Marketing Funnel Building - Intermediate

Have you ever wondered how you go into the grocery only planning to get some essentials: bread, milk, cheese maybe, but half an hour in, you have a half-full trolley. There you go bopping your head to the store radio music, trolley containing some random pre-made meals, the blueberries that are neverrr on sale (but they are tuh-day!) and now you are contemplating trying the new caramel coffee creamer in Aisle 6.

By the time you are at the counter seeing your bill rack up, you are questioning "What did I pick up?!" What wizardry did this place work on you?!

Would it be a secret if I told you that the grocery store was designed specifically for you? From the moment you walk in the doorway, you are bombarded with subtle messaging and emotion-evoking colours in a strategically organised warehouse to compel you to pick up more than you planned.

This is what your business's funnel is supposed to do. Now that we have covered the basics, it is time for us to dig a little further past having our essentials and it is time to optimize.

Here are the top 5 optimization tactics I think all experienced online entrepreneurs need to utilize to make sure their funnels are performing.

🔥Heat Mapping

Heatmapping is a visual tool that tracks and displays how users interact with a web page. It uses color-coded overlays (like red for “hot” and blue for “cold”) to show areas where users click, scroll, or hover most often.

Example:

Your grocery wants to know what areas in the grocery store persons spend the most time when they shop. Using the security cameras over the next couple weeks, they track to see how many persons linger in the different sections of the store.

As a result:

• Most persons spend the most time in the produce section near the entrance (Hot)

• The second busiest area is the bakery to the back where persons mill about while waiting for their orders. (Warm)

• The area with the least traffic was household items section, furthest from the entrance.

Just like the sections in the grocery, we can think of these as the sections of our sales page. Where do most persons go, where do they linger and how do we modify these spaces to bring the pertinent information to our viewer's attention.

🧪A/B Testing

A/B testing (also known as split testing) is the process of comparing two versions of a web page, email, or ad (Version A vs. Version B) to see which one performs better in terms of a specific goal — like conversions, clicks, or sign-ups. This helps you make small, controlled changes (like a new headline or button color) and determine what actually increases performance, instead of guessing.

Example:

Your grocery wants to increase sales of a new brand of organic granola bars. The store decided to run an A/B Test to see which product placement leads to more units sold over a 2-week period.

• Version A (Original Setup): The granola bars are placed in Aisle 5, next to other health snacks and cereals.

• Version B (Test Setup): The granola bars are placed near the checkout counters, where impulse buys are more likely.

As a result:

• Version A (Aisle 5): 75 bars sold

• Version B (Checkout): 130 bars sold

Version B performs better, so the grocery decides to keep the granola bars near the checkout counters.

You're testing one variable (in this case, product placement) to see which version increases your desired outcome — just like you'd test a headline, CTA, or image on a landing page.

🔄Behaviour-based Automations

Behavior-based automations are workflows triggered by specific actions a user takes (or doesn’t take) within your funnel — such as visiting a page, clicking a link, abandoning a cart, or downloading a freebie.

Example:

Whenever Marisa goes to the grocery, she always buys almond milk and never dairy products and she never forgets to swipe her loyalty card at the cashier.

As a result:

When Marisa is at checkout, the system prints for her a 10% coupon on Almond Milk. When the grocery has a promo on any vegan products, Marisa will get an email outlining all the vegan products on sale.

This is a game changer when it comes to online business because we can them provide personalised experiences for the persons in our ecosystem. What that may look like is:

• Segmenting audiences by email opens to send specialised offers.

• Sending reminder emails if someone abandons their cart

• Triggering a curated sequence if someone opts into a specific freebie

Behavior-based automation is all about responding to what the customer does (or doesn’t do), and delivering the right message or offer at the right time - whether in a store or in your funnel.

📊Benchmarking

Benchmarking is the process of comparing your funnel’s performance metrics (such as conversion rates, bounce rates, or email open rates) against industry standards, competitor performance, or your own past data.

Using competitor performance, let's say your grocery and 2 others within your area are publically traded.

• Store A (your store) specialises in: Organic & locally sourced items

• Store B specialises in: Discount/value grocery

• Store C specialises in: Full-service, one-stop shop

At the end of 2024, they put out their financial report. Store B is a bit out of your grocery's niche so you take a closer look at Store A and C:

Metric	Store A	Benchmark (Store C)	Gap/Insight
Revenue per Customer	$60	$64	$4.00 Less on average. Slightly below
Basket Size	5 items	10 items	5 items less that C. Half as many
Conversion Rate	55%	85%	Much lower - what in the store can be improved?

In a digital funnel, this is the same as:

• Comparing your email open rate to industry standards (35%)

• Noting your Meta Ad conversion rate for offers vs others in your niche.

• Looking at a yearly comparison of past launch earnings on the same offer

The next step will be to problem-solve or tweak your funnel for them to meet expected standards.

🎨User Interface (UI) Optimization

UI optimization involves improving the visual design, layout, and interactive elements of a funnel page (like buttons, forms, spacing, typography, etc.) to enhance usability and guide the user more effectively toward conversion.

Lately, in your grocery, you have been having a hard time finding the specialty ramen. When you are determined to find it, you find yourself asking a cashier or an attendant to point it out to you only to find you walked passed it.

Thankfully you soon get over your embarassment as the attendant comments it's not uncommon for persons to walk passed it. So your grocery takes note and send in an attendent to try to reorganise some items for it to be easier to find.

Did you know that as humans, we pay more attention to what is at our eye-level (or more accurately, chest level.... )? Second best is Above eye level and third is below eye (chest..) level.

As a result:

The store not only moves the ramen, but added in korean sauces, specialty toppings and pickled eggs to the shelf as complimentary items.

To think about this in terms of a digital funnel as:

• Treat the Hero section, Headline and CTA as your eye level shelf

• Moving a bump or upsell at checkout from the bottom of checkout page to before the area to enter card information just as you would add companion products on the way out of the aisle and,

• Move from using plain hyperlinked text to a brightly coloured button just as adding a "Specialty Item" sign up near the ramen.