How To Build a Sales Funnel in 2024 (+ Practical Sales Funnel Template)

A sales funnel helps you transform prospects into paying customers. Learn how to create your own and increase conversions.

Knowing how to build and iterate on a sales funnel is one of the most profitable tactics an entrepreneur can learn.

A sales funnel helps you define the customer’s experience at each step, so you can direct them toward the next one.

First, a member of your target market encounters your marketing campaign and becomes a prospect. Then, they land on your website and become a lead. Finally, they make a purchase and become a buyer.

Here, you’ll learn how to build a one-page ecommerce sales funnel and gain access to a free sales funnel template.

What is a sales funnel?

A sales funnel is a series of strategic relationship-building experiences that turn unaware prospects into paying customers through an automated sales process.

The “funnel” visualizes the journey, with traffic from your targets entering through the top and high-value customers coming out the other end.

Sales funnels represent the process of capturing, nurturing, and converting by creating a reliable path to conversion. The funnel starts the moment potential customers become aware of your brand and continues until they purchase a product. Sales funnels may also include retention tactics to encourage repeat purchases and turn buyers into brand advocates.

Parts of a sales funnel

At a high level, sales funnels comprise three parts:

1. Top of funnel (ToFu). Your target audience who isn’t in the market to buy from you at the moment.

2. Middle of funnel (MoFu). Potential customers who have visited your website and are considering products or services like yours.

3. Bottom of funnel (BoFu). New and existing customers who will buy from you with the right push.

You can create sales funnels for a single product, an entire collection, or to serve specific audience segments. If you lack the budget to support multiple funnels, focus on creating a funnel for your flagship product. Regardless, the best sales funnels meet buyers’ needs at each stage with relevant content and calls to action (CTAs).

Example of a sales funnel in action

Here’s how sales funnels work in practice:

1. A member of your target audience sees an Instagram ad for running shoes from an unfamiliar brand, and they’re interested.

2. The target audience member clicks “Learn More” to visit your website. Now they’re a prospective customer.

3. As your prospect exits your site, they see a pop-up offering 10% off if they sign up for your newsletter. They provide their email address. Now they’re a lead.

4. Seven days later, your prospective customer receives an email reminder about the 10% discount, plus reviews from happy customers. They purchase the shoes and become a new customer.

5. Five days later, your customer gets another email asking them to review the shoes, share a photo on Instagram, and tag your brand. They do this, plus they purchase shorts recommended in the same email. Now, they’re advocates and repeat customers. The cycle continues.

Sales funnel stages: the AIDA framework

1. Attention
2. Interest
3. Desire
4. Action

The AIDA framework—attention, interest, desire, and action—represents the consumer thought process at each funnel stage. Many ecommerce brands start with this framework because it’s simple to implement and iterate.

The AIDA framework helps identify content and CTAs likely to resonate with shoppers at each stage. Here are the four stages, with examples of how you can apply them to your online business:

1. Attention

The attention or awareness stage is when you catch a potential customer’s attention with an ad, a YouTube video, an Instagram post, a TikTok video, a friend’s recommendation, or any other brand or product affiliation.

In this phase, focus on three things:

1. Cultivating buyers’ awareness of your products and services.

2. Developing a marketing and outreach strategy.

3. Delivering messaging that resonates with target buyers.

Your goal is to persuade future prospects to visit your site and engage with your brand.

People lingering at the top of your funnel aren’t interested in product information. They are typically casually browsing when they stumble on your brand, so it’s critical to create non-promotional lead generation content in this stage, such as:

• Informational videos
• TikTok videos
• Instagram Stories, Reels, and feed posts
• Google Shopping, Instagram, or Facebook ads
• Podcasts
• Influencer collaborations
• About Us pages
• Blog posts

Take Great Ones, the Great Jones blog, for example. The brand Great Jones makes cookware for home chefs and is on a mission to empower people’s culinary journeys.

Great Ones features interviews with chefs and influencers who are pictured using their favorite Great Jones products.

The blog offers readers a sense of community and a sense that they’re in a home kitchen rather than reading a blog. Readers learn about different cultures, recipes, and stories, and get inspired for their next big dish. The blog is a top-of-funnel asset that attracts the right customers and builds trust, all while featuring products in the background.

2. Interest

In the interest stage, prospects are researching and comparing your products to other brands. This is when you begin forming a relationship and discovering their problems and goals.

At the interest stage, focus on:

• Demonstrating how your products solve your prospects’ pain points
• Creating content to support purchasing decisions
• Showing social proof and testimonials
• Making product information easy to find and understand through copy, images, and video

At this phase in a customer’s journey, your goal is to help shoppers make informed decisions, and to establish your brand’s expertise. You’re proving that you offer the best solutions, so content at this stage should be thorough.

At the interest phase, capture prospects with remarketing lead magnets such as:

• Interactive content like quizzes and calculators
• Downloadables like checklists or ebooks
• Customer case studies
• Comparison pages
• Webinars or livestreaming events on social media

Tower 28 Beauty, for example, sparks interest through its interactive quiz. Visitors can discover their ideal makeup colors with this type of website personalization.

The quiz asks a series of questions about visitors' skin, such as “Do you have sensitive or sensitized skin?” and “What is your skin type?” A CTA trades prospects’ email addresses for 10% off codes and consent to receive marketing emails.

After prospective customers enter their email, they’re guided to a landing page with relevant products in complementary shades. The shade matching-tool can instill confidence in shoppers who prefer to sample makeup in person.

The quiz results landing page also includes a button to “Get The Full Routine,” a convenient cross-selling technique.

3. Desire

In this third stage of the funnel, people are ready to buy. They have a problem and they’re actively seeking the best solution.

Ask yourself these questions when planning for this stage:

1. What makes my product desirable?

2. How will I follow up with qualified leads?

3. How can I build an emotional connection with prospects?

Here’s where you promote your best offers, be it free shipping, discount codes, or free gifts. Consider prospects’ preferred communication formats (website chats, emails, SMS, etc) and aim to make your products so desirable that leads can’t turn them down.

4. Action

This stage is where prospects decide if they’ll purchase. Consider CTA placements and make it easy to contact your sales team with questions or concerns.

Once a customer acts, it’s time to focus your sales pipeline on retention (i.e., keeping them happy and engaged) so they return to buy again and again. This is true for direct-to-consumer and B2B sales alike

How to create a one-page ecommerce sales funnel

1. Choose a layout
2. Style your header
3. Feature testimonials
4. Select carousel photos
5. Create a short-form product demo
6. Add buy box content
7. Write CTA copy
8. Represent USPs visually
9. Display guarantees
10. Offer social proof imagery

Brands drive traffic from advertisements and emails directly to their product pages to generate sales. Some brands also include collection pages, pre-sales articles, and other stops along the way.

But the almighty funnel that rules them all is the one-page funnel. For that reason, building a reliable sales funnel starts by optimizing your product page.

Here’s an effective 10-step process you can follow to design your own sales funnel on an ecommerce product page that engages and converts:

1. Choose a layout

There are three basic layouts to choose from:

Traditional ecommerce product page

Choose this option if you sell simple products requiring little to no explanation, like clothes, or the Hawkers sunglasses below.

Long-form ecommerce product page

Select when you have stories to tell, technology to explain, benefits to reveal, and objections to overcome and want to do it all on a single page.

Product mini-site

The main difference between a long-form page and a mini-site is layout. Choose a mini-site when you meet the parameters of a long-form ecommerce product page, but want to split the information over several shorter, linked product pages for easy navigation.

This is the case for a lot of products that are easily understood or very visual.

For example, Master & Dynamic has much to say about its wireless over-ear headphones in this mini-site.

Both can be highly effective, so you really can’t go wrong.

2. Style your header

Simply put, a header is the top part of a website. It’s where you put your logo, menu, shopping cart, and other important links or information.

These website header styling tips can improve your conversion rate optimization:

Keep it slender and feature your logo

The header should not overwhelm page content. Keep your header as small as possible to maximize space.

For desktop sites, aim for a header that occupies no more than 20% of page height.

Harry’s desktop website header skillfully displays a prominent logo, while occupying little of the total page space.

Screen space is at a bigger premium on mobile; on these pages, aim for a header requiring no more than 10% page height.

Harry’s mobile website header takes even less space than its desktop counterpart.

Always link to the shopping cart

Customers expect a readily available shopping cart. To prevent frustration and incomplete purchases, include one in your header.

M.Gemi’s shopping cart notifies customers on the number of items in their cart.

Include a CTA for email opt-ins and promotions

Because your header is such a visible part of your site, it’s also a great place to promote offers such as:

• Free shipping
• Limited-time promotions
• Email opt-in incentives

Keeps’ header features a sign-up offer.

On mobile sites, where space is limited, consider placing priority CTAs like offers and email opt-ins inside the flyout menu.

Ensure readability

Use a big, easy-to-read font colored to stand out against the background.

Pay particular attention to your mobile menu—companies often ignore this part of their site, missing opportunities to communicate value.

Hims uses mobile navigation real estate effectively, with large links that expand to submenus.

Large links are especially important on mobile, where accidental taps happen easily. Keep links big and well-spaced to minimize this frustrating experience.

Choose a sticky header

A sticky header is what it sounds like: it sticks to the top of the page, even as users scroll.

Sticky headers suit long product pages especially well by always keeping CTAs on screen.

Hims’ sticky header stays put while users scroll.

3. Feature testimonials

A testimonial is a distinct form of review or social proof. Unlike a reviews section with multiple comments (which your site should definitely have), a featured testimonial is a single customer quote that lives inside the buy box. A positive, highly visible testimonial is a classic conversion tactic.

By adding a testimonial to its buy box, beauty company BOOM! increased its conversion rate by 5.25% and average revenue per user by $1.25. BOOM! repeated this test several times, and the testimonial always won.

This testimonial-free version of BOOM!’s buy box didn’t perform as well as the alternative.

In all of BOOM!’s tests, the buy box with a strong testimonial performed best.

Follow these tips to pick a featured testimonial:

• Choose an enthusiastic endorsement. It sounds obvious, but it bears repeating. You want this to be one of the best quotes you can find about your product.

• Keep it short. If it’s too long, people will glaze over it.

• Choose a testimonial from your biggest customer demographic. You can’t rotate your featured testimonial, so optimize by having it represent your most common buyer.

This featured testimonial from BOOM! is short and sweet.

4. Select carousel photos

Now it’s time to add product pictures to your ecommerce landing page design. Since online shoppers can’t hold and inspect your product, they rely on images.

According to a 2024 report from Salsify, great images compel 76% of shoppers to click.

Heatmap research shows that product page pictures get engagement.

A heatmap from BOOM! demonstrates how web users click through images.

Clicking-through images is a common user action on both desktop and—pictured here—mobile sites.

Because photos generate interest, they must be as good as you can make them.

Here are some tips for creating a product image carousel:

• Favor quality. You don’t necessarily need expensive equipment, but product images do need to be as crisp and appealing as possible.

• Capture varied angles, positions, and product states. Show your product opened and closed, in use and stored away, and from various viewpoints, so shoppers can visualize how they’d use it.

• Include people. Add a human touch by demonstrating how people use your product. Make sure your models look like they enjoy it.

• Illustrate materials and dimensions. Consider diagrams, illustrations, or photos to communicate product features, dimensions, or materials.

• Optimize images for faster loading. Improve your SEO rankings and create an efficient shopping experience with optimized images. Shopify does this automatically by converting pics to WebP format.

For complex products, consider upgrading from still photography to videos, 3D models, or informational diagrams so shoppers can thoroughly explore your product.

BioLite's camp stove product page features a detailed infographic.

5. Create a short-form product demo

Video is one of the most effective conversion assets out there. If you already have a high-quality, full-length product video—maybe something with interviews, testimonials, and product shots—be sure to use it!

Keep these assets under 30 seconds long, aiming for a clean and elegant product demonstration you can share on your website, your social channels, and in advertisements.

6. Add buy box content

A buy box’s primary purpose is to inspire visitors to add to cart. To accomplish that, remind them why they should buy now by quickly summarizing your product’s main benefits.

Here’s a helpful buy box framework:

1. Open with a featured testimonial.

2. Provide a one-sentence ownership benefit.

3. Add a two- to three-sentence product description.

When developing one-sentence ownership benefits, ask yourself questions like:

• Why do people buy this product? How does it benefit them?
• How will they feel after using it?
• How will owning or using the product affect other people’s perception of them?

Reminding people why they should buy is a critical component of your ecommerce product page and could mean the difference between winning or losing sales. Choose copy that is succinct and compelling.

BOOM! takes full advantage of the buy box to iterate the product’s main benefit, alongside social proof, upsells, reviews, and more.

7. Write CTA copy

The most important CTA copy in your buy box is what goes on your buy button. Although it’s tempting to get creative, standard practice is to keep it simple.

Here are some gold standards:

• Buy Now
• Add to Cart
• Checkout Now
• Add to Bag

Most ecommerce stores should stick with “Add to Cart” and move on (unless you’re in Europe, where “Add to Bag” is popular). If you’re in B2B sales, your CTA might lead to a meeting with sales reps, e.g. “Book a Demo.”

8. Represent USPs visually

USP stands for unique selling proposition. In a nutshell, USPs distinguish you from your competition. They’re why people should buy from you over someone else.

USPs should appear in product page copy and visuals.

This design from Pura Vida Bracelets showcases its USPs in visuals and copy.

The answers to these questions will help you define your USPs:

• Do you offer guarantees or special financing?
• Do you provide fast or free shipping?
• Where do you go above and beyond to make your product special?
• Do you have any relevant certifications?
• Do your products employ special technology?
• Is your product made in the USA, cruelty-free, organic, or 100% natural?

9. Display guarantees

Guarantees are effective, especially for online sales, which customers can perceive as risky if they’ve never purchased from you before. By reducing customer’s risk, you increase the likelihood they’ll buy.

A money-back guarantee—the promise that you’ll give shoppers a refund if they change their mind—is the most effective guarantee, but it’s not the only one, and there’s no limit on the number you can offer.

Here are some classic examples:

• Money-back guarantee
• Satisfaction guarantee
• Lifetime guarantee
• Buy-back guarantee
• Happiness guarantee
• Low-price guarantee

Take some time to consider the guarantees you can offer to minimize risk and instill a sense of security.

10. Offer social proof imagery

Testimonials aren’t the only type of social proof you can display on your product page.

If you’ve been featured in a magazine or on a website, consider adding a press mentions bar for additional social proof. Better yet, feature editorial quotes alongside relevant logos. According to a 2023 survey from Matter, 69% of consumers are likely to trust a friend, family member, or influencer recommendation over information that comes from a brand.

Social proof on kitchen store Our Place comes in the form of a quote and editorial logos.

Here are examples of social proof you can include on your product page:

• Customer reviews
• Celebrity or influencer endorsements
• Certification logos
• Magazine or blog quotes and logos
• Expert reviews or recommendations (i.e. “9 out of 10 dentists recommend it”)

In short, you’re looking for anything from a third-party source that gives your product greater credibility.

Sales funnel FAQ

What is a sales funnel system?

A sales funnel system is an automated process that generates, nurtures, and converts traffic into sales over time. It’s a system in the sense that various assets and programs work together to influence customers on the path to purchase.

What are the four stages of a sales funnel?

The four stages of a sales funnel, according to the AIDA model, are awareness, interest, desire, and action. Marketing and sales teams use these stages to break down the customer journey.

What is a sales funnel example?

A common example of a sales funnel starts with a video ad for a specific product that sends traffic to a dedicated landing page for the product to educate the prospective customer, potentially capturing their email with a free downloadable or discount, and then nurturing them into a sale through email marketing or customer service.

Why is a sales funnel important?

A well-defined sales funnel ensures your website and internal processes are aligned with the customer journey. By meeting prospective customers with content and offers that are relevant to their stage-specific needs, your sales team can improve customer interactions, increase sales, and boost customer retention.

How do you build a sales funnel?

To build an effective sales funnel, you need to understand your customers and their behaviors and needs at each stage of the funnel, and then create product pages (or other materials) that address those needs. There are free sales funnel templates online that can walk you through this process, including Shopify’s free sales funnel template.