What are click funnels in marketing?

What are click funnels?

Click funnels are a series of web pages and marketing assets that guide visitors toward a conversion event, such as a sign-up or a purchase.

These funnels are meant to provide tailored experiences that direct visitors to complete a desired action—but it’s important to keep in mind that the actual customer journey is rarely as linear as a click funnel is designed.

How do click funnels work?

A click funnel starts when someone clicks on a link from your email, paid ad, social media post, etc., which takes them to a page on your website.

This page may educate visitors about your brand, products, or services. The idea is that visitors will then click on other links to explore how your brand can solve their problems differently from your competition.

When visitors reach the bottom of the funnel, a final call to action (CTA) interaction confirms their decision and marks a conversion. This is when the visitor takes the action you’ve been directing them to, such as signing up for an email or SMS list or making a purchase.

Aside from bringing in new customers, you can also use a click funnel to upsell existing customers and offer add-ons.

Click funnels vs. sales funnels

For the purposes of ecommerce sales, it’s helpful to think of your click funnel as the actual touchpoints potential customers interact with, whereas the sales funnel is the more emotional journey of needing a product and deciding to purchase it. Your click funnel lives inside your sales funnel.

In a sales funnel, potential customers go through 5 key stages:

Awareness: They realize they have a problem or need, and they discover your brand.
Consideration: They’re interested in exploring your brand while evaluating other options.
Conversion: They’re ready to buy and may need some final uncertainties addressed before they do.
Retention: They’ve become a repeat customer.
Advocacy: They would recommend your brand to a friend.

How to build and optimize your click funnel

Creating a click funnel requires careful research, analysis, and deliberation. Here’s what it takes:

1. Get to know your audience

A click funnel should map to your target audience and reflect their behaviors, habits, demographics, and preferences. The most important things to learn for your click funnel are:

Where your audience consumes content
How much education they need about your product
How they’re already engaging with your website

Learn more about your audience by collecting data through:

Website and email engagement analytics
Sign-up forms on your website
Social media interactions
Market research
Competitive research
Surveys and quizzes

2. Set a goal for your click funnel

Click funnels can look different depending on the goal you’re trying to achieve. Setting a clear goal in line with your business strategy should be one of your first decisions. It’ll also help you determine the conversion event to strive for, such as:

Sign-up or subscription
App or item download
Event or course registration
Purchase

3. Design your click funnel path

Your click funnel may be long or short, depending on how much education your audience needs before buying your product. The more expensive your product, for instance, the more information people will need before they purchase.

Your goal will also determine the length and touchpoints of your click funnel. For example, if your conversion event is a sign-up, your click funnel may be on the shorter side since it’s not as much of an investment as a purchase.

On the other hand, when you want to sell a product, a click funnel would look like this:

Product promotion email: Send an email showcasing a featured product. Include high-quality images, a benefit-driven product description, and a clear CTA button like “Shop Now” prominently placed above the fold.
Product page visit: After clicking the CTA, the subscriber visits the product page. Make sure the page has detailed product information, customer reviews, and a visible “Add to Cart” button to drive immediate action.
Browse abandonment email: Send a reminder email one hour after the subscriber leaves without purchasing. Use urgency-driven language like “Still thinking about this?” and include social proof like reviews or testimonials. Once again, include a prominent CTA that directs them straight to the product page.
Return to product page: Once your subscriber is on the page, offer them a small incentive, such as free shipping, to incentivize a purchase.
Cart abandonment trigger: If they add items to the cart but don’t actually buy, send the first cart abandonment email 2–4 hours after they leave. Remind them of the items left in the cart.
Second cart abandonment email: If they still haven’t taken any action, send a follow-up email 24–48 hours later. This time around, add an extra push, like a limited-time discount or free shipping, to motivate them.
Post-purchase email: After they make a purchase, send a confirmation email immediately, providing them with order details and shipping information.

4. Create your assets

Possible assets that fuel a click funnel include:

Landing pages
Brand articles
Product pages
Checkout pages
Emails and SMS messages
Browse abandonment and abandoned cart flows
Sign-up forms
Social media ads

Choose assets that are informed by:

Website analytics
Audience data and interviews
Click funnel goals

5. Track and nurture potential customers

Gather behavioral data that reflects the people who enter your click funnel. This data will help you form engagement-level segments, deploy assets at the right time, and personalize your messaging to direct them toward a conversion.

6. Collect feedback and make changes

While researching your audience is a necessary first step, nothing beats real-time, data-driven feedback. Run A/B tests to try different versions of your assets on smaller samples of your audience so that you can refine them for most of the people who see them.

To optimize your funnel, track performance metrics like the conversion rate or opt-in rate. Note that audience preferences can also change, so a constant flow of data is necessary to keep your click funnel relevant and effective.

How to engage with your audience with Klaviyo

Klaviyo is a powerful marketing automation platform that helps you understand your audience and create high-yielding click funnels. Here’s how:

Predictive analytics: Identify behavioral patterns in existing customers and forecast the behavior of future ones to build an effective click funnel.
Funnel analysis: Understand how customer segments interact with your marketing funnel and identify drop-off points.
Integrated reporting: Integrate your tech stack with Klaviyo, house omnichannel data in one place, and get automatic and clean reports on the performance of the assets in your click funnel.