The concept of a marketing 'funnel' is flawed. There, I said it

"The traditional marketing funnel no longer works for the modern customer journey because it makes assumptions about consumer behavior that are great in theory but not reflective of reality. Marketing strategies have long been focused on creating awareness, increasing consideration, and driving conversion. Usually, this is visualized as an upside-down triangle, or a funnel, intended to show how marketers should start broad to ultimately whittle down to the 'best' customers."

"Reality: More often than marketers like to admit, people visiting your website are just discovering your brand and are far from ready to take the next step (or even accidentally land on your site from a click gone wrong on social media). Marketers cling to theory over reality because they're addicted to last-click attribution and its historical use to prove the value of digital marketing."

"The customer journey is highly nuanced and complicated. Usually, it's not as simple as solving for x. Instead, multiple signals of interest along the way require marketers to build out personalized 'if-then' scenarios to optimize the acquisition process. We need to blend the often siloed worlds of user, brand and marketing experiences and ground them all in robust data analytics"

Traditional funnel assumptions misinterpret actual consumer behavior, treating journeys as linear and visitors as ready buyers. Marketers rely on last-click attribution and retargeting, causing oversaturation and poor resonance with audiences. Website visits often reflect early discovery, accidental clicks, or varying intent rather than purchase consideration. Multiple signals of interest occur across touchpoints, necessitating personalized 'if-then' scenarios to optimize acquisition. Effective strategy requires integrating user, brand, and marketing experiences, eliminating silos, and grounding decisions in robust data analytics to better reflect nuanced, non-linear customer journeys and improve attribution and relevance.

Read at The Drum