Marketing Funnel: 6 Stages, Metrics per Stage and How to Build One Backwards
A marketing funnel models the path a buyer takes from first hearing of you to the purchase, and on to repeat orders and referrals. It has six stages: awareness, interest, consideration, conversion, loyalty and advocacy. They group into the top (TOFU), middle (MOFU) and bottom (BOFU) of the funnel. You use it to see where people drop out and to work out how many visitors and leads your sales goal needs.
Build it backwards: from the revenue goal to customers, leads, visitors and spend. Then check in the unit economics calculator that a customer is worth more than they cost.
Marketing funnel definition
A marketing funnel models the steps from first contact with your brand to a purchase, repeat orders and referrals. You use it to plan what each step needs (a guide, a lead magnet, a comparison, a checkout) and to count how many people move to the next step.
The six stages on this page cover the four steps of AIDA, Attention, Interest, Desire and Action1, and add two after the sale: loyalty and advocacy. McKinsey’s 2009 consumer decision journey also added a loyalty loop to the linear funnel2.
A funnel plans and measures; it does not forecast. The rates you put into it come from your own data.
What a marketing funnel is
Each stage holds fewer people than the one before, because some drop out at every step. The same model is also called a purchase funnel or a conversion funnel.
MQL means marketing-qualified lead; SQL means sales-qualified lead.
- Awareness (TOFU): visitor.
- Interest (TOFU): visitor → lead.
- Consideration (MOFU): lead → MQL → SQL.
- Conversion (BOFU): SQL → customer.
- Loyalty (after purchase): repeat buyer.
- Advocacy (after purchase): advocate.
Repeat orders and referrals send new people back to stage 1, so the funnel closes into a loop.
A sales funnel, owned by sales, runs from qualified lead to closed deal; a content funnel maps content to stages for the content team.
The 6 stages of a marketing funnel
| Stage (tier) | Goal and what you do | Lead status and metric |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Awareness (TOFU) | Get found by people who have the problem: search content, social posts, partners, paid reach | Visitor; new visitors a month |
| 2. Interest (TOFU) | Give a reason to return or leave contact details: guides, tools, a newsletter | Visitor → lead; visitor-to-lead rate |
| 3. Consideration (MOFU) | Show why you fit better: nurture emails, reviews, comparison pages, demos | Lead → MQL → SQL; lead-to-SQL rate |
| 4. Conversion (BOFU) | Remove friction from the purchase: clear price, short checkout, guarantee | SQL → customer; lead-to-customer rate |
| 5. Loyalty (after purchase) | Win the second order: onboarding, reorder reminders, support | Customer → repeat buyer; repeat purchase rate |
| 6. Advocacy (after purchase) | Turn buyers into a source of buyers: referral asks, reviews | Advocate; referred customers a month |
An MQL is a lead whose behavior passes your scoring rules. An SQL has shown intent to buy: a demo request, a reply to the offer, a full cart. With no sales team, track lead to customer directly.
Stages 5 and 6 decide your lifetime value (LTV), which caps what you can pay to win a customer.
Top of the funnel: get found by people who have the problem
Research your buyers’ customer pain points first, so your pages match the searches people run.
Find TOFU keywords
- Collect phrases in the customer’s wording from support emails, reviews, interviews and community threads.
- Expand each with a keyword tool, autocomplete and «People also ask», adding «how to» and «why does».
- Place each query on one rung from problem to brand:
- Problem: «how to cut plastic in the kitchen» (TOFU).
- Solution: «refillable cleaning products» (TOFU, moving into consideration).
- Product: «best refillable cleaning kit» (consideration).
- Brand: «[brand] refill kit» (conversion).
- Search each query: if guides rank, write a guide; if product pages rank, move it to a lower stage.
- Give each group of queries that return the same results one page.
- Link each problem page to your lead magnet or a solution page.
Pick channels by budget
- No budget: search content on problem queries, and posts in communities where your customers ask questions.
- Small budget: partnerships with brands that sell to the same people, guest content, boosted posts.
- Larger budget: paid search on problem queries, paid social, sponsorships.
Map the journey from problem to brand
For the refill-kit shop, the journey runs in four hops:
- Problem. The buyer searches «how to cut plastic in the kitchen» and lands on your guide. Measure: new visitors to the guide.
- Solution. The buyer clicks through from the guide to a page on how refills work. Measure: clicks from the guide to the solution page.
- Return visit. The buyer returns from the newsletter and takes the quiz «Which refill plan fits your household». Measure: visitor-to-lead rate on the quiz.
- Brand. The buyer searches «[brand] refill kit» and reaches the product page. Measure: brand search lift in your search console against the same window before launch.
Before the guide goes live, record each measure over a fixed window and set targets as a rise over that baseline.
Use the weak hop to find the fix:
- Hop 1 is low: the guide misses the searcher’s wording. Re-run step 4 of the keyword workflow.
- Hop 2 is weak: the guide lacks a clear link to the next rung.
- Hop 3 is low: the quiz result is not worth an email address.
- Hop 4 stays flat: buyers never learn your name. Put it in the guide and the quiz result.
Measure TOFU by influence
Few people buy on a first visit. Track brand search lift, new reach, repeat visits and a holdout audience kept away from the campaign, and compare the same weeks a year earlier to rule out seasonality.
Middle of the funnel: nurture leads into MQLs and SQLs
The interest stage ends when a visitor trades an email address for a lead magnet, such as the refill-plan quiz. The middle of the funnel takes that lead through consideration: lead → MQL → SQL.
Send a nurture sequence
Send three to five nurture emails over about two weeks (assumption: test your own count and timing):
- Deliver the result you promised.
- Describe the problem and how customers solve it today.
- Show reviews and one customer story.
- Compare your product with the usual alternative.
- Make the offer, with a reason to act now.
Build the offer from your value proposition.
Cover consideration searches
In consideration, buyers search «best [product]», «[product] vs [alternative]» and «[brand] reviews». Run each search for your brand and note what ranks and what is missing.
For the refill-kit shop, a page for «refill kit vs store-bought bottles» can follow this structure:
- Answer first. Who should pick the refill kit and who should keep buying bottles.
- Comparison table. Price per refill, shipping, storage and packaging waste, with the rival’s strengths left in.
- How it works. Order to first refill.
- Reviews. Quotes that name the household and the use.
- Objections. Answers to the questions support hears most.
- Next step. A link to the refill-plan quiz or the product page.
Qualify before sales
Score each lead with the rules in step 5 below. Pass it to sales as an SQL only after an intent signal; keep the rest in nurture.
Bottom of the funnel: close the sale, then keep the customer
Remove what stops the payment:
- Checkout steps: cut every screen that is not payment or delivery.
- Shipping cost: show it on the product page, not at the last step.
- Guarantee: state returns and refunds next to the buy button.
Build comparison pages on what only you do, from your competitor analysis.
Onboarding gets the buyer to a first result, a refill reminder or subscription brings the second order, and a referral ask follows a positive review. Frederick Reichheld reported for Bain & Company that raising retention by five percentage points could lift profits by 25% to 95%; results vary by industry, and the full method was never published3.
Marketing funnel metrics by stage, with formulas
Use one or two metrics per stage:
| Stage | Metric | Formula |
|---|---|---|
| Awareness | New visitors | First-time visitors in the period |
| Awareness | Brand search lift | (brand searches after ÷ brand searches before − 1) × 100 |
| Interest | Visitor-to-lead rate | leads ÷ visitors × 100 |
| Consideration | Lead-to-SQL rate | SQLs ÷ leads × 100 |
| Conversion | Lead-to-customer rate | new customers ÷ leads × 100 |
| Conversion | Paid CAC | paid spend ÷ customers from paid traffic |
| Conversion | Blended CAC | all paid spend ÷ all new customers |
| Loyalty | Repeat purchase rate | customers with 2+ orders ÷ all customers × 100 |
| Loyalty | LTV | average order value × gross margin × orders per customer |
| Advocacy | Referral share | referred new customers ÷ all new customers × 100 |
| Between stages | Drop-off rate | (people entering − people moving on) ÷ people entering × 100 |
Every rate in the table is a version of the conversion rate: conversions ÷ visitors × 1004. For example, 50 signups from 2,000 visitors is 2.5% (both counts are assumptions).
Blended CAC includes free customers from search and referrals, so it can hide a losing paid channel; judge a paid channel by paid CAC. Compute LTV on gross margin, not revenue.
Compare each rate with your own previous month. Add an exit survey and session recordings to the page with the largest drop-off, and test CAC against LTV in the unit economics calculator.
How to build a marketing funnel backwards from a revenue goal: 7 steps
Start from the money and work up the funnel, dividing by each step’s conversion rate.
- Define the customer: who buys, what problem they have, what they use today. If you cannot, find your target audience first.
- Turn the revenue goal into customers. New customers a month (G) = revenue goal from new customers ÷ average order value.
- Work back to traffic and spend. Leads (L) = G ÷ lead-to-customer rate. Visitors (V) = L ÷ visitor-to-lead rate. Spend = V × paid share of visitors × cost per click. Paid CAC = Spend ÷ (G × paid share), which equals cost per click ÷ (visitor-to-lead rate × lead-to-customer rate), if paid visitors convert at the same rates. Then divide LTV by paid CAC. A ratio of 3:1 or higher is a commonly cited benchmark5. We read 3 or more as healthy, 1 to 3 as thin, and under 1 as a loss on every customer.
- Choose one channel and one content type per stage.
- Write lead-scoring rules: fit (role, company size), engagement (emails opened, pricing page visited, calculator used) and negative signals that subtract points (an unsubscribe, a bounced address, no visit in 30 days; assumption: set your own window). Set the MQL score and revise it monthly.
- Set up tracking: analytics goals per stage, recordings on high-drop pages, email reports per sequence and a CRM with each lead’s source and status.
- Review monthly. Fix only the stage with the largest drop against last month, then re-run step 3. Write each channel with its owner and dates into a go-to-market plan template.
If you have no tested offer yet, check your idea for free before you build stages around it.
Example: a $60-order online shop, built backwards
This is an example by our method. Every figure in it is an assumption, not market data. The shop sells refillable cleaning kits and wants 100 new customers a month (assumption).
| Figure | Value | Label |
|---|---|---|
| Average order value | $60 | assumption |
| Gross margin | 50% | assumption |
| Orders per customer | 4 | assumption |
| LTV | $60 × 50% × 4 = $120 | assumption, computed |
| Visitor-to-lead rate | 2.5% | assumption |
| Lead-to-customer rate | 20% | assumption |
| Leads needed | 100 ÷ 20% = 500 | assumption, computed |
| Visitors needed | 500 ÷ 2.5% = 20,000 | assumption, computed |
| Paid share of visitors | 50% | assumption |
| Cost per click | $0.60 | assumption |
| Paid spend | 10,000 × $0.60 = $6,000 | assumption, computed |
| Blended CAC | $6,000 ÷ 100 = $60 | assumption, computed |
| Paid CAC | $6,000 ÷ 50 = $120 | assumption, computed |
Blended CAC gives an LTV/CAC of 2.0. Paid CAC gives 1.0: the shop breaks even on each paid customer, and the blended figure hides it (both ratios are assumptions, computed).
Now fix the rates one at a time:
| Scenario | Visitors and spend | Paid CAC and LTV/CAC |
|---|---|---|
| Base | 20,000; $6,000 | $120; 1.0 |
| Fix 1: visitor-to-lead to 4% | 12,500; $3,750 | $75; 1.6 |
| Fix 2: also lead-to-customer to 25% | 10,000; $3,000 | $60; 2.0 |
The 4% and 25% rates are assumptions, so every result is too. Two fixes halve paid CAC, and the ratio stays under 3. The next lever is stage 5: if orders per customer rise from 4 to 6 (assumption), LTV becomes $60 × 50% × 6 = $180, and against the $60 paid CAC the ratio reaches 3.0.
Run your own numbers in the unit economics calculator.
B2B vs B2C marketing funnels
The stages are the same; audience, pace and owners differ.
| Aspect | B2C | B2B |
|---|---|---|
| Who decides | One person or a household | A buying group: 5 to 16 people across up to four functions6 |
| Cycle length | Short; often one or a few visits | Long; several meetings and an internal approval |
| What moves a buyer on | Price, reviews, a smooth checkout | Proof for each group member: ROI, security, references |
| Who owns stages 3–4 | The website and checkout | A sales rep, after marketing hands over the SQL |
| What you measure | Visitor-to-customer rate, repeat orders | Lead-to-meeting rate, pipeline value, win rate |
In B2B, run the same backward chain with «demo booked to closed deal» in place of «lead to customer» and average contract value in place of order value.
Write the handover down: which score makes a lead an SQL, and how fast sales must call. Build the scoring on your ideal customer profile.
What a funnel is for, and where it breaks
- Find the leak. A loss before stage 2 means the wrong audience or a first page that misses their problem; a drop at stage 4 points to checkout friction or price.
- Size the goal: turn a revenue target into traffic and budget.
Buyers do not move in a straight line. McKinsey’s 2009 decision journey is a circle with a loyalty loop2, and Google’s messy middle research describes loops of exploration and evaluation before purchase7. The flywheel centers on customers and referrals; the bowtie adds retention and expansion after the sale.
AIDA and other funnel models
- AIDA: Attention, Interest, Desire, Action. Later variants write «Awareness» for the first stage1. Best for structuring one message: an ad, a landing page, a sales email.
- See-Think-Do-Care: created by Avinash Kaushik around 2013, while he was Google’s Digital Marketing Evangelist8. «Care» covers existing customers. Best for planning content and ads by intent.
- The six-stage funnel on this page: best for measuring drop-off and back-solving a goal.
- The bowtie: best for subscription businesses, where revenue depends on retention and upgrades after the first sale.
Common funnel mistakes
- No defined customer. Ask customer interview questions until you can write one sentence on who buys and why.
- Every channel at once. Run one channel per stage until its rates hold steady.
- Measuring only the last stage. Track every stage-to-stage rate.
- Ignoring post-purchase. Set up a repeat-order trigger and a referral ask before you buy more traffic.
- Targets from unsourced benchmarks. Compare against your own last period.
- No proven demand. Test demand before you build the whole funnel with one page and one offer.
Rules for capturing leads in the US
Email: the CAN-SPAM Act requires you to honor an opt-out request within 10 business days9. Put an unsubscribe link in every marketing email and process it automatically.
Calls and texts: under the FCC’s TCPA consent revocation rule, effective April 11, 2025, people may revoke consent by any reasonable means. You must honor the opt-out within a reasonable time of no more than 10 business days, down from up to 30 days before10. Treat a «stop» reply or a remark to a rep as a revocation. The separate «revoke all» provision is postponed to January 31, 202710.
On January 24, 2025, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit vacated the FCC’s one-to-one consent rule in Insurance Marketing Coalition v. FCC11. Still collect consent before marketing texts or calls, record how and when each number agreed, and have counsel confirm the current requirements.
FAQ
What are the stages of a marketing funnel?
Awareness, interest, consideration, conversion, loyalty and advocacy.
What do TOFU, MOFU and BOFU mean?
Top, middle and bottom of the funnel: get found, turn visitors into leads, then remove friction so leads pay.
What’s the difference between a marketing funnel and a sales funnel?
The sales funnel runs from a qualified lead to a closed deal. The marketing funnel runs from first contact through repeat orders and referrals.
How is a B2B funnel different from a B2C funnel?
B2B buying groups have 5 to 16 people across up to four functions6, cycles are longer, and sales reps own the lower stages.
Which metrics should I track at each stage?
One or two per stage from the metrics table, plus the drop-off rate between stages.
How many leads and visitors do I need to hit a sales goal?
Revenue goal ÷ order value = customers; customers ÷ lead-to-customer rate = leads; leads ÷ visitor-to-lead rate = visitors.
Is the marketing funnel dead?
Buyers loop through exploration and evaluation7, but the funnel still shows where you lose people.
What are the most common funnel mistakes?
No defined customer, every channel at once, measuring only the last stage, ignoring post-purchase and unsourced benchmark targets.
Next, put your revenue goal, funnel rates and cost per click into the unit economics calculator and check your paid LTV/CAC. With no product yet, check your idea for free first.
Sources
- ebsco.com, 10/22/2026
- mckinsey.com, 10/22/2026
- marketintelligencetools.com, 10/22/2026
- invespcro.com, 10/22/2026
- paddle.com, 10/22/2026
- gartner.com, 05/07/2025
- business.google.com, 10/22/2026
- umbrex.com, 10/22/2026
- ftc.gov, 10/22/2026
- jdsupra.com, 10/22/2026
- mofo.com, 10/22/2026
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