Marketing Planning, The 2014 Conversion Funnel & You

"The Conversion Funnel" is a commonly used term throughout the marketing and UX world and has been for quite some time; But, what exactly is a conversion funnel and how can marketers use it to be more strategic about their planning and measurement? In today's post we'll dig right in and kick-off a multi-post series.

Historically, the term "Conversion Funnel" simply described how as a pool of users travels through a conversion process, individuals drop off as the required investment increases.

For example, GoDaddy may run a Superbowl commercial to 100 million people during the Superbowl and another 5 million on YouTube afterwards. Of the people who see the commercial, only a small % will actually be actively interested in their service and an even smaller % will be actively interested in pursuing that service from them (increasing the number of people in those two buckets is what brand advertising is all about). So, of the people who are interested in GoDaddy's service, an even smaller % will take an action, such as searching for GoDaddy on Google. Of those users, only a small % will actually click on GoDaddy's link on Google. Of those users only a small % will actually stay on GoDaddy's site long enough to find a domain, and of those users only a small % will actually purchase a domain. So with each step of the process, more users fall out of the process, thus making the "funnel" shape.

Marketing Meme: First World Problems

Over the years as digital marketing has emerged as the behemoth that it is today, the relevancy of using the conversion funnel as a planning tool has expanded significantly. Different types of marketing, both traditional and digital, work better or worse for reaching users at different stages of the funnel, therefore, understanding which conversion funnel stages a channel is likely to succeed in is necessary to properly plan your budgets, create marketing strategies that will actually work, and set realistic expectations.

For example, print advertising, a traditional channel for "awareness" at the top of the funnel, is not likely to drive strong immediate conversions since most of the users who view the ad are not actively looking for your product or service nor do they have a direct path to pursue your product/service from the ad. Instead, a user would have to proactively Google you, follow you on FB, call you, scan a QR code, etc. and how many people do you know who would put down their magazine to Google something they saw in an ad? Probably not too many. Conversely, Search advertising works well lower down on the funnel because it does make that direct pathway to your site/conversion easier, but it relies on a user already having an initial interest in order to search, so it is not likely to be successful as your primary "awareness" source. 

Check out this version of the Conversion Funnel that I created to help us understand the channel x funnel planning method:

The 2014 Conversion Funnel for Marketing Planning

Within this environment, one channel can have a helping "halo" effect on others and all are most successful when used in holistic harmony with each other. This is why marketing organizations that silo Digital from Brand marketing often run into so much trouble - what's the point of all that artistic energy going into an awesome Superbowl commercial if your digital channels are not set-up to capture and cultivate the online traffic that your ad generated?

Many years ago when I worked at Google we had a famous case study of a large car company who had made just this mistake and paid dearly for it. This company ran a very engaging, creative Superbowl commercial to launch their new hybrid car. They used a popular muppet and beloved song and successfully drove viewers onto the internet for follow-up - just the kind of response they had hoped for. However, this car company made a huge strategic mistake. They didn't coordinate internally and didn't support any sort of complementary Search campaign. To make it worse, their primary competitor had somehow anticipated their creative strategy and had created a Search campaign. Guess what happened when engaged users searched for terms relating to their Superbowl commercial? That's right, those users clicked on the competitor's ads and went straight to the competitor's website. This doesn't even qualify as a fumble, because the Brand team didn't throw the ball in the first place - the Digital team didn't even have a chance to drop it. 

This story happened about 7 years ago, back when Twitter was a fetus, Facebook was an infant, and many big brands were still debating the merits of digital advertising with Google. Yet, I have seen similar examples within the last year. Some organizations or individual marketers for one reason or another choose to focus on a siloed view of marketing channels, to the detriment of their own channels and to the company's overall marketing success. 

Don't let this happen to you!

In the coming weeks, we will continue to discuss using the Conversion Funnel for 2014 Marketing Planning in more detail, doing a deep dive into planning for each stage of the conversion funnel with real world examples. 

Stay tuned and subscribe for more posts on many other topics near and dear to the 2014 Digital Marketer's heart!

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