The word “funnel” and marketing go hand in hand. Conceptualised as early as 1898 by American advertiser Elias St. Elmo Lewis, this visual framework of the customer journey has made the rounds to the point of being a staple topic of conversation in the industry, from client meetings to strategy decks to business guru books.
But this isn’t the 19th century anymore: the journey has become much more dynamic; interactions are multifaceted; touchpoints are everywhere. Consumers, specifically Gen-Z, have broken the mould and we now sit at a crossroads, wondering if that reverse triangle is even relevant in contemporary marketing anymore.
In this article, we’ll explore that question and examine three ways of visualising the customer journey.
Table of Content
The Traditional Funnel (AIDA)
As mentioned, that first model was created by St. Elmo Lewis to map out the journey and therefore the steps needed to get a user from learning of a brand’s existence to buying it. The AIDA acronym stands for: Awareness, Intent, Desire, Action. Today, we tend to use Awareness, Engagement, Consideration, Acquisition. AECA doesn’t roll off the tongue quite as well, but it’s probably a more modern description.
A. Awareness
You want people to learn of your brand and your product’s existence.
Eg: You are an urban footwear manufacturer looking to compete with the likes of Vans or Converse. In order to get your shoes under the spotlight, you decide to launch a high-impact programmatic campaign, which includes YT and TikTok video ads, targeting audiences who have shown interest in footwear in the past, or better yet, your competitor’s product.
B. Engagement
You want the people aware of your existence or researching products similar to yours to learn about your brand or product’s specificities, either by providing them with the right avenues to conduct their research or pushing educational resources directly to them. This, in turn, generates interest and convinces them of said product’s quality.
Eg: You want the people aware of your shoes, as well as people browsing for shoes, to know about their USPs. You write content articles on the blog section of your website detailing the product’s best qualities: the vegan and eco-friendly characteristics, the higher-than-average durability and the affordable pricing. You conduct SEO reviews to ensure that your articles rank well organically and launch Facebook and Instagram ads linking to these articles for an extra boost.
C. Consideration
You want people to genuinely consider buying your product. Potential shoppers often go back-and-forth between Engagement and Consideration, deciding to conduct extra research to solidify their consideration for the brand.
Eg: You partner up with review and comparison websites so that your shoes can be compared side-to-side with the best-in-class. You’re cooler than Clarks, more durable than Converse and cheaper than Vans. You strike a deal with a lifestyle influencer to review your product. You start an email campaign with past shoppers and propose a gift card in exchange for reviews. You go from two to fifty 5-star reviews on Amazon: a vote of confidence to further reel people in.
D. Acquisition
This is the last push: a motivating message to get these high-intent shoppers to convert.
Eg: You put most of your budget in direct acquisition Google Ads campaigns: capture high-intent newcomers looking for shoes and retarget previous website visitors with “Buy Now” CTA and “-20% promotion” ad copies to take that last leap. In parallel, send an email to cart abandoners reminding them that they only have two days before the promotional offer expires.
E. How accurate is AIDA?
Despite its age, marketers are still using this model because it tells the straightforward story of a shopper seamlessly turning customer, and that each portion of the funnel can easily be correlated with a marketing action: Awareness is prospecting, which can be done through Display, while Acquisition is conversion-focused, which can be done through Paid Search.
However, the problem with the traditional funnel is that it’s incomplete. There is an assumption that the journey ends with the purchase, and that whatever happens next doesn’t need to be addressed or even formalised. What if the customer isn’t satisfied with the product and leaves a bad review? What if they buy once from the brand, only never to return?
In short, the funnel ignores the second most important performance metric after conversions or ROI: customer Lifetime Value (LTV).
The Hourglass (RACE)
Enter RACE. Coined by marketing author Dave Chaffey in the 2010s, this model sought to complete the funnel by covering the post-purchase part of the journey with the understanding that a satisfied customer can still play a pivotal role in your future sales through other means.
RACE stands for Reach, Action, Conversion, Engage. The first three letters correspond to the traditional marketing funnel, with Reach corresponding to Awareness, Action to Engagement/Consideration, and Conversion to Acquisition.
The last letter, Engage, encompasses actions that you can take to elevate the consumer experience to ensure repeated purchases from happy, returning customers and brand advocacy.
In effect, this turns the funnel into an hourglass-shaped journey: despite moving further away from the conversion point, that happy customer will turn into an ally who will evangelise your products to their entourage. In a multi-connected world where even the smallest voice can reach out to the world through TikTok reels and Instagram posts, they become a potent tool.
The post-sale process can be divided into three parts: Retention, Loyalty and Advocacy.
A. Retention
Your customer has made their purchase, but you want them to be returning customers through upselling and cross-selling incentives and drive LTV up. A one-time £60 purchase is nice, but a frequency of 5 purchases a year with an Average Order Value of £40 leads to an LTV of £200 per year, which is even better.
The actions to drive retention and repeat purchases are multiple, and can include direct messages to ensure the adoption of a good or service into routine usage, pushing personalised, retargeting ads to propose complementary products or services or retargeting emails scheduled at the end of a product’s lifespan to suggest buying it again.
Eg: You are a digital news media company in the sectors of business and politics trying to compete with the New York Times, the FT and the Economist. Your subscription model consisted in a standard monthly fee, but you decided to implement 6-month and 12-month packages with a -10% and -20% reduction to incentivise longer periods. In parallel, you look at your Google Analytics and realise that world economy news generates a majority of the share of traffic. Consequently, you start marketing a fixed-price bundle containing macroeconomics podcasts and webinars and specialised analyses through email campaigns and retargeting ads.
B. Loyalty
Retention will be short-termed unless the customer is genuinely satisfied with the product. In an ideal world, you want your customer to adopt your product into their routine usage and your brand to be the go-to reference for that specific need. Driving loyalty starts product-led - conduct surveys and collect feedback to refine your product, or offer freebies to long-time shoppers - but eventually becomes marketing-led: advertise your improvements, create campaigns around your loyalty card and showcase your corporate social responsibility. Similarly to politics and the concept of soft power, you have to plant into your customer base that your brand is a force for good.
Eg: Feedback for your international news media company includes complaints about the lack of Europe and Asia coverage. You course-correct by overhauling the content and organising extra webinars on the state of business in these regions and advertise your improvements through a campaign branding your outlet as “the whole package” to understand the world. In parallel, you thank survey responders through extra free articles and podcasts they would have needed to pay for beforehand.
C. Advocacy
The last step of the journey is for the customer to become part of your arsenal to spread the word on your products or brand.
D. How accurate is RACE?
The Hourglass framework updates the Funnel by encouraging the use of marketing post-sale as a tool to get that extra mileage out of your acquired customers: higher Average Order Value, higher Lifetime Value.
However, there are two shortcomings: firstly, similarly to the Funnel, users might be misled to think that the journey is a linear path. In a world where we’re constantly bombarded by online signals bidding for our attention, people jump from Consideration to Awareness all the way down to Acquisition. Secondly, it doesn’t take into account the competition’s interference.
Google’s Messy Middle (AIDA, AIDA, AIDA…)
Google’s framework was first introduced in 2020 at the apex of the COVID-19 pandemic. This period gave them prime data to study how people shopped online as eCommerce and digital marketing were seeing their biggest boost in history (+19% in sales globally, +43% in the US YoY).
The Messy Middle breaks down the journey into Trigger, Exploration, Evaluation and Purchase. The moment a consumer is considering buying a product (the Trigger), either because they have a need for it or because an awareness advertisement created curiosity, they will enter a loop of Exploration and Evaluation before deciding to convert.
A. Exploration
The shopper expands their list of options within the category of interest, taking into account factors such as:
Brand (eg: Nike) or retailer (eg: Footlocker).
Price range (eg: I am looking for shoes in the £30-50 range)
Company rating (eg: this brand has more reviews and positive ratings on Amazon)
Inspiration (eg: I feel that high top shoes would be a nice change of style)
Category-specific USPs (eg: these shoes are great for tennis)
B. Evaluation
The shopper narrows down their existing options by comparing factors such as:
Availability (eg: this one is available now)
Delivery terms (eg: same-day for free)
Price (eg: this is the cheapest option)
Payment plan (eg: buy now pay later)
Reviews (eg: 4.5 star average)
C. Consideration for your product means Awareness for another
The reason behind the infinite loop is that the same actions that would normally serve to refine a consumer’s choice will, paradoxically, expand it.
For example, if a consumer is interested in your product, they will likely look at reviews and comparison websites, where they will learn about other brands your brand is being compared to. If they are looking at your product detail page on Amazon, they will see a number of recommended products below, either organically or through Sponsored Display ads, prompting another loop.
Example:
Trigger: My headphones broke.
Exploration: I start looking for a replacement on Currys with a below £100 price range. I identify the SONY WH-CH720N, JBL Live 770NC and Beats Solo 3 as potential choices.
Evaluation: The three products have high reviews, but the Beats has more ratings and is bundled with an Apple TV subscription. I want an expert opinion, so I go on TechRadar for a comparison… only to find that the Earfun Wave Pro is apparently the best one due to battery life. I never thought about battery life before.
Exploration: The Earfun is no longer available on Currys, so I switch to Amazon. Now, battery life is one of my main criteria, so I filter by it, only to find Tozo, Skullcandy and three different JBL headphones that I didn’t know existed. I start my research from scratch.
D. Where does digital marketing fit into the loop?
Most marketing channels, such as Display, Paid Search, Social Media, Email campaigns and Content SEO, influence the Exploration section by competing with other players to push your product to the consumer. On the Evaluation side, Influencer marketing and retargeting ads (cart abandoners, site visitors) play a role in refining your choices.
However, an important driver of Evaluation is the website on which the consumer is purchasing the product: whether you’re selling on an eCommerce channel or on your DTC online shop, the landing page, PDP and pictures will be the final pathways to conversion. If you are partnering with reviews and price comparison websites, troubleshoot the way your product is being featured to benefit from referral traffic.
Conclusion: which framework should you follow?
Answer: all of them.
When you think about it, none of these visualisations really contradict each other. In fact, they neatly fit into one another: the Hourglass adds to the Funnel, and the Messy Middle contains an endless loop of funnels.
What matters more is who you use them with in your company. The Funnel works very well as a simple introduction to marketing to interns and new joiners or as a depiction of the consumer journey for technical marketers in charge of very few channels. The Hourglass is probably going to speak more to post-sale customer service and brand marketers looking to improve brand perception and advocacy. The Messy Middle might resonate more with the Chiefs and Heads of Marketing or Growth, who chaperone the top-level strategy and want to ensure that every channel makes sense.
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