Sales Funnel Guide: Build + Optimize for 2026

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.

Chances are, you already know the stages: someone clicks an ad, browses a product, adds it to their cart … then either buys it or disappears. A sales funnel makes those moments visible. It shows where customers engage, where they hesitate, and where they drop off—so you know exactly where to focus your effort.

Ahead, you’ll learn how to build a simple, one-page ecommerce sales funnel, track the metrics that move the needle, and use 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 steps of the journey look like a “funnel,” with traffic from your targets entering through the wide top and high-value customers coming out at the narrow 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.

Sales funnel vs. marketing funnel

A marketing funnel typically covers the earliest stages of the customer journey, when people are still figuring out who you are and why they should care. It’s about bringing people in and building interest.

For example, a first-time shopper sees a TikTok video featuring your product, clicks through to a blog post, and signs up for your email list in exchange for a discount. At this point, they’re aware of your brand, but not quite ready to buy yet.

A sales funnel is for shoppers who have shown purchase intent; it focuses on removing friction and guiding them toward checkout.

Say that the same shopper returns to your online store, views a product page, compares options, adds an item to their cart, and completes checkout after seeing a limited-time offer or free shipping threshold.

In short: marketing brings the right people in; sales makes it easy for them to buy.

Why is a sales funnel important?

A sales funnel shows you exactly where shoppers hesitate, buy, or bail—using behavior you can actually see and measure. 

It helps you track where people land in your online store, which products they linger on, when they add items to their cart, and where they drop off during checkout. You can see if shoppers bounce after the product page, abandon at shipping, or disappear the moment taxes show up.

A sales funnel tells you what to fix next, and what’s most likely to move revenue, quickly.

Example of a sales funnel in action

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

• Interested target. A member of your target audience sees an Instagram ad for running shoes from an unfamiliar brand, and their interest is piqued.
• Prospect. The target audience member clicks Learn More to visit your website. Now they’re a prospective customer.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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 a repeat customer and an advocate.

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. They 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 (DTC) and business-to-business (B2B) sales alike.

Key sales funnel metrics

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

Conversion rate

Your conversion rate is one of the most important sales funnel metrics because it tells you how effectively your funnel turns visitors into buyers. At its simplest:

Conversion rate = (number of purchases ÷ number of unique visitors) × 100

Most ecommerce brands see an average 2.5% to 3% overall conversion rate. In practical terms, that means two to three of every 100 visitors completes a purchase.

But conversion rate varies by industry, product type, and even device:

According to IRP Commerce’s December 2025 Ecommerce Market Data:

💡Pro tip: Shopify’s built-in Analytics dashboards and reports let you access your store’s online store conversion rate directly—the metric Shopify uses to count the proportion of sessions that lead to completed orders—so you can track this over time without third-party tools. 

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 DTC sales because the purchases tend to be expensive and the stakes are higher. 

Churn rate

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%.

An effective sales funnel 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.

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 funnel that rules them all is the one-page funnel. For that reason, building a reliable ecommerce funnel starts by optimizing your product page or landing 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; it should occupy no more than 20% of page height on desktop, and no more than 10% on mobile.
• 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. Large links are especially important on mobile menus. Keep links big and well-spaced to minimize this frustrating experience.
• Choose a sticky header. A sticky header is just 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 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 if 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.

• Open with a featured testimonial
• Provide a one-sentence ownership benefit
• 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 product 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 less than 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: AI tools in the Shopify App Store can handle this for you. For example, apps like Vidify let you turn static product photos into short AI videos in minutes, OmniGen generates ready-to-use video ads and reels from your product images, and Provid.ai can automatically create branded product videos from your titles, descriptions, and photos. 

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:

• Prioritize 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 (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. 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?

Take a look at how Pura Vida encourages shoppers to complete their purchase:

9. Display guarantees

Guarantees are especially effective 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.

For example, Megan Johns, the director of customer experience at Ridge, maker of the all-metal wallet shares the power of offering a lifetime warranty. 

“We really believe in our product and stand behind the way our products are made, so a lifetime warranty on our metal wallets makes sense for us,” she says. “By showing that we stand behind our product, our customers come back to us again and again, because they know we’re going to take care of them.”

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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 the IZEA Insights 2025 survey, 77% of consumers prefer content created by influencers over traditional ads.

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”)

Alternative funnel models: six-stage and flywheel

The traditional AIDA funnel (awareness > interest > desire > action) is useful, but it’s not the only way to think about the customer journey.

As ecommerce has shifted toward subscription and community-driven growth, many brands now use alternative funnel models that better reflect how customers actually behave. 

The six-stage funnel

Best for: Ecommerce brands with repeat purchases or subscriptions and/or stores investing in email or post-purchase experiences,

The six-stage funnel expands on AIDA by explicitly accounting for what happens after the first purchase.

A typical six-stage ecommerce funnel looks like this:

1. Awareness. A shopper first discovers your brand.
2. Engagement. They interact with your content, products, or emails.
3. Consideration. They compare options, read reviews, or revisit product pages.
4. Conversion. They make a purchase.
5. Retention. They return to buy again.
6. Advocacy. They leave reviews, refer friends, or share your brand.

AIDA ends at the purchase, while the six-stage funnel treats the purchase as a midpoint, and retention and advocacy as core goals.

The flywheel model

Best for: Brands with strong communities or social proof and businesses relying on referrals, UGC, or reviews.

Instead of a linear funnel, the flywheel models growth as a continuous loop powered by customer experience.

A simplified flywheel has three core phases:

1. Attract. Bring in the right customers through content, referrals, and discovery.
2. Engage. Deliver a smooth buying experience that builds trust.
3. Delight. Exceed expectations so customers come back to your store and bring others along with them.

AIDA assumes customers move in one direction, while the flywheel assumes customers keep moving—and that satisfied customers actively reduce friction for the next ones.

How to choose the right model

The right choice depends on how your business grows.

• Use AIDA if you’re focused on first-time conversions and simple purchasing paths.
• Use the six-stage funnel if repeat purchases and retention drive revenue.
• Use the flywheel if customer experience and advocacy fuel growth.

Many successful ecommerce brands borrow elements from all three: using AIDA to optimize early conversion, the six-stage funnel to improve retention, and the flywheel to scale trust over time.

B2B sales funnel considerations

B2B sales funnels processes are longer, involving multiple touchpoints and driven by qualified actions instead of fast buying decisions.

Across B2B pipelines, lead-to-SQL (sales qualified lead) rates of 15% and closed-won rates of 6% to 9% are considered healthy, giving marketers a sense of what to expect at deeper funnel stages. 

• Longer, multistage journeys. Buyers often research solutions for weeks or months before engaging with sales—and may very well skip between awareness, research, internal evaluation, and negotiation repeatedly before closing. 
• Multiple decision-makers. B2B deals can involve up to 10 stakeholders across technical, financial, and executive roles, which means your funnel needs content and touchpoints tailored to each audience at the right moment. 
• Qualified actions matter more than first-time purchases. Instead of optimizing for immediate checkout, good B2B funnels measure progress through actions. These could include demo requests, gated content downloads, and sales meetings, which are stronger signals of intent than simple visits.

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.

Creating ideal customer profiles (ICPs)

An ideal customer profile (ICP) defines who your funnel is built for—and just as importantly, who it isn’t.

Instead of trying to convert everyone, ICPs help you focus on the customers who are most likely to buy, stay loyal, and generate real lifetime value. 

A strong ICP typically includes:

• Firmographics or customer attributes. Company size, industry, location—or for B2C, budget range and purchase frequency.
• Jobs to be done. What problem they’re actively trying to solve.
• Buying triggers. Events that push them into decision mode.
• Constraints. Budget limits, approval requirements, timelines.
• Success signals. What makes them a good long-term customer.

📚Read more: Ideal Customer Profile: Components and How To Create

How to scale your sales funnel for growth

Sales funnels become more difficult to manage as your business scales. The more customers who 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.”

Sales funnel templates and tools

A sales funnel template gives you a simple structure to work from. Instead of staring at a blank page, you can map:

• Traffic sources (where visitors come from)
• Key pages (landing pages, product pages, checkout)
• Primary actions (add to cart, checkout started, purchase)

Metrics to watch at each step

Use built-in analytics before adding more tools

Before layering on new software, most merchants can get a lot of value from built-in ecommerce analytics.

For example, Shopify’s analytics reports let you track:

• Online store conversion rate
• Sessions by traffic source
• Add-to-cart and checkout behavior
• Returning versus new customer performance
  

These reports map directly to common funnel stages and can help you identify where shoppers drop off.

📚Recommended reading: Store Performance Dashboard: Essential Reports and How To Track Them

Funnel optimization tools and integrations

As your store grows, specialized tools can help you go deeper into funnel behavior and testing. Common categories include:

• Analytics and attribution tools like Amplitude to understand which channels drive high-intent traffic.
• Session replay and behavior tools like Lucky Orange to see where shoppers hesitate or abandon.
• Email and SMS integrations like Omnisend to re-engage high-intent visitors who didn’t convert.
• A/B testing tools to test changes to product pages, pricing, or checkout flows.

💡Pro tip: Match your funnel tools to your stage of growth. Early-stage stores usually get the most value from a simple sales funnel template and built-in analytics. Growing brands benefit from adding behavior tracking and email or SMS re-engagement. More established stores can layer in A/B testing and attribution tools to fine-tune performance without overcomplicating the stack.