Sales and marketing funnels have been around for a long, but have really been seen as an integral part of a digital marketing strategy over the past 2 years.
What is a Marketing Funnel?
Have you secretly wondered what a Digital Marketing Funnel is? Perhaps you are a marketer and feel you really should know what a Digital Marketing Funnel is but it remains unclear?
This article is for you!
A Digital Marketing Funnel (as defined by Wikipedia) is:
” a consumer-focused marketing model which illustrates the theoretical customer journey towards the purchase of a good or service.”
A marketing funnel looks like the image below:
How the above funnel relates to Digital Marketing campaigns
The concept of the funnel from the image above is then refined further for Digital Marketing purposes.
In Digital Marketing, we use the terms:
- TOP OF FUNNEL (TOFU/TOF)
- MIDDLE OF FUNNEL (MOFU / MOF)
- BOTTOM OF FUNNEL (BOFU/BOF)
TOP OF FUNNEL (TOFU) – AUDIENCE DEFINITION
GOAL = GENERATE PROSPECTS
At this stage, we want to encourage engagement via Brand Awareness.
Website visits, video views, product views – this is our gathering stage for collecting an audience of people interested in our products or services.
How do we track the audience?
It’s easy enough to say we gather an audience of interested people, but how exactly do we do this?
With tracking using Facebook Pixels (for Facebook Marketing) or Google Analytics (Audience Definitions).
At Munn Digital we offer specialised services to implement and fix analytics & tracking for businesses so that these funnels can be implemented.
MIDDLE OF FUNNEL (MOFU) – AUDIENCE DEFINITION
GOAL = GENERATE LEADS
At MOFU we want to retarget TOFU Prospects and convert them into leads.
Using sign-ups, quizzes, webinars, downloads and more, this is where we steer the interested consumer to become an engaged consumer.
BOTTOM OF FUNNEL (BOFU) – AUDIENCE DEFINITION
GOAL = GENERATE SALE
Now, at the last step of the funnel, we want to convert those leads into customers.
We retarget those MOFU leads with an offer or proposal that turns them into a customer.
We see an excellent example of the Digital Marketing Funnel in this image from Shopify:
Step by Step Facebook Ad Funnel
Now that we know what a Digital Marketing Funnel is, let’s apply it to a Facebook Ad Campaign.
Your business does not need to be e-commerce for a Facebook Ad Campaign to work. Any business can use Facebook to generate sales, it is simply a matter of making sure you create the right funnel.
In this exercise, we will have a Top, Middle and Bottom Funnel with steps outlining how to create a Facebook Ad Campaign to match each stage in the funnel. Let’s go!
FACEBOOK AD CAMPAIGN – TOP OF FUNNEL AD CREATION
Before we begin there are two things you will require:
1. A Facebook Business Manager Account
2. A working Facebook Pixel on your website.
If you don’t have the above and are stuck, contact us at Munn Digital as we implement tracking daily and will assist you.
You won’t be able to complete this task without a solid understanding of who your audience is.
At Munn Digital we create Customer Avatar’s for our clients. An Avatar is a detailed profile of our ideal client.
Below is a very brief example of the type of Customer Avatar’s we create for our client’s.
TOFU – Type of Ad
Remember TOFU is all about brand awareness, not hard selling.
You want to create ads that will introduce your audience to your products and services, without trying to sell to them yet. You are yet to earn their trust, so create an ad that will attract interest and encourage engagement. A great example of a TOFU ad is a 15-second video showcasing your products or services.
- Make sure you have a Facebook Pixel installed and working.
- Create an ad with the goal of Brand Awareness.
- In the ad set up, create a new audience with characteristics matching your Avatar.
- Upload ad creatives (static images or video)
- Publish.
MOFU – Type of Ad
Time to turn the TOFY audience into a lead. Examples of good MOFU ads are Downloads (capturing an email address), Webinar Registrations, Surveys and Quizzes.
1. From Facebook Business Manager go to Audiences and create a Custom Audience.
2. Within Custom Audiences you want to select anyone who has engaged with your TOFU ad over the past 14 days (this should give you a nice amount of time to amass a decent-sized audience).
3. Save this audience as MOF – 14 Days.
4. You will now create a new campaign with traffic/leads/ as your goal.
5. When setting up your ad you will choose a Saved Audience – and select the MOF – 14 Days audience you just created.
6. Upload your creative and add your text.
7. Publish
BOFU – Type of Ad
In this, our final stage of the funnel, it’s time to create an ad that converts the audience from MOFU into a customer. An example of a BOFU ad is a dynamic catalog ad (ecommerce), appointment booking, paid registration, claiming a special offer.
1. You will be creating another Custom Audience.
2. There are a few audiences you will create now, these include people who have visited your website in the past 14 days, people who have downloaded content. What did you direct the interested consumer to do at the MOFU stage? This is who you will be targeting. Exclude people who have already converted.
3. Save your audience as BOFU – 14 Days.
4. Create an ad and select Conversions / Catalog Sales or Store Traffic as your goal. This, of course, will depend on the type of business you have. Blue Corona offer an excellent guide to Facebook Ad Types. You can check that article out here.
5. Select your saved audience “BOFU – 14 Days” as your target audience.
6. Publish.
IN SUMMARY
I could write a book on creating funnel driven Facebook Ads. There are many different strategies available, and so much of the success boils down to how good your ad copy, creatives and targeting are.
If however, you start by following the steps outlined in this article, you are well on your way to creating a successful and profitable Facebook Ad Funnel.
ENJOY THIS ARTICLE?
Check out our recent article “Want a 600% ROI From Facebook? Do This!”.
- Why Have My Rankings Dropped? - July 17, 2020
- Digital Marketing Dos & Don’ts During COVID-19 - April 2, 2020
- Why Is SEO So Expensive - February 6, 2020
