Funnels: marketing's greatest lie
Where theory breaks down and practice shows what works
For the longest time, I've always thought of the buyer's journey and retargeting as a funnel a prospect needs to go down before becoming a customer.
You know, the funnel that goes like:
Step 1: "awareness" ad
Step 2: "pain point" ad
Step 3: "benefits" ad
Step 4: "use case" ad
Step 5: "CTA" ad to get a demo/sign up
Sponsor: HockeyStack
Your CEO just slacked you: "We have our board meeting in 2 days. Send me a slide with what's working + anything they need to know."
Did your palms get sweaty reading that?
Or is this an easy ask because you can easily get to this info already?
I'm neurotic about forecasting + tracking performance. I have reports upon reports and dashboards upon dashboards.
So when Emir + Claudia over at HockeyStack asked me what my perfect dashboard would look like, I immediately started geeking out.
And when they sent this dashboard mock-up back to me yesterday, I was in nerd heaven 🙌
2025 is underway. And it's also never too late to add some solid reports or views to your dashboard, so hopefully this provides some inspiration to any of you who are looking to level up your dashboarding game.
The problem
But here’s the issue. This type of journey is typically constrained to 1 channel or platform and requires the prospect to successfully consume the content at each stage in order to progress to the next stage.
What happens when they hit “stage 3” on the LinkedIn retargeting funnel, but haven’t yet opened the first nurture email you sent them? What happens when they’ve met with a team member at an event and got an in-depth demo, but haven’t been to your website to even be part of the “retargeting audience?”
We’re forcing the market through a funnel that only makes sense in theory, not in practice. I would guess that 999 out of 1000 companies do not have the systems in place to allow for all of the information needed to make something like this work.
And even for that 1 out of 1000 who does, we need to remember, the buyer’s journey is not linear.
The solution
"I kept seeing Loxo on LinkedIn and TV commercials. It piqued my interest. I got an email and thought, 'Maybe it's meant to be'"
This was shared with us from an actual prospect that came inbound to us. And it was a huge “aha” moment for me in cementing that funnels aren’t the answer, but creating ecosystems for the market to enter are.
Seeing sequential ads or content from a company on 1-2 channels doesn't get more and more compelling, where by the time a prospect sees the 5th ad with a CTA they think "I'M READY TO BUY!"
But seeing a company show up across multiple different channels with different messaging and content relevant to the medium, that's where the power of the ecosystem lies.
I'm not saying you should be on every channel/platform available (in fact, I strongly recommend against that). But what I learned is that if you have 3-5 channels/platforms that you dedicate the appropriate resources to doing well on, you don't need a "retargeting funnel" to move prospects through the journey.
Your buyers seeing your brand and messaging across the multiple places that they spend their time is 10x more impactful and creates a surround sound effect that keeps you top of mind and on their shortlist when the time comes that they need a solution like yours.
In case you missed these this week
We’re hiring!
Our Customer Success team is expanding here at Loxo! We have two opportunities that have opened up to add some international team members here as we’re seeking an EMEA Customer Success Associate in the UK area and an APAC Customer Success Manager in the Australia area.
At Loxo, we’re not simply offering you a job - we’re inviting you to join a team that is paving the future of the recruitment industry. In this role, you will be the front line of Loxo’s customer experience, maintaining the top echelon customer service that has helped Loxo grow into the leading Talent Intelligence Platform.
If you're looking to just get by, for a monotonous role, or for a place where you can blend into the background - this isn't the opportunity for you. We are looking for a teammate with the passion, desire, and tenacity to learn. We're looking for someone with a growth mindset and high potential. So if reading this excites you, we can’t wait to hear from you!
See you next Saturday,
Sam
The funnel exists but not how people think. The funnel is the bottom of a gravity well.
Imagine a vortex like a hurricane or or an Eddy. The winds and rotation are fastest at the vortex and pushing down to a central point of pressure.
Sales funnels are illustrated as two dimensional, XY axes. But the sales and marketing activities are three dimensional XYZ through distribution.
Someone catches a podcast on the outer band and maybe starts following on LinkedIn a mid band. Then a newsletter, or other content. They do not have to be in order but the vast expanse of content all leads to the vertex for conversion.
It's why a 2d funnel looks linear and a gravity well encapsulates multi-touch and time so much better.
What a headline 👏