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While ToFu, MoFu, and BoFu might sound like things you eat, they are, in fact, marketing terms that map to each stage of the customer journey. The top of the funnel (ToFu) is the awareness stage, the middle (MoFu) is the consideration stage, and the bottom (BoFu) is the conversion stage. A full-funnel marketing strategy nurtures customers at each level of the funnel.
A full-funnel marketing strategy can yield benefits such as a higher return on investment (ROI) and increased sales compared to single-stage marketing. A Google-commissioned Nielsen report on 1,300 campaigns from 20 consumer packaged goods (CPG) businesses found that full-funnel strategies achieved up to 45% higher ROI than those focused on a single purchase stage. Additionally, businesses that had historically focused only on middle-of-funnel activities saw a 52% increase in sales when they introduced top- and bottom-of-funnel tactics using Google Ads.
In this article, learn about the stages of full-funnel marketing and how to develop a full-funnel marketing campaign, with examples from small business owners.
What are the stages in a full-funnel marketing strategy?
Full-funnel marketing is a strategy businesses use to guide prospective customers down the marketing funnel, from learning about a product or service to considering it to making a purchase.
While you may hear “marketing funnel” used interchangeably with the term “sales funnel,” they are not the same. A marketing funnel brings people in. A sales funnel encourages customers to make initial and repeated purchases. In some cases, they work together, with a marketing team handing off leads (those who show some level of interest in your business) to the sales team to persuade them to make a purchase.
A marketing funnel breaks down into the following stages:
Top of funnel (ToFu)
The top of the funnel (ToFu) is the initial stage of a full-funnel strategy focused on awareness, where people learn about your brand and begin to take notice. The goal at this point is to introduce your products or services to as many members of your target audience as possible. This is where you cast your widest net.
“The top of funnel … [is] about building the brand identity and who you are and your ethos that you can’t ignore,” Kristen Pumphrey, founder of candle brand P.F. Candle Co., says on Shopify Masters. For P.F. Candle Co., this mostly means organic social media.
Other common marketing tactics at this stage include social media ads, Google ads, influencer-led social media posts, and non-branded SEO, which is the practice of targeting search terms that don’t include your brand name.
Middle of funnel (MoFu)
The middle of the funnel (MoFu), or the consideration stage, is about developing deeper relationships with the potential customers you attracted in the awareness stage. Those prospects are weighing their options. At this stage, show them why your products are viable solutions for their wants or needs.
Use informative content marketing (such as tutorials and explainer videos) to answer potential customers’ questions preemptively. You can also run ads through Shopify Audiences, a tool that lets you target customers on social media.
To target customers at the middle of the funnel, you can use the Shopify Audiences’ Retargeting Boost list, which helps you reach people who previously engaged with your brand but haven’t purchased from your store yet. Luxury clothing brand Mac Duggal used a custom Retargeting Boost list to double its return on ad spend (ROAS).
Bottom of funnel
At the bottom of the funnel (BoFu), or the conversion stage, you engage prospects and convert leads by getting them to make a purchase. Your focus is to reduce unnecessary friction and remove hesitations.
For potential customers who need a final nudge, you can try abandoned cart reminders. Some ways to make your abandoned cart emails more effective include providing social proof through reviews, offering a discount code, and reminding visitors what they left behind.
Michelle Shemilt, founder of sweatproof undershirt brand Numi, sees abandoned cart automations as an opportunity to meet customers where they’re at. “You can actually talk to them and educate them on who you are, what you’re doing, why you’re doing it,” she says on Shopify Masters.
Post-purchase stages
In addition to the three main stages, some marketers also include two post-purchase stages: the loyalty stage, where existing customers make repeat purchases, and the advocacy stage, where satisfied customers actively promote the brand through referrals or positive reviews.
How to develop a full-funnel marketing campaign
- Define your goals
- Choose your tactics
- Optimize the customer experience across the funnel
- Monitor performance
Follow these steps to develop a full-funnel marketing strategy:
1. Define your goals
Set clear, concrete goals for each funnel stage. To do this, first choose the key performance indicators (KPIs) you want to improve at each stage. For example:
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Top-of-funnel goal: Increase impressions in organic search and overall website traffic.
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Middle-of-funnel goal: Build your email list and improve email open rates and click-through rates.
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Bottom-of-funnel goal: Increase sales.
From there, expand into SMART goals that are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. For example, you could set these goals for each funnel stage:
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ToFu: Increase traffic to our website by 20% in three months.
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MoFu: Double the size of our email list in three months.
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BoFu: Increase sales by three times in three months.
2. Choose your tactics
To build a full-funnel marketing strategy, lay out the tactics you’ll use on each marketing channel for every stage:
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Top of funnel. At this point, your goal is to reach the broadest audience and build awareness of your brand and products, for example, by partnering with influencers on TikTok and Instagram.
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Middle of funnel. At the MoFu stage, you want to appeal to customers considering their options by engaging them through tutorials and customer reviews. You might create an automated email sequence for new subscribers that shares educational content about your product, or build a series of comparison pages showing how your products stack up against competitors.
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Bottom of the funnel. When customers reach the bottom of the funnel, you want to create a sense of urgency to buy. Send cart abandonment alerts with limited-time offers (e.g., “24 hours to claim your discount”) or use artificial intelligence to set up an AI chatbot to answer customer questions in the checkout flow.
Energy drink company Guru Energy uses different messaging at each stage of the funnel. “Awareness for us is all about selling the brand, then selling the can,” vice president of marketing Shingly Lee says on Shopify Masters. “When it comes to conversion and consideration content, it’s direct. It’s being tactical. It’s to talk about the functional prowess of our product.”
3. Optimize the customer experience across the funnel
As customers interact with your brand, their experience can affect whether they continue to engage. In a 2025 study by the professional services firm PwC, 29% of consumers said they stopped using or purchasing from a brand because of a poor in-person or online customer experience.
Here are a few ways to create better customer experiences at different stages:
Create fast-loading pages
Site speed affects every stage of your marketing funnel, from first visit to checkout. Google’s research finds that 53% of visits are at risk of abandonment if a page takes more than three seconds to load. To learn how quickly your pages load, run reports on Google’s PageSpeed Insights, which includes a breakdown of performance issues to target.
Respond quickly on social media
As customers consider purchasing from you, they might reach out on social media via a tag or a DM. When they do, respond quickly. In a 2025 survey from customer experience company Emplifi, one-third of customers said they expect replies within an hour. By 24 hours, you’ve likely lost that customer.
Offer frictionless checkout
The checkout process is the linchpin of the bottom of your funnel. Eighty-four percent of shoppers said one-click checkout is a consideration when deciding where to shop, according to a survey by data leader PYMNTS and payment solution Global Payments.
Shop Pay is an accelerated checkout tool available to Shopify store owners. It saves customers’ shipping and payment information across ecommerce stores, so they don’t have to enter it repeatedly.
4. Monitor performance
Track your performance at each level to identify where your funnel is effective and where you might be losing people.
Shopify store owners have access to built-in tools to measure performance. Shopify Analytics provides insights into your customers and conversion rates. The Marketing section in your Shopify admin lets you track the impact of your marketing efforts, including the number of orders and total value of sales attributed to campaigns.
Other useful metrics to track include customer acquisition cost (CAC) and customer lifetime value (CLV). To keep your full-funnel approach profitable, make sure your CAC is less than CLV.
Full-funnel marketing strategy FAQ
What are the five stages of the marketing funnel?
The stages of the marketing funnel start with the awareness stage (top of funnel), followed by the consideration stage (middle of funnel), the conversion stage (bottom of funnel), and two post-purchase stages: the loyalty stage, where existing customers make repeat purchases, and the advocacy stage, where satisfied customers promote the brand through testimonials or referrals.
Why is full-funnel marketing important?
Full-funnel marketing serves all stages of the buyer journey. How you talk to potential customers who don’t know your brand differs from how you entice existing customers or encourage customers on the brink of purchase.
What is a marketing funnel example?
A marketing funnel might begin with a customer seeing a protein shake ad on Instagram (awareness), then reading customer testimonials (consideration), and finally purchasing through a discount on a landing page (conversion). Customers enjoy the product and decide to subscribe for auto-refills (loyalty), and later refer friends (advocacy).
