Funnel failures lead to a 21x impact on revenue when new learnings are carried over effectively

Number of Funnels Created

Nader Sabry — Growth Hacking
3 min readDec 5, 2022

41% of funnels are in their 5th generation and beyond.

According to HIRSH MARKETING, one funnel is the main target until it performs profitability to justify the next development.

Background

Failure is a natural part of the process of building a funnel. Not only is it about finding optimization points but consumer behavior and consumption patterns change quickly. Being able to align internal optimization and external changes are the two driving factors of success.

The reasons why a funnel can fail:

  1. Less than 1% of funnels generate $1 million in sales according to ClickFunnels
  2. Failing to measure — 68% of companies have not attempted to measure the sales funnel
  3. Not optimizing — only 22% of businesses are satisfied with their conversion rate
  4. Not adding a sense of urgency can cause an increase in sales by up to 332%
  5. Not having enough landing pages — 10 to 12 landing pages can boost up leads to 55%
  6. Having more than one offer on a landing page can decrease the conversion by 266%
  7. Not having social proof — pages that feature social proof convert 1.1% better
  8. Too much info — 40% of prospects are willing to share information after converting
  9. Underestimating email — the average value of an email subscriber is $48.87
  10. Not upselling — upsells are 68% more affordable than acquiring a new customer

Understanding key failure points are the first step, but also keep in mind in a funnel structure the top failure point is handover. Handover is optimizing between phases in the funnel itself, not just focusing on the phases themselves.

Context

To optimize a funnel, they need to be rigorously tested quickly and for the lowest cost possible to start with. Eventually, the funnel will get more complex but will need to be flexible to accommodate for changes. By the time you have reached your 5th generation the enhancements in learning will be rich enough to have a great idea of how to customize. Although off-the-shelf solutions may continue to be used for generations to come, inevitable integrations, automation and customization will come into play.

Takeaway

Failure is profitable. However, this needs to be managed. The best way to manage this is through data-driven decisions, coupled with the right tools. It’s always best to start the process by knowing you will most likely need to develop 5 generations and more of your funnel before you reach a healthy conversion rate.

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ABOUT — Growth Thinking

Growth Thinking is a design methodology for growth hacking by the bestselling author of Ready Set Growth Hack, Nader Sabry. It has been applied as a book and a $1 million challenge known as the 10-day growth hacking challenge, which has generated $138m in revenue. This methodology has been adopted by universities like Harvard and Stanford, fortune 500s (Google/Microsoft), and unicorns.

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Nader Sabry — Growth Hacking

Strategist entrepreneur & innovator in space tech, government, & health/wellness. Has raised $20m directly /+$100m indirectly for startups. www.nadersabry.com