What Is a Sales Funnel? How To Build One in 2025

A sales funnel helps you define a customer’s experience—from brand awareness to purchase—so you can help guide them from one step to the next. 

With a sales funnel, you can visualize interactions that probably already feel familiar to you, and better understand where you’re over- or under-delivering. From the moment someone encounters your marketing campaign and becomes a prospect to the final stage where they make a purchase and become a buyer, a sales funnel plots where people engage and where they drop off.

Knowing how to build and iterate on a sales funnel is one of the most profitable tactics an entrepreneur can know. Here, you’ll learn how to build a one-page ecommerce sales funnel, track key metrics to gauge success, and gain access to a free sales funnel template.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is a series of strategic experiences that turn unaware prospects into paying customers. The “funnel” visualizes the journey, with traffic from your targets entering through the top and high-value customers coming out at the bottom.

Sales funnels show the process of capturing, nurturing, and converting leads into customers in a simple visual that organizes all the things you need to do to support each stage of the journey. The moment a potential customer becomes aware of your brand, they enter your funnel and stay in it until they purchase a product. Sales funnels may also include retention tactics to encourage repeat purchases and turn buyers into brand advocates.

Stages of a sales funnel

At a high level, sales funnels comprise three parts:

1. Top of the funnel (ToFu). Your target audience who perhaps is aware of your brand but isn’t in the market to buy from you at the moment.
2. Middle of the funnel (MoFu). Potential customers who have visited your website and are considering products or services like yours.
3. Bottom of the funnel (BoFu). New and existing customers who will buy from you with the right push.

A sales funnel is not to be confused with a marketing funnel. A marketing funnel focuses on building awareness and convincing your audience to engage. The sales funnel takes over once those audience members are qualified leads.

Why is a sales funnel important?

A well-defined sales funnel helps you determine what customers think, feel, and need at each stage of the customer journey. This insight helps fine-tune your website and internal processes. 

By meeting prospective customers with content and offers that are relevant to their stage-specific needs, your sales team can improve the shopping experience, increase sales, and boost customer retention.

Example of a sales funnel in action

Here’s how the sales funnel model works in practice:

1. Interested target. A member of your target audience sees an Instagram ad for running shoes from an unfamiliar brand, and they’re interested.
2. Prospect. The target audience member clicks “Learn More” to visit your website. Now they’re a prospective customer.
3. Lead. As your prospect exits your site, they see a pop-up offering 10% off if they sign up for your newsletter. They provide their email address. Now they’re a lead.
4. First-time customer. Seven days later, your prospective customer receives an email reminder about the 10% discount, plus reviews from loyal customers. They purchase the shoes and become a new customer.
5. Return customer. Five days later, your customer gets another email asking them to review the shoes, share a photo on Instagram, and tag your brand. They do this, plus they purchase shorts recommended in the same email. Now, they’re advocates and repeat customers.

Sales funnel stages: the AIDA framework

The AIDA framework—attention, interest, desire, and action—represents the consumer thought process at each funnel stage. Many ecommerce brands start with this framework because it’s simple to implement and iterate.

The AIDA framework helps identify content and calls to action (CTAs) likely to resonate with shoppers at each stage. Here are the four stages, with examples of how you can apply them to your online business:

1. Attention

The attention or awareness stage is when you catch a potential customer’s attention with an ad, YouTube video, Instagram post, TikTok, referral, or other form of marketing collateral. In this phase, your goal is to persuade future prospects to visit your site and engage with your brand. 

People lingering at the top of your funnel aren’t interested in product information just yet, but they are casually browsing. It’s critical to create non-promotional lead generation content in this stage that’s not overtly sales-y, such as:

• Informational videos. Give your audience some free advice to build affinity for your brand. 
• TikTok videos. Take advantage of TikTok’s algorithm to put relevant content in your target market’s feeds. 
• Instagram Stories, Reels, and feed posts. Give your target market posts they’re inclined to share with their friends.
• Google Shopping, Instagram, or Facebook ads. Showing up in search ads can keep your brand top of mind. 
• Podcasts. Like informational videos, podcasts give prospects something for free—whether it’s education or entertainment—and endear them to your brand. 
• Influencer collaborations. Create positive associations with influencers your target market already loves. 
• Blog posts. Search-optimized blog posts can bring visitors in who may not have considered your brand before. 

The cookware brand Great Jones, for example, has a blog that offers readers a sense of community. Readers can turn to the blog to learn about different cultures, try new recipes, and read human stories from fellow foodies. The blog is a top-of-funnel asset that attracts the right customers and builds trust—all while featuring products in the background.

2. Interest

In the interest stage, prospects are researching and comparing your products to other brands. This is where you have an opportunity to form a relationship with prospects and help solve their problems.

Your goal in this stage of the sales funnel is to help shoppers make informed decisions and to establish your brand’s expertise. You’re proving that you offer the best solutions, so content at this stage should be thorough.

At the interest phase, capture prospects with remarketing lead magnets such as:

• Interactive content like product recommendation quizzes and calculators
• Downloadables like checklists or ebooks
• Customer case studies and testimonials
• Comparison pages
• Webinars or livestreams on social media

Tower 28 Beauty, for example, sparks interest through an interactive quiz that asks a series of questions about visitors’ skin, such as, “Do you have sensitive or sensitized skin?” 

After prospective customers enter their email in exchange for 10% off, they’re guided to a landing page with relevant products in complementary shades. The shade-matching tool can instill confidence in shoppers who prefer to sample makeup in person.

3. Desire

In this third stage of the funnel, people are ready to buy. They have identified a problem and they’re actively seeking the best solution.

Ask yourself these questions when planning for this stage:

• What makes my product desirable? 
• How will I follow up with qualified leads?
• How can I build an emotional connection with prospects?

Here’s where you promote your best offers like free shipping, discount codes, or free gifts. Consider prospects’ preferred communication formats (website chats, emails, SMS, etc.) and aim to make your products so desirable that leads can’t turn them down.

4. Action

This stage is where prospects decide whether they’ll purchase. Consider polishing your CTA placements and make it easy for shoppers to contact your sales team with questions or concerns.

Once a customer acts, it’s time to focus your sales pipeline on retention (i.e., keeping them happy and engaged) so they return to buy again and again. This is true for direct-to-consumer (D2C) and business-to-business (B2B) sales alike.

Key sales funnel metrics

• Conversion rate
• Lead-to-consumer ratio
• Cost per acquisition (CPA)
• Average deal size
• Sales cycle length
• Churn rate

Here are the key metrics to keep track of as you work to improve your sales funnel: 

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of people who visit your website and buy something. The average ecommerce conversion rate falls between 2.5% and 3%, but there’s always room for improvement. The higher this figure is, the more money you’ll make.

Use Shopify Analytics to monitor how your site’s conversion rate changes as your sales funnel strategy evolves.

Lead-to-customer ratio

Not everyone who visits your site will be a qualified lead. Use your lead qualification criteria to calculate this metric. It isolates total traffic to determine the conversion rate of qualified leads that turn into paying customers.

Cost per acquisition (CPA)

How much do you spend to acquire each new lead? Use this formula to calculate CPA: 

total cost of campaign / number of conversions = CPA

Say you’re running a retargeted Facebook campaign to promote your email sign-up form that gives website visitors a 10% discount code. You spent $5,000 on the campaign, which directly resulted in 500 sales. Using the formula, your CPA would be $10.

Average deal size

Not every sale is a good one. A sustainable sales funnel brings in high-value customers who spend money again and again as opposed to making one purchase. 

A higher deal size also frees up more cash to spend on acquisition and lead nurturing. You’ll make back the customer acquisition cost because the lifetime value of a typical customer will outweigh the initial spend.

Sales cycle length

Sales cycle length measures the time it takes for a person to become a paying customer after they’ve been identified as a qualified lead. The more quickly leads progress through the sales funnel, the more money you’ll make. Sales reps can serve more customers if they spend less time on each prospect.

This metric can vary dramatically depending on your industry, however. B2B sales cycles tend to be much longer than direct-to-consumer sales because the purchases tend to be expensive and the stakes are higher. There are also more people involved in the purchasing process. Refer to industry benchmarks to set reasonable goals for your sales cycle length.

Churn rate

An effective sales funnel doesn’t just let you acquire new customers—it can squeeze more revenue out of those who’ve bought before. To maintain your customer base and get the most out of returning customers, you’ll want to keep your churn rate to a minimum. 

Churn rate is the percentage of customers who leave after a certain period of time. In the case of a subscription business, for example, if you have 500 subscribers and around 20 cancel their plan each month, your churn rate will be 4%.

How to create a one-page ecommerce sales funnel

Brands drive traffic from advertisements and emails directly to their product pages to generate sales. Some brands also include collection pages, pre-sales articles, and other stops along the way.

But the almighty funnel that rules them all is the one-page funnel. For that reason, building a reliable ecommerce funnel starts by optimizing your product page.

If you lack the budget to support multiple funnels, focus on creating a funnel for your flagship product. Here’s an effective 10-step process you can follow to design your own sales funnel on an ecommerce product page that engages and converts:

1. Choose a layout

There are three basic layouts to choose from:

• Traditional ecommerce product page. Choose this option if you sell simple products requiring little to no explanation.
• Long-form ecommerce product page. Select when you have stories to tell, technology to explain, benefits to reveal, and objections to overcome and want to do it all on a single page.
• Product mini-site. Choose a mini-site when you meet the parameters of a long-form ecommerce product page but want to split the information over several shorter, linked product pages for easy navigation. This is the case for a lot of products that are easily understood or very visual. 

2. Style your header

A header is the top part of a website. It’s where you put your logo, menu, shopping cart, and other important links or information.

These website header styling tips can improve your conversion funnel:

• Keep it slender and feature your logo. The header should not overwhelm the page content. Keep your header as small as possible to maximize space. For desktop sites, aim for a header that occupies no more than 20% of page height. Screen space is at a bigger premium on mobile; aim for a mobile header requiring no more than 10% page height.
• Always link to the shopping cart. Customers expect a readily available shopping cart. To prevent frustration and incomplete purchases, include one in your header.
• Include a CTA for email opt-ins and promotions. Because your header is such a visible part of your site, it’s also a great place to promote offers such as free shipping, limited-time promotions, or email opt-in incentives.
• Ensure readability. Use a big, easy-to-read font colored to stand out against the background. Pay particular attention to your mobile menu—large links are especially important on mobile, where accidental taps happen easily. Keep links big and well-spaced to minimize this frustrating experience.
• Choose a sticky header. A sticky header is what it sounds like: it sticks to the top of the page, even as users scroll. Sticky headers suit long product pages especially well by always keeping CTAs within view at all times.

3. Feature testimonials

A customer testimonial is a distinct form of review or social proof. Unlike a reviews section with multiple comments (which your site should definitely have), a featured testimonial is a single customer quote that lives inside the buy box. A positive, highly visible testimonial is a classic conversion tactic.

By adding a testimonial to its buy box, beauty company BOOM! increased its conversion rate by 5.25% and average revenue per user by $1.25. BOOM! repeated this test several times, and the testimonial always won.

Follow these tips to pick a featured testimonial:

• Choose an enthusiastic endorsement. It sounds obvious, but it bears repeating. You want this to be one of the best quotes you can find about your product.
• Keep it short. If it’s too long, people will glaze over it.
• Choose a testimonial from your biggest customer demographic. You can’t rotate your featured testimonial, so optimize by having it represent your most common buyer.

4. Add buy box content

A buy box’s primary purpose is to inspire visitors to add something to their cart. To accomplish that, remind them why they should buy now by quickly summarizing your product’s main benefits.

Here’s a helpful buy box framework:

1. Open with a featured testimonial.
2. Provide a one-sentence ownership benefit.
3. Add a two- to three-sentence product description.

When developing one-sentence ownership benefits, ask yourself questions like:

• Why do people buy this product? 
• How does it benefit them?
• How will they feel after using it?
• How will owning or using the product affect other people’s perception of them?

Reminding people why they should buy is a critical component of your ecommerce product page and could mean the difference between winning or losing sales. Write copy that is succinct and compelling.

BOOM! takes full advantage of the buy box to iterate the product’s main benefit, alongside social proof, upsells, reviews, and more.

5. Create a short-form product demo

Video is one of the most effective conversion assets out there. If you already have a high-quality, full-length product video—with interviews, testimonials, and product shots—be sure to use it!

Keep these assets under 30 seconds long, aiming for a clean and elegant product demonstration you can share on your website, your social channels, and in advertisements.

📌 Pro tip: You don’t have to create product videos yourself, nor take a video editing course to turn your footage into engaging content. Use Shopify Collabs to find, vet, and partner with influencers who will create engaging product demo videos for you.

6. Select carousel photos

Since online shoppers can’t hold and inspect your product, they rely on images. According to a 2024 report from Salsify, great images compel 76% of shoppers to click.

Here are some tips for creating an image carousel on product landing pages:

• Favor quality. You don’t necessarily need expensive equipment, but product images do need to be as crisp and appealing as possible.
• Capture varied angles, positions, and product states. Show your product opened and closed, in use and stored away, and from various viewpoints, so shoppers can visualize how they’d use it.
• Include people. Add a human touch by demonstrating how people use your product. Make sure your models look like they enjoy it.
• Illustrate materials and dimensions. Consider diagrams, illustrations, or photos to communicate product features, dimensions, or materials.
• Optimize images for faster loading. Improve your SEO rankings and create an efficient shopping experience with optimized images. Shopify does this automatically by converting pics to WebP format.
• Use different media formats. For complex products, consider upgrading from still photography to videos, 3D models, or informational diagrams so shoppers can thoroughly explore your product.

7. Write CTA copy

The most important CTA copy in your buy box is what goes on your buy button. Although it’s tempting to get creative, standard practice is to keep it simple.

Here are some gold standards for CTA copy:

• Buy Now
• Add to Cart
• Checkout Now
• Add to Bag

Most ecommerce stores should stick with “Add to Cart” and move on (unless you’re in Europe, where “Add to Bag” is popular). If you’re in B2B sales, your CTA might lead to a meeting with sales reps, e.g. “Book a Demo.”

8. Represent USPs visually

USP stands for “unique selling proposition.” In a nutshell, USPs distinguish you from your competition. Your USP explains why people should buy from you over someone else and it should definitely appear in your product page copy and visuals.

The answers to these questions will help you define your USP with “funnel hacking,” or studying your competitors’ strategies and using those insights to define your brand:

• Do you offer guarantees or special financing?
• Do you provide fast or free shipping?
• Where do you go above and beyond to make your product special?
• Do you have any relevant certifications?
• Do your products employ special technology?
• Is your product made in the USA, cruelty-free, organic, or 100% natural?

9. Display guarantees

Guarantees are effective, especially for online sales, which customers can perceive as risky if they’ve never purchased from you before. Take some time to consider the guarantees you can offer to minimize risk and instill a sense of security.

A money-back guarantee—the promise that you’ll give shoppers a refund if they change their mind—is the most effective guarantee, but it’s not the only one, and there’s no limit on the number you can offer.

Here are some more classic examples:

• Satisfaction guarantee. If customers aren’t satisfied with your product, they can get a refund, no questions asked (though it would be wise to collect some feedback).
• Lifetime guarantee. If anything goes wrong with the product, the customer can get it fixed or replaced. 
• Low-price or price match guarantee. If a customer can show that the same product is available elsewhere for less, you’ll offer your product at that price. 

10. Offer social proof imagery

Testimonials aren’t the only type of social proof you can display on your product page. If you’ve been featured in a magazine or on a website, consider adding a press mentions bar for additional social proof. 

Better yet, feature editorial quotes alongside relevant logos. According to a survey from Matter, 69% of consumers are likely to trust a friend, family member, or influencer recommendation over information that comes from a brand.

Here are examples of social proof you can include on your product page:

• Customer reviews
• Celebrity or influencer endorsements
• Certification logos
• Magazine or blog quotes and logos
• Expert reviews or recommendations (i.e., “9 out of 10 dentists recommend it”)

Adapting your sales funnel for different audiences

Not all sales funnels should take a one-size-fits-all approach. You might have customer profiles who respond best to different messages.

A skin care brand, for example, might sell its products to two different personas:

1. Older women who use it to reduce the appearance of fine lines and wrinkles.
2. Younger women in their 20s who use the products as a preventative measure.

These two personas will need vastly different content to progress through your sales funnel. 

The first segment will respond best to content that focuses on the anti-aging properties of the cosmetics. The second might have less disposable income and are therefore more receptive to lower-priced products. 

Instead of a product page that targets both, this brand could design separate landing pages that talk about the benefits and use cases for each segment. They could target either audience through social media ads, email campaigns, or Google Ads, and divert them toward the most relevant landing page for a more personalized experience. 

📌 Pro tip: Shopify’s built-in segmentation tools help you discover insights about your customers, build segments as targeted as your marketing plans with filters based on your customers’ demographic and behavioral data, and drive sales with timely and personalized emails.

How to scale your sales funnel for growth

Sales funnels become more difficult to manage as your business scales. More customers will enter your sales funnel, and the more products you have to sell, the more sophisticated the funnel needs to be.

Segmentation and marketing automation tools allow you to serve more leads without proportionally increasing resources. The software will identify when a lead meets specific criteria and send a personalized message that entices them to progress further along the sales funnel—no manual intervention required. 

Examples include:

• Providing automated responses to chat questions with Shopify Inbox
• Sending a welcome email with a discount code to new subscribers
• Reminding shoppers of items they abandoned in their cart after exiting the session
• Dynamic content recommendations based on a visitor’s browsing history.
• Sending loyalty program invitations to customers after they place their second order 

“We have always believed in Shopify to run our business,” says Nitin Pamnani, co-founder of iTokri. “We are not a technology business, so being able to automate processes, add features, and expand operations without technical complexity has been fundamental to our success.”