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Marketing Funnel

The journey a person takes from first hearing about you to becoming a paying customer.

Why the funnel metaphor

A lot of people enter the top. Fewer make it to the bottom. The shape of the journey — wide at the awareness stage, narrow at the purchase stage — looks like a funnel.

The classic model (AIDA) has four stages: Awareness, Interest, Decision, Action. Modern versions add Retention and Referral, extending the "funnel" into a loop.

Stages explained

Awareness — Someone hears about you for the first time. An ad, a mention on Twitter, a blog post they stumbled onto.

Interest — They want to learn more. They visit your site, read your homepage, maybe sign up for your newsletter.

Decision — They're comparing options. Reading reviews, checking pricing, talking to sales.

Action — They buy, sign up, or commit.

Retention / Referral — They stay active, expand usage, and tell others.

Where landing pages fit

Landing pages typically live in the Decision stage. Someone clicks your Google ad (awareness/interest transition) and lands on a page built specifically for people ready to evaluate you.

That's why landing pages work better than homepages for paid traffic: the visitor is already 60% through your funnel. They don't need to learn your brand story — they need to decide if you're the right solution.

Related terms

Put it into practice.

PageStrike generates the whole thing — headline, CTA, hero, proof section — in about 2 minutes. You'll never have to write a hero section from scratch again.

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