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Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel is a strategic model that visualizes the customer journey from initial brand awareness to final purchase. It typically divides the process into stages such as awareness, consideration, and conversion. This framework helps advertisers identify where potential buyers drop off and optimize strategies to improve overall conversion rates.

Definition

A marketing funnel is a model that represents the customer journey from initial awareness to final purchase and beyond. It's typically divided into stages: Top of Funnel (TOFU) for brand awareness, Middle of Funnel (MOFU) for consideration and education, and Bottom of Funnel (BOFU) for conversion.

Each stage requires different ad strategies, messaging, and creative approaches. Cold traffic enters at the top, warm traffic sits in the middle, and hot traffic at the bottom is ready to buy.

Key Funnel Metrics

Why It Matters

Understanding the marketing funnel is essential for structuring your ad campaigns effectively. Without a funnel-based approach, you'll either waste budget showing conversion ads to people who've never heard of you, or only run awareness ads without capturing demand. A well-built funnel moves prospects through cold trafficwarm traffic → customer, maximizing the value of every advertising dollar.

Examples

  • TOFU (Awareness): A skincare brand runs a broad video ad on TikTok showcasing '5 Signs of Dry Skin' to educate a cold audience, achieving a high view rate but low immediate click-through.
  • MOFU (Consideration): Retargeting users who watched the initial video with a carousel ad comparing the brand's moisturizer ingredients against competitors, driving traffic to a product page.
  • BOFU (Conversion): Serving a dynamic product ad (DPA) with a '10% Off First Order' code to users who abandoned their cart, resulting in a 5% conversion rate.
  • AdLibrary Use Case: A strategist uses AdLibrary to filter search results by 'Shop Now' call-to-actions to analyze high-converting BOFU creative trends in the fintech sector.
  • Retention: An email campaign sent to existing customers offering a loyalty discount on refills, effectively extending the marketing funnel into the post-purchase phase.

Common Mistakes

  • Treating all traffic the same: Failing to segment audiences results in showing aggressive sales ads to cold prospects who need educational content first.
  • Neglecting the middle funnel: Many brands focus solely on awareness and conversion, leaving a gap where interested leads are not nurtured with sufficient information.
  • Ignoring post-purchase retention: Stopping the marketing funnel at the sale overlooks the value of customer lifetime value (LTV) and advocacy.