How To Make An Ecommerce Sales Funnel : A Complete Guide

Lots of times, sellers feel overwhelmed when it comes to optimizing their efforts in marketing.

It’s important that you are sending the right message to the right people. This is what will help you in selling more.

Also, understanding what your audience wants and how you can help can convince the buyers to choose you over others.

The sales funnel is important as it maps the buyer journey and also identifies what you need to do to turn your visitor into your customer.

If you are new to this or want to know more, here is the in-depth guide for you to help understand how you can make your eCommerce sales funnel.

Contents

What Are The Four Stages Of Ecommerce Funnel?

Your goal of yours here is to optimize more and more through each stage. Well, the eCommerce conversion funnel has four stages which are divided into :

Awareness
Consideration
Decision
Loyalty

Understanding how you can optimize each stage can help your sales funnel to be more effective. You can nudge your users to take more steps toward the next stage.

Stage 1: Awareness

Not everyone knows about your brand, what you do and what you offer. Even with your marketing tactics and efforts, you are still able to reach certain audiences, which is not enough.

According to Smart Insights, on average, only 43.8% of visitors visit your product page. And among them, 3.3% make the purchase.

The difference is huge and that’s why you need more awareness and convincing.

Well usually, customers look for their problems online. Sometimes they do not even know the exact words for it but then they visit the websites where they do not just get the name for the problem but also the solution.

This is the stage which is called Awareness. And your website should focus on that.

Assure them by offering the best solutions you can come up with to solve their problems.

At this stage, you can get the audience from anywhere. It can be social media, google search or a referral. Here you need to get more and more visitors.

Focus on attracting the targeted audience so it can be easier to convince them. You can find them by using organic or paid both ways.

Here are the ways that help you in gathering more audience to your awareness stage :

Pay For Facebook Ads To Get The Traffic

Facebook is one of the largest social media along, with 2.3 billion active users. You can use this platform to create awareness.

There are different forms that you can consider when it comes to Facebook to get your goals.

With the help of Facebook ads, you can get fast and attract the targeted audience you are looking for.

tips to create more awareness via facebook ads

Create Free Content For Your Visitors

Facebook ads can help you in getting the audience to your website. But still, you can get specific ones.

The audience looks for the solutions, and you can offer that, so why not use this to get more audience?

Offer free content to your audience along with the solutions, and add value to make it more appealing.

You already have enough knowledge since you are working in this field, and sharing it with others can help your audience to know more about it.

On the bright side, you get potential customers by doing this.

You don’t have to write blogs or articles if you don’t want to; you can make short videos on youtube. However, it’s up to you to choose.

Stage 2: Consideration

Once you are done with stage 1, you get the audience on your website. Now you have the people who are interested.

At this stage, those visitors might be considering purchasing something from you. And that’s why your goals for this stage should be convincing them to the next step, i.e., adding products to the cart or wishlist.

Also, this is the ideal time to remove any kind of doubts that your audience has. This is an important point, and makes sure you do it.

The more efficient you are here, the better further marketing will work on them.

And to do that. You can add social proof; well, here are some ways that you can consider.

Your store should be the first place where you need to have the proof, and the best way to do it is to add testimonials from previous buyers.

You can showcase it on the product pages. Add reviews to help the audience know more about the products and other aspects.

You can add the testimonials on the homepage. This will help in impressing your audience much more and getting a better conversion.

Use Paid Ads

You don’t have to choose if you are running ads, and no matter at which stage, you can use this for sending social proofs to your audience.

This will help you in retargeting your audience and also get more audience in consideration to the next one.

Use Email Marketing

You can use email marketing in your considering stage. Add social proofs to emails, and this will help your audience to take the next step.

Well, you can do it subtly or make it obvious based on how you are approaching it. Also, add the social proof to your subject lines in one email.

Promote Product Via Curated Emails

Not just for sending social proofs, you can promote the product via email. This will help you in getting more subtle.

However, the audience at this stage is usually more interested in learning more about what you are selling, so it’s a much better and easier option.

Combine persuasion triggers like social proof and scarcity along with your curation emails, and you can sell without going too salesy on this.

Optimization Of Product Pages

This is important to get the attention, and you can assure them that you are offering the best solution.

Align your page so it can eliminate doubts and visitors get more information to get their answers.

Choose the right keywords so the visitors can find what they are looking for.

Not just that, focus on your product description and call to action, and make sure you have added the information regarding the shipping and returns.

Stage 3: Decisions

After stages 1 and 2, the visitors you get here are convinced to take the next step. At this stage, they might add the product to the cart and wishlist.

Here they need the push to take the step and do the transactions.

Your goal here is to give them a gentle nudge so they can complete the purchase. Also, to save from any kind of prospects that can change their mind.

You can use different tools, such as on-site messages and emails, and here is how you can do it :

Behavior-Based Emails

Lots of sellers don’t understand, but you have valuable information regarding your audience.

When your visitors visit your website to the point where they leave, every action they take, including clicking on emails, adds the process in carts. They leave a mark behind.

With this information, you can create a personalized shopping experience for visitors to get more conversions in the future.

There will be some audience who abandoned their carts at the last minute. You can understand their behavior and send emails to remind them. This will help you in getting more sales if you do it correctly.

Nudge During Checkout

Well, the checkout page is the last thing that is between you and the visitor. Here either you can get loyal customers, or they can leave forever.

This is why you need to create a well-designed checkout along with different options for payments. Make sure you have the CTAs that are persuasive.

Offer free shipping if you can, this can be a powerful prospect, and you can get a higher average order value.

On-Site Messages

No doubt that all your visitors are going to be different.

They will have different actions and take different timeframes to get convinced. Some might just purchase without too much convincing; others might go through all of your funnels to make a purchase.

This is why you need to differentiate between first-time visitors, returning visitors, subscribers, etc.

With this, you can make your campaigns much better and special to target those audiences.

Make sure to add the exit intent campaign to get the attention of abandoning visitors. You can offer discounts, free items, or email marketing.

Stage 4: Retention

The last stage of your sales funnel, and by this time, you managed to convert your visitors to buyers.

Well, the last step focuses on getting them back and buying the product again. This is called retention, and your goal here is to repeat your customer and boost your sales revenue.

It’s also important because repeat buyers make 9 X more conversations as compared to first-timers. Also, they spend more.

To get more return audience, here is how you can do it :

Promote Loyalty Program

Many sellers don’t get the importance of a Thank you page and what it can do for your sales.

Even though it’s the last of your customer journey, with this, you can get more audience back to your website.

You can optimize your thank you page by adding :

Surveys
Nurturing leads
Asking for referrals etc

Also, you can use it for promoting your loyalty program, and this will help you in getting the customer’s lifetime value.

Keep Them Engaged

According to the eCommerce sales funnel, only a selection of visitors will become your brand loyalist.

But still, you can use the rest to make more purchases. More than 32% of your first-time customer can make a second-time purchase from you.

And you can use your email marketing to get this to happen.

Express your gratitude but add the nudge here; make sure that you are overdoing it.

The main focus here is to keep them engaged with your brand even after they make their first purchase.

Add Referral Marketing

You can use your customers to get more new visitors.

Here you need to offer referral marketing to your audience.

And this one can do wonders for your website. According to a study, more than 84% of consumers stated that they trust recommendations if they are given by someone they know.

A referral program helps you in using that and getting more sales to your website.

Your happy customers bring more customers who are halfway convinced to make the purchase. And rest is on you and how you get sales from them.

Make sure you are offering incentives when you are doing referral marketing. The more powerful it is, the better results you will get.

Steps To Create Your Ecommerce Sales Funnel?

There are basic steps that you need to consider when you are making your sales funnel for your eCommerce. With this, you can get the right one, avoiding unnecessary errors and identifying customers as well as their requirements.

Step 1: Determine The Customer’s Journey

The first and most important step here is to identify what and where you want your audience to go after they complete the funnel.

Also, it requires the reactions of what your audience does; here are a few criteria that you can consider :

Is there any different reaction when visitors visit your homepage instead of product pages?

What are the referring domains that are getting most of the most traffic?

What are the touchpoints that your audience needs before they make up their mind to do the purchasing?

This will help you understand where your customer journey ends and how you can divert to your requirements. The more understanding you have here, the better mapping you can do to your sales funnels.

Step 2: Map The Stages To Get More Conversion Triggers

Well, your sales funnels should map to get more conversion triggers. It starts with creating a plan that helps in getting through your sales funnel.

It’s important for you to stick with the stages of the sales funnel.

Also, focus on the content that your every stage has, it should be serving the purpose along with nudging the audience to take the next step.

Step 3: Pinpoint When Your Visitors Switch To Leads

It’s crucial for you to have a point when you know that your visitors are now your lead. This is important so you can treat them according to that.

Most of the businessmen believe that when you get the contact information of your audience, this is the point of the switch.

However, make sure not to be vague about it. To be more specific, pinpoint it smartly.

You will need a plan to nurture your leads and manage all of your actions according to that.

How To Measure And Improve On Your Sales Funnel?

The main goal of analyzing your sales funnel is to understand how you can improve sales. You get an understanding of your audience and limits that create a hassle for you to get more revenue.

At every stage, you get the opportunity to remove those doubts and problems, along with adding the factors to get the results you want.

However, to understand if your sales funnels are doing important and to measure it, here are a few best practices that you can consider :

Simple And Clear Navigations

The sign of having a good sales funnel is the easiness of getting what your customer is looking for. The sales should be able to find things much easier.

When you have unclear navigation, you create more barriers that make your audience leave the site. And if you have it, that means, your sales funnel is not working for you.

All Needed Information

The next sign you can look for is clear information that includes everything your audience will require.

If it’s overloaded, this means it will overwhelm your audience. Or if it’s not proper, it will keep your audience confused. In both, you will face more drops and this is not good for sales.

The right amount of information will help in keeping your audience informed and also make them curious too. And this will get them more engaged and dig deeper into the site.

When it comes to funnel marketing, adding social proof is a powerful tool. Your website should have ratings, testimonials, and reviews by your clients. This helps the new visitors to know more about the product and services from someone who is not related to you.

If you have this on your website, you can see the impact on your sales rating. Also, it means your sales funnel is improving your sales.

Offering Solution

Visitors don’t visit any website if they are not getting the solution to their problems. And if they are visiting yours and staying, it means you are doing that correctly.

The better solution you are providing, the more results will affect your sales.

Larger numbers of audiences don’t proceed with their purchase because they don’t get the solution at the right time.

That’s why make sure you are providing help via live chat or the help desk. Not just can you guide your audience but you also get more satisfied customers at the end.

What Qualities Make Your Sales Funnel Unique?

The sales funnel for your eCommerce is different, and it’s important to understand what makes it different and how they are different.

Here are a few points that will help you.

It Requires More Targeting

When it comes to eCommerce products, there are chances that your items are not high-ticket items.

This is why you need more strategic plans to target your audience through your ads. And it also includes choosing the right platform.

You can choose the three basic and effective options which include Facebook, Linkedin, and Google.

However, Facebook stands out for lots of reasons, and that’s why it’s recommended to go with it. The basic includes :

It’s affordable
Better targeting
The algorithm that saves time

Depending on what your customer is purchasing, their concerns get more serious. For example, buying a T-shirt may not require a salesperson on call but buying a smartphone does.

The more they spend, the more assurance they will need. And that’s why eCommerce websites require more proof when they are building the sales funnel.

Here you need to add more evidence that your product is good to purchase and how it can help them.

But instead of following the sales, the buyers require more genuine profiles. That’s why you need testimonials, reviews, and ratings from your previous buyers.

It Has to Deal With Cart Abandonment

For an e-commerce business, cart abandonment is enough to give nightmares. This is a huge problem that the industry is facing.

Here the people spend their time and go through all of the catalogs, but for whatever reasons, they exit the page without finishing the purchase.

It’s not just disappointing but also costs a lot to the e-commerce business.

The rates are more than 76% which means out of 100 people, 76 people leave their carts.

Your e-commerce sales funnel requires solving this issue. And that’s why you need to arrange your content so you can push your audience to purchase.

Its Best For Upselling

Ecommerce sales funnel is ideal when it comes to upselling.

Well, one of the reasons that you can count on here is the low price, so it’s easier to track more items that add value to the purchase.

You can use the upselling to your sales funnel, depending on the type. Here you can add similar products or pitch package plans to add more services.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do a good sales funnel look like?

When your sales funnel is good, it includes all four stages of awareness, interest, decisions, and action.

Do sales funnels work even now?

Yes, even now it works like a charm, especially when you are doing it right. Marketers are using it to grow their businesses and get more leads even when they are asleep.

Why does e-commerce need sales to funnel?

It helps you in getting the framework that you can use to analyze the business and also get the areas where you need to improve. With this, you can visualize the customer journey and direct it as you want.