How to Build a Sales Funnel That Converts

A well-structured sales funnel is key to guiding potential customers from awareness to purchase, increasing conversions and fostering long-term customer loyalty. Here’s how to build an effective sales funnel.

Understanding the Stages of a Sales Funnel

A sales funnel represents the customer journey, moving through these key stages:

• Awareness: At this stage, your prospects first discover your brand, often through organic search, paid ads, or social media.
• Interest: Customers show interest by exploring your products or services further, typically visiting your website or engaging on social platforms.
• Consideration: At this point, they’re comparing different options, evaluating your offerings against competitors.
• Intent: Prospects exhibit signs of readiness to buy—maybe they’ve added items to their cart or subscribed to your newsletter.
• Purchase: The customer completes the transaction, and the sale is made.
• Retention: Post-purchase engagement, such as loyalty programs or personalised follow-ups, keeps them coming back.

Understanding these stages allows you to create content and strategies for each one, guiding the customer smoothly through their journey toward conversion.

Defining Your Ideal Customer

Before refining your sales funnel, you need a clear understanding of who your customers are. Defining your ideal customer involves analysing their demographics, shopping behaviours, and pain points to tailor your marketing strategies effectively.

Steps to Define Your Ideal Customer:

• Identify Customer Demographics: Consider factors like age, location, income level, and job role to understand your target audience.
• Analyse Shopping Behaviours: Look at purchasing patterns, preferred online shopping platforms, and product preferences.
• Understand Pain Points: Identify challenges your customers face and how your product or service solves them.
• Segment Your Audience: Group customers into segments based on interests, spending habits, and engagement levels to create personalised marketing campaigns.
• Use Customer Feedback & Data: Leverage surveys, website analytics, and social media insights to refine your customer persona.

Understanding your audience allows you to craft targeted messaging, refine your product offerings, and optimise your ecommerce sales funnel for higher conversions.

How to Optimise Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel

Optimising your ecommerce sales funnel involves refining each stage to convert more prospects into loyal customers. By enhancing awareness, nurturing interest, and simplifying conversions, you can maximise sales and customer retention. Here’s how to optimise each stage effectively.

Awareness Stage: Attracting the Right Audience

Improve On-Page SEO

On-page SEO enhances your website’s visibility in search results, making it easier for potential customers to discover your products.

Best Practices:

• Optimise Title Tags & Meta Descriptions: Write compelling and keyword-rich title tags and meta descriptions to boost click-through rates.
• Use Internal Linking: Link relevant pages within your site to improve navigation and SEO.
• Optimise URL Slugs: Keep URLs concise and include relevant keywords.
• Add Alt Text to Images: Improve accessibility and SEO by adding descriptive alt text to all images.
• Use Keyword-Rich Content: Incorporate relevant keywords naturally in product pages, blogs, and category pages.

Recommended Tools:

• Ahrefs to find relevant keywords.
• Google Search Console to track indexing and search performance.

Build Backlinks

Backlinks from reputable websites signal trust and improve search rankings.

How to Build Backlinks:

• Reach out to industry blogs for guest posting opportunities.
• Get featured in relevant online directories.
• Partner with influencers or affiliates for backlinks.

Recommended Tool:

• Semrush Link Building Tool for backlink opportunities and outreach tracking.

Interest Stage: Engaging Your Audience

Build an Email List

Encourage visitors to subscribe by offering incentives like:

• Discount codes for first-time buyers.
• Exclusive access to sales and promotions.
• Free resources, like guides or eBooks.

Recommended Tool:

• Mailchimp for email marketing automation.

Write Relevant Blog Posts

Informative blog content can attract and engage potential customers.

Content Ideas:

• Answer common customer questions.
• Compare your products to alternatives.
• Share tutorials on product use.

Recommended Tools:

• SEO Writing Assistants to optimise content.
• Google Trends for topic inspiration.

Create Retargeting Ads

Retargeting ads help bring back visitors who didn’t convert initially.

Strategies:

• Display ads to past visitors on Google and social media.
• Offer time-sensitive discounts to encourage return visits.

Recommended Tool:

• Google Ads Retargeting to serve personalised ads to past site visitors.

Consideration Stage: Encouraging Decision-Making

Highlight Product Benefits

Showcase how your product solves customer pain points through:

• Product demos.
• Comparison charts.
• Case studies.

Showcase Customer Reviews & Testimonials

95% of customers read reviews before making a purchase.

Display reviews and testimonials prominently on:

• Product pages.
• Checkout pages.
• Retargeting ads.

Intent Stage: Encouraging Conversions

Fix Site Errors for Better UX

A slow or error-ridden site can lead to lost sales. Ensure:

• Pages load quickly.
• No broken links or 404 errors.
• A seamless mobile experience.

Recommended Tool:

• Semrush Site Audit for identifying technical SEO and UX issues.

Optimise Sales Pages

A high-converting sales page should include:

• High-quality product images.
• Clear pricing and return policies.
• A prominent call-to-action (CTA).

Recommended Tool:

• Google Analytics to track conversion rates and A/B test different elements.

Conversion Stage: Closing the Sale

Implement Cart Abandonment Emails

Since 7 out of 10 carts are abandoned, use automated emails to recover lost sales.

Email Best Practices:

• Send reminders within 24 hours.
• Include images of abandoned items.
• Offer discounts or incentives to complete the purchase.

Recommended Tool:

• Klaviyo for automated cart recovery emails.

Streamline the Checkout Process

Make checkout seamless by:

• Offering multiple payment options.
• Enabling guest checkout.
• Reducing unnecessary form fields.
• Ensuring mobile-friendly design.

Retention Stage: Encouraging Repeat Purchases

Create a Loyalty Program

Loyalty programs can boost repeat purchases. Options include:

• Points-based systems where customers earn rewards.
• Exclusive member discounts.
• Referral programs offering perks for inviting friends.

Recommended Tool:

• Yotpo Loyalty & Referrals is great for combining loyalty programs with customer reviews and referrals.

Offer Personalised Recommendations

Use customer data to suggest relevant products, improving retention and lifetime value.

Recommended Tool:

• Nosto for AI-driven personalised shopping experiences.
• Klaviyo offers data-driven personalised email and SMS product recommendations.
• Algolia Recommend uses AI to suggest relevant products based on user behaviour.

Final Thoughts

Optimising your ecommerce sales funnel requires a combination of SEO, content marketing, UX improvements, and strategic retargeting. By refining each stage, you can guide more prospects towards conversion and retain them as loyal customers.