Marketing funnel: the stages of the customer journey in simple terms

The marketing funnel, or sales funnel, describes a person's journey from the moment they learn you exist to the purchase and the next purchase. There are four basic stages: awareness, consideration, decision and loyalty. At each stage the customer needs something different, so your content and channels change too.

It is called a funnel because at every step the number of people shrinks: many see you, fewer consider you, even fewer buy. In practice the customer journey, meaning the customer's actual path, is not a straight line. Someone might see a Reel, forget about you for a month, find you on Google and buy in the store. The funnel is a simple map for organising your work, not a description of how every customer thinks.

The four stages of the funnel

1. Awareness: the person does not know you, or does not yet know they have the need. The goal is for them to notice you and remember you.
2. Consideration: they know they need a solution and are comparing options. The goal is for them to understand why you and to trust you.
3. Decision: they are ready to buy or ask for a quote. The goal is for them to find no obstacles at all.
4. Loyalty: they have already bought. The goal is for them to buy again, recommend you and write a review.

The fourth stage is forgotten more often than the others, even though that is where you are talking to people who already know you. A customer who was happy is easier to convince than a stranger.

Which content and which channel at each stage

Each stage has its own channels, its own formats and its own metric. A general mapping, which you adapt to your own business:

• Awareness: short videos and Reels, photos that stop the scroll, partnerships with creators, in-store activations, advertising on Meta, TikTok or YouTube, articles that answer general questions. You measure video views, reach, meaning how many unique people saw you, and searches for your name.
• Consideration: service and product pages, comparisons, guides, reviews, samples of work, carousels that explain, a newsletter. Channels: organic search, Google Ads for searches with intent, and remarketing, meaning advertising to people who have already visited the site. You measure visits to key pages and sign-ups.
• Decision: a clear price or way of pricing, a landing page with a single action, a simple form or basket, quick replies to messages, a Google Business Profile with opening hours and reviews. You measure enquiries, purchases and conversion rate.
• Loyalty: post-purchase emails, instructions for use, review requests, a loyalty programme, content for people who have already bought. You measure repeat purchases, reviews and referrals.

A common mistake is to expect from one stage the result of another. An awareness Reel is judged unfairly if you measure it by sales on the same day. A search ad is judged wrongly if you measure it by likes.

How to see where customers drop off

To find where the funnel breaks, you need a number for each move from one step to the next. The steps:

1. Write down your own journey. For an e-shop: visit, product page, basket, order completed. For a service: visit, service page, form, appointment, agreement.
2. Make sure every step is measured: events in Analytics, conversions in the ad platforms and, for whatever happens after the form, a CRM or at least a spreadsheet.
3. Calculate the rate from step to step. For example, if 1,000 people viewed a product page and 40 added the product to their basket, the step-through rate is 4%.
4. Compare with your own previous period, by channel and by device. A drop only on mobile usually points to a problem with the page, not with the ad.
5. Fix the biggest gap closest to the purchase first. An improvement in the basket or the form makes use of all the traffic you are already paying for.

The numbers show you where people drop off. The why you usually find on the page itself: shipping costs that appear at the end, a form with too many fields, a price that is not visible, slow loading, replies to enquiries after days. Also ask the people who talk to your customers, because they often know the cause before the tools do. Remember that with cookie consent some visits are not recorded, so look at trends and ratios, not just absolute numbers.

Mistakes that empty the funnel

• The whole budget at the bottom of the funnel. Decision-stage advertising works as long as there are people who know you. If nobody comes in at the top, at some point it dries up.
• Only awareness, with no page that closes the deal. Lots of views and no clear next action.
• The same message at every stage. A stranger does not want a discount. They want to understand what you are. Someone who is comparing wants proof.
• The funnel ends at the form. If you do not know what happened to the enquiries, you do not know whether your channels bring in work or just contacts.
• No plan for after the purchase: no email, no review request, no reason for the customer to come back.

At THPAUL we set up Meta campaigns according to the goal, from brand awareness to sales, and measurement with GA4, Tag Manager and pixel, so that the whole purchase journey is visible. For the loyalty stage, ReviewDesk organises review requests and follows up on customers' private feedback.