marketing funnel

Definition

A visualization of the customer journey from awareness to purchase, shaped like a funnel to represent how most prospects leak out at every stage. It's a diagram that makes your conversion problems look geometric and therefore somehow more acceptable.

Example Usage

Our marketing funnel shows that 95% of visitors abandon before purchase, but at least the PowerPoint slide looks professional.

Origin

Based on AIDA model (Attention, Interest, Desire, Action) from 1898, adapted to modern marketing in the 1990s

Fun Fact

The funnel metaphor is increasingly criticized as outdated since modern customer journeys look more like tangled webs than neat funnels, but we're stuck with it.

Source: Marketing strategy fundamentals

Related Terms

Beginner

customer acquisition cost

The total cost of winning a new customer, including all marketing and sales expenses divided by the number of customers acquired. Also known as CAC, or 'the metric that determines whether your business model is brilliant or just elaborate money-burning.'

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blue ocean

An untapped market space with little to no competition, as opposed to 'red ocean' markets soaked in competitor blood. The mythical promised land every marketer claims they've discovered.

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Market Fit

The magical moment when your product actually solves a problem people are willing to pay for, which happens far less often than startup founders would have you believe. Finding product-market fit is like finding a parking spot downtown: everyone says they have a strategy, but mostly it's just luck.

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product feed

Structured data file containing your product catalog information that feeds into shopping platforms and dynamic ads. The spreadsheet that launches a thousand SKUs into the digital marketplace, assuming you formatted everything correctly.

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micro-influencer

Social media personalities with 1,000-100,000 followers who command higher engagement rates than celebrities and charge less than your quarterly coffee budget. They're the proof that smaller, engaged audiences beat massive, apathetic ones.

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air cover

High-level executive support or approval that protects a risky marketing initiative from being killed prematurely. Essentially, having a C-suite bodyguard for your crazy ideas.

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Intermediate

Executive Order

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