideration as they move closer to a decision.

• 87% B2B marketers said content marketing helped create brand awareness

  Content Marketing Institute and MarketingProfs surveyed B2B marketers about the outcomes their content marketing helped them achieve during the previous 12 months. Among 980 B2B respondents, mostly from North America, 87% said it helped create brand awareness.

• 43% Brand awareness was the leading creator-advertising goal

  IAB surveyed U.S. creator-ad buyers and ad-spend decision-makers about the primary goals they pursued with creator advertising. Building brand awareness was the most frequently selected goal, cited by 43% of respondents.

What Is Lower-Funnel Marketing?

Lower-funnel marketing, or bottom-of-funnel marketing, focuses on potential customers who understand the problem they need to solve, know your brand, and are close to deciding whether to buy from you or a competitor.

The suspense might be killing you, but this is a good place to be because it means your mid and upper funnel are doing their job. Now, your goal is to remove final barriers to conversion by answering questions, addressing objections, and showing why your solution is the right choice.

Importance of Bottom-of-Funnel Marketing

Bottom-of-funnel marketing is where interest becomes action. Prospects may be comparing options, reviewing customer proof, or looking for reassurance before completing a purchase or another high-value conversion.

This stage matters because it’s where prospects become customers and marketing efforts translate into revenue. Measuring performance at this stage also helps you identify points of friction and understand which campaigns generate results. Because conversion rates vary widely, compare results against your own historical benchmarks rather than a single universal average.

• 39.4% Lead quality or MQLs prioritized as a critical KPI

  Based on HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing report, 39.4% of marketers prioritized lead quality or marketing-qualified leads as a critical KPI. The metric reflects how well incoming leads match the ideal customer profile and demonstrate sales readiness.

• 33.9% Lead-to-customer conversion rate prioritized as a critical KPI

  Based on the same HubSpot report, 33.9% of marketers prioritized lead-to-customer conversion rate as a critical KPI. This metric tracks the percentage of leads that ultimately become paying customers.

Strategies for Bottom-of-Funnel Marketing

At this stage, your messaging should be specific, persuasive, and action-oriented. No more reading between the lines. Tell them exactly what you want them to do. Focus on removing final barriers and making your value clear. Here’s how:

• Retargeting Campaigns: Re-engage people who have visited product or pricing pages, viewed specific items, or taken other high-intent actions.
• Email Campaigns: Send behavior-based emails featuring product details, testimonials, answers to common questions, or discount codes to give them a final nudge.
• Search Engine Marketing (SEM): Capture active demand with paid search ads that direct prospects to focused landing pages.
• Cart Abandonment Remarketing: For ecommerce brands, use ads or emails to remind shoppers about items they left behind and help them return to checkout.
• Connected TV: Use CTV advertising to reach high-intent audiences with performance-focused TV ads, then measure attributed site visits, conversions, and ROAS to see what’s driving results.

• 93.2% Marketers said personalized experiences generate more leads and purchases

  According to HubSpot’s 2026 State of Marketing report, 93.2% of marketers said personalized or segmented experiences generate more leads and purchases.

• 46% U.S. ad buyers expected to increase focus on behavioral ads

  In IAB’s 2026 Outlook Study, 46% of 205 U.S. buy-side ad investment decision-makers expected to focus more time or resources on behavioral ads in 2026 than in 2025.

Remember, bottom-of-funnel ads and marketing campaigns should lead with concrete proof, such as product details, customer results, pricing information, or a clear offer. Every element should point toward one specific action.

Get creative. Video can support this stage through product demonstrations, customer testimonials, feature comparisons, or content that answers common objections. The goal is simple: show why your solution fits the prospect’s needs and make it easy to act.

Now, let’s do a quick recap and bring it all home.

Importance of Full-Funnel Marketing

Sustained growth requires attention across the entire marketing funnel (upper, middle, and lower). Even established brands need to keep building demand instead of focusing only on people who are already close to making a purchase. A full-funnel approach connects brand building with performance marketing so each stage supports the others.

A full-funnel strategy helps you introduce your brand to new audiences, capture existing demand, and keep your messaging consistent throughout the journey. A Google-commissioned Nielsen meta-analysis of CPG campaigns found that full-funnel strategies generated up to 45% higher return on investment (ROI) and 7% higher offline sales than campaigns focused on a single purchase stage.

But making that work requires cross-team collaboration. Marketing should share campaign messages and audience insights with sales, while sales should feed common questions and objections back to marketing. That shared context can help teams create smoother customer journeys.

Customer journeys are rarely linear. Read that again because it’s the primary reason why you need cohesion across the entire funnel. A former customer may return to consideration when a new need arises, while a first-time prospect may move quickly from discovery to purchase (or slowly, for that matter).

A full-funnel strategy helps you stay relevant at each stage, so you can adjust your message to match intent.

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How CTV Advertising Can Keep Your Funnel Full

Upper- and lower-funnel marketing are often planned in separate lanes, but Connected TV can carry both jobs without splitting the strategy in two. MNTN helps advertisers build awareness among future customers and pursue conversions from high-intent households, with audience options designed for reach today and performance over time.

That gives teams room to tell a bigger brand story while keeping campaign decisions anchored to meaningful business response. Give every stage of the funnel a place on TV—sign up today with MNTN’s self-serve software.

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Top of Funnel vs. Bottom: Final Thoughts

Focusing on the full funnel allows you to keep growing your business, build awareness among a new audience, and still guide warmer leads toward a purchase.

The main difference between the top of the funnel and the bottom is intent. Your goal at the top of the funnel is to make potential customers aware of your brand and the problems you solve. At the bottom of the funnel, this goal shifts toward guiding customers to choose you over your competitors.

With a full-funnel strategy, you can meet people where they are in their journey.