An effective marketing funnel helps your business focus on your customer’s specific needs. But how do you create a funnel that consistently generates qualified leads and guides them through their unique journey?
Understanding Marketing Funnels
Marketing funnels map how potential customers move through different stages of the user journey. They track your efforts to attract, engage, and convert customers through marketing materials like content, ads, and landing pages. While sales funnels focus on capturing the customer journey through micro-conversions like sign-ups or purchases, marketing funnels generate leads by tracking the entire journey from awareness to the final decision.
Most marketing funnels use a three-stage model:
- Awareness
- Consideration
- Decision
Successful marketing funnels move prospects from the awareness stage to the decision stage, leading to conversion.
1. Awareness Stage
In the awareness stage, prospects are introduced to your brand for the first time. They know little about your product, so the goal is to attract new prospects with content that builds brand awareness. Use this top of the funnel (TOFU) stage to highlight your unique value proposition and show how you can solve their problems.
2. Consideration Stage
In the consideration stage, prospects have moved to the middle of the funnel (MOFU). They engage with your brand by following you on social media, subscribing to your newsletter, or filling out a form. They are looking for solutions and comparing options. The goal here is to engage prospects with valuable content, earn their trust, and differentiate yourself from competitors.
3. Decision Stage
At the decision stage, you have captured your prospects’ attention and built a relationship with them. The goal of this bottom of the funnel (BOFU) stage is to provide specific reasons and social proof to convince them of your ability to solve their problems and encourage them to convert.
Creating a Customer-Centric Marketing Funnel
Follow these 7 steps to create a marketing funnel that understands key customer journey touchpoints and drives users from one stage to the next. Both marketing and sales teams need to contribute their expertise to better reach potential customers and drive conversions.
1. Understand the Customer Journey
Understanding the customer journey is crucial because users’ buying behavior is nonlinear. Map the entire journey from awareness to conversion. Analyze how different customer personas interact with your brand across multiple touchpoints and channels.
- Map the customer journey to understand customer profiles, pain points, behavior, and preferred channels.
- Combine insights from social media, in-person interactions, website analytics, and different teams (sales, marketing, customer service).
- Use these insights to remove blockers and improve the customer experience (CX).
Pro tip: Use tools like Hotjar’s Heatmaps and Session Recordings to see where users click, how they scroll, and where they drop off. This helps optimize the user journey and create customer delight.
2. Create Early Awareness
Promote your product using outbound marketing techniques during the awareness stage. Recognize user pain points and show potential customers that a solution exists. Use paid ads on YouTube, Instagram, Google, Facebook, and more.
Actively listen to your audience and use their feedback to position your brand creatively.
- Use Hotjar Surveys to understand the initial user experience on your website.
- Employ social listening tools like HootSuite to gauge user sentiments and needs on social media.
- Set up a chatbot to collect user queries and respond instantly.
3. Develop a Content Optimization Strategy
A content optimization strategy ensures your content is fresh, findable, and valuable, driving inbound traffic by improving search engine rankings.
- Do keyword research for all stages of the funnel.
- Create topic clusters to build authority in your industry.
- Select content benchmarks based on top-ranking results.
- Optimize URLs, images, meta descriptions, and titles for better search engine understanding.
- Include internal and external linking to boost credibility and encourage click-throughs.
- Add strategic calls to action (CTAs) to drive conversions.
4. Create Educational Content
Educational content informs users about your product, provides valuable information, and encourages continuous interaction. Tailor content to each stage of the funnel:
- Awareness stage: Blog posts, educational YouTube videos, social media posts, introductory live streams.
- Consideration stage: Promotional emails, newsletters, live streams, gated content (white papers, ebooks, webinars).
- Decision stage: Product demos, case studies, social proof (reviews, testimonials), product landing pages, FAQs.
5. Focus on Your Product’s Unique Selling Point
Emphasize your unique selling point (USP) to convince your audience that your product is the best solution.
- Showcase case studies of successful users.
- Use an attractive pricing model and display it prominently.
- Create simple yet visually appealing landing pages and provide professional demos.
- Optimize key product pages to ensure smooth navigation.
- Retarget ads to visitors who didn’t convert initially.
- Write competitor comparison posts to highlight your advantages.
- Campaign for product reviews and display them as social proof.
6. Guide Users to Conversion
Conversion rate optimization (CRO) focuses on understanding users and meeting their needs.
- Use Hotjar Feedback tools to gather insights on user experiences.
- Watch Hotjar Recordings to identify drivers, barriers, and hooks.
- Implement CRO tactics like money-back guarantees, free trials, chatbots for support, and performance-based pricing models.
7. Optimize Post-Purchase Experience
A great post-purchase experience encourages repeat business, recommendations, and positive reviews.
- Follow up with personalized messaging and emails promoting similar products.
- Provide resources like tooltips and knowledge bases for better product adoption.
- Use Hotjar Surveys and Feedback tools to understand and support the onboarding process.
- Offer excellent customer service with chatbots or live chat.
- Reactivate users with special promotions, discounts, and loyalty programs.
Fuel Your Marketing Funnel with User Insights
A successful marketing funnel ensures your efforts target the right customers, track their progress, and help plan and execute campaigns effectively. By focusing on potential customers and analyzing their behavior and feedback, you can create a funnel that drives leads and propels them to convert.
Implementing a Bidding Strategy
Your bidding strategy should align with your overall campaign goals. For example, if your goal is to maximize conversions within a fixed budget, use the ‘Maximize conversion value’ strategy. If you aim to control acquisition costs, Target CPA bidding is ideal. Enhanced Cost Per Click (ECPC) allows for a blend of automated bidding with manual adjustments, providing flexibility and improved results. Consulting with a professional can help you choose the best strategy for your needs.
Should You Lower Your Bids?
It might seem logical to lower your bids to reduce CPC, but this can result in your ads appearing at the bottom of SERPs, reducing your visibility. Instead, analyze the performance of each keyword. Lower bids for less profitable keywords and allocate more budget to high-performing keywords. This strategic bidding helps maintain a balance between cost and visibility.
Improve Your Landing Page
Google evaluates user behavior on your landing page to determine Quality Score. If visitors spend a lot of time on your page and do not return to the search results immediately, it indicates a good landing page experience, which can lower your CPC. Fast loading times and relevant content are crucial. Use Google PageSpeed Insights to analyze and optimize your page speed. Create dedicated landing pages for each ad to ensure relevance and improve user experience.
Display Social Proof
Adding testimonials, privacy policies, and clean designs to your landing page builds trust with visitors. For example, MailChimp showcases logos of brands they’ve worked with, reinforcing their credibility. Including social proof on your landing pages can increase conversions and improve your Quality Score.
Adjusting Targeting Settings
Refining your targeting settings can help optimize your ad performance. Check your campaign settings to see if your ads are appearing in areas with low click-through rates (CTR) or high bounce rates. Adjust your device targeting to ensure your landing pages are optimized for the devices your audience uses. Align your ad schedule with the times when your audience is most active to improve ad effectiveness.
Avoiding Default Settings
Using Google’s default campaign settings might not align with your specific goals. Customize your settings to suit your needs, and don’t blindly accept auto-applied recommendations. Taking the time to tailor your campaign setup can significantly impact your ad performance and CPC.
Competitive Analysis
Understanding your competitors is crucial for optimizing your CPC. Use tools like Auction Insights to analyze your competition. Identify their strengths and weaknesses, and use this information to improve your strategy. Focus on your unique value proposition and highlight what sets you apart from your competitors.
Regular Monitoring and Optimization
Consistent monitoring and optimization are essential for maintaining a low CPC. Regularly review your campaign performance, keyword effectiveness, and Quality Score. Make adjustments as needed to stay competitive and maximize your return on investment.
Summary
Lowering your Google Ads CPC is crucial for maximizing your advertising budget. By focusing on increasing your Quality Score, experimenting with keyword variations, using negative keywords, creating relevant ads, using long-tail keywords, and not neglecting ad extensions, you can significantly reduce your CPC. Additionally, implementing cost-effective bidding strategies, improving your landing pages, A/B testing your ads, adjusting targeting settings, avoiding default settings, and conducting competitive analysis are essential steps to optimize your Google Ads campaign. Consistent monitoring and optimization will help you stay competitive and achieve better results.
Achieving Success
As a Google Ads Coach and Consultant, I’ve helped businesses run profitable ads for over 15 years. If you’re looking for more personalized guidance, consider booking a call with me or getting a copy of my best-selling Google Ads book. These resources offer step-by-step strategies to help you achieve rapid success with your Google Ads campaigns.
In conclusion, optimizing your Google Ads CPC involves a combination of strategic planning, continuous monitoring, and regular adjustments. By implementing the best practices outlined in this guide, you can lower your CPC, increase your ad effectiveness, and ultimately achieve better ROI from your Google Ads campaigns. Stay informed about the latest trends and techniques in digital advertising to maintain a competitive edge and ensure your campaigns are always performing at their best.
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