How to use landing page sales funnels to convert more visitors
Ahh, the funnel.
Despite what you may be hearing through the grapevine, the marketing conversion funnel is most definitely still alive and well…
When it’s built right, that is.
In order to build funnels that actually convert, you first need to fully understand what the core stages of the marketing funnel are, what the goals are at each stage, and the role landing pages play throughout that journey.
From there, you’ll be able to build funnels that consistently convert visitors into leads, and leads into customers, both short-term and over the long haul.
Let’s do it.
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Josh Gallant
Josh is the founder of Backstage SEO, an organic growth firm that helps SaaS companies capture demand. He’s a self-proclaimed spreadsheet nerd by day, volunteer soccer coach on weekends, and wannabe fantasy football expert every fall.
» More blog posts by Josh Gallant
What is a landing page funnel?
A landing page funnel guides potential customers through your sales process. It’s a series of steps designed to convert visitors into leads and eventually into paying customers.
Unlike a regular website, a landing page funnel focuses on specific actions you want visitors to take, like signing up for your email list or purchasing. Each stage of the funnel is tailored to meet the needs of your audience at different points in their journey, ensuring a smooth transition from awareness to conversion. This targeted approach makes landing page funnels highly effective in boosting your conversion rate.
Landing page funnels vs marketing funnels
Before we go any further, let’s make sure we’re on the same page here.
You’ve likely heard of the “funnel” concept many times before, but there are some pretty significant differences between a traditional marketing funnel you may be familiar with, and a landing page funnel which we’ll cover in-depth today.
Marketing funnel: This represents the overall buying journey, from initial awareness to final conversion. The marketing funnel is typically talked about in terms of top-of-funnel, middle-of-funnel, and bottom-of-funnel and includes multiple touchpoints along the way. Think email campaigns, social media interactions, sales conversations, content marketing, and more, guiding prospects over a longer period.
Landing page funnel: This is a series of interconnected landing pages designed to be completed in a single session. It focuses on immediate actions, like clicking on call to action buttons to move to the next stage of the funnel, adding a product to your cart, or completing a form to move forward.
What’s the difference between a website, a landing page, and a funnel?
These terms sometimes get thrown out synonymously, but in reality there are a few slight (and significant) differences between each.
Landing page: a single page.
A landing page is a single web page designed for a specific marketing campaign. Its sole purpose is to encourage visitors to take a specific action, such as filling out a form or clicking a call to action button.
Landing page funnel: a string of multiple landing pages.
A landing page funnel is a step-by-step process that guides visitors from initial interest to making a purchase. It involves multiple landing pages and actions that gradually lead potential customers through the buying journey.
Website: the hub for all of your landing pages, content and products.
A website is a collection of all the landing pages that exist across your business, plus other pages like blog posts, careers pages, case studies, product pages, etc. It’s like an online storefront where visitors can browse different sections.
Recommended resource: What’s the difference between a landing page, a homepage, and a website?
What’s the purpose of a landing page funnel in sales?
A landing page funnel aims to drive conversions by guiding visitors through a structured step-by-step sales process.
Each stage in the funnel is focused on carrying prospects through to the next, with the funnel ultimately reaching a conversion page at the end that aims to seal the deal—either through a lead gen form or a purchase to complete.
The primary use cases for landing page funnels are:
- Lead generation: Capturing email addresses and contact information.
- Product promotion: Highlighting specific products or services.
- Event registration: Driving sign-ups for webinars, workshops, and events.
- Content downloads: Offering ebooks, whitepapers, and other resources.
- Sales conversion: Turning leads, trial users, or freemium users into paying customers.
Stages of a marketing funnel (and where landing pages fit in)
Understanding the stages of a marketing funnel is essential for effective customer journey management. Each stage of the funnel targets different audience segments with specific goals and actions, and landing pages play a critical role along the way.
In this section, we’ll break down the stages, explain the role of landing pages, and share a few different types of pages (with examples) to help you get started.
Stage 1: Top-of-funnel (TOFU)
In the top-of-funnel (TOFU) stage, potential customers first become aware of your brand. At this stage, the goal is to attract a wide audience and generate interest in your products or services.
Objectives at TOFU:
- Raise awareness for your brand through content marketing, advertising, etc.
- Educate your audience with valuable information on common pain points.
- Capture interest using engaging content to encourage further exploration.
Recommended resource: How to use your landing page to increase brand awareness
Top-of-funnel landing page types and examples
Squeeze pages
Squeeze pages are short, simple landing pages designed to capture only an email address by offering something valuable in return, like a free guide or discount.
Quiz pages
Quiz pages engage visitors with an interactive quiz—sometimes simple, sometimes complex—that leads to a call to action like entering an email in exchange for the results.
Image courtesy of Linen Chest
Webinar registration pages
Webinar registration pages do exactly what they sound like—they facilitate sign-ups for free webinars, whether they are live or recorded. To dig in even further, check out our guide on all thing’s webinar marketing, too.
Gated content pages
Gated content pages offer visitors something valuable like a guide, template, or checklist in exchange for their contact information—typically just their name and email address. As an example, Later was able to hit a 60% conversion rate on their gated content landing pages.
Stage 2: Middle-of-funnel (MOFU)
In the middle-of-funnel (MOFU) stage, prospects begin to engage more deeply with your brand. At this stage, the goal is to nurture these leads by providing more detailed information and building a relationship with them.
Objectives at MOFU:
- Build trust with case studies, testimonials, and in-depth content.
- Provide value through detailed information that solves problems.
- Encourage consideration by highlighting the benefits of your products or services.
Middle-of-funnel landing page types and examples
Free trial pages
Free trial pages offer a free trial of your product or service in exchange for an email address.
Product demo pages
Product demo pages let prospects either test drive parts of your product through an interactive demo, or show them how it works through a recorded demo video.
Case study pages
Case study pages share real customer success stories to build trust with prospects and show how you help similar companies solve similar problems.
Image courtesy of Unbounce
Content library pages
Content libraries can take many shapes, but in this context, picture a detailed buyers guide that’s targeting a prospect who already has a baseline understanding of a problem you can help them solve and is looking for more advanced information.
Image courtesy of Wayfair
Comparison pages
Comparison pages compare your product with competitors to highlight your unique selling points.
Image courtesy of Close
You can also approach comparison pages from an “us vs many” perspective as well, where you zoom out to look at multiple competitors on the same page. Take a look at our Unbounce vs competitors page as an example.
Stage 3: Bottom-of-funnel (BOFU)
In the bottom-of-funnel (BOFU) stage, prospects are ready to make a purchasing decision. At this stage, the goal is to convert these leads into paying customers.
Objectives at BOFU:
- Drive conversions with compelling calls to action and offers.
- Address final objections with clear answers to remaining questions.
- Facilitate the purchase process by ensuring a smooth checkout experience.
Bottom-of-funnel landing page types and examples
Checkout pages
Checkout pages are focused entirely on the final stages of a purchase. The goal is to reduce friction, simplify the checkout process, and clear the pathway toward completing the transaction.
Image courtesy of AG1
Sales pages
Sales pages are persuasive pages that highlight the benefits and features of your product, aiming to close the sale.
Consultation booking pages
Consultation booking pages offer a free consultation or demo to help finalize the decision-making process. These pages are common with service providers like agencies.
Pricing pages
Pricing pages clearly display pricing options and encourage visitors to make a purchase decision or reach out for more context or a custom quote.
Image courtesy of Notion
There’s plenty of different approaches you can take with a pricing page too. For example, while the Notion page above only shows bullets for what’s actually included in each tier, we use X’s and checkmarks on the Unbounce pricing page. The idea here is that X’s can act as a nudge toward the higher-level plans if you see certain features that are must-have’s for your specific needs.
There’s no “right answer” here though, so keep A/B testing.
Stages of a landing page sales funnel
Like marketing funnels, the landing page funnel can be split into three stages—top, middle, and bottom. The top is meant to push prospects into the funnel, the middle carries them through a series of steps, and the bottom captures their information or asks them to complete a purchase.
Click-through pages or start pages (top-of-funnel)
The top of your landing page funnel starts with a click-through page.
This is your “start” page.
The goal is simple and straightforward—click a CTA button to “start” the funnel. If your funnel is a multi-step quiz, this would be the first landing page prospects see with buttons prompting them to start the quiz. If your funnel is an account creation flow, the CTA buttons would be focused on—to no surprise—creating an account.
Engagement pages (middle-of-funnel)
The middle of your landing page funnel is where the options begin to open up. Your funnel could be a simple 1-2-3 sequence where the middle is just a single page, or it could be a complex flow with multiple paths a prospect can take. Both can work.
The goal at this stage is to engage your prospects.
By nature of reaching this stage, they’ve already shown interest in what your offering by clicking the button on your squeeze page. The focus now is on keeping them interested and carrying them through the stages of your funnel.
To keep the previous examples going, in a quiz funnel the middle pages would be the quiz itself. In an account creation funnel, the middle pages would likely be context gathering questions where you ask for company size, which department your prospect is part of, etc.
Conversion pages (bottom-of-funnel)
Finally, the bottom of your funnel is where you seal the deal. This is typically a single checkout page or lead capture page, but could be a few closely linked steps like a cart confirmation page then the checkout page. Either way, the objective here is simple:
Get your prospect to act.
In your quiz funnel, this would be where you gate the results from the quiz behind an email opt-in form. In your account creation funnel, this could be where you collect an email address or it could be where you ask for payment info, depending on your approach. This is also where an ecommerce funnel would push for the purchase to be completed.
How to build a landing page funnel
Building a landing page funnel involves several steps, each crucial to guiding your prospects from awareness to conversion. Here’s a simple guide to help you create an effective funnel.
Step 1: Choose a landing page builder
Pick a user-friendly landing page builder (like Unbounce) that will make it easy for you to design and publish your pages without needing any coding skills or dev resources. With Unbounce, you’ll have access to:
- 100+ templates to start from,
- drag-and-drop features,
- A/B testing tool,
- Popup and sticky bars functionality,
- AI optimization, and
- AI copywriting built in to help you get started quickly.
Step 2: Decide on the type of funnel you want to build
Start with your goal—like lead generation, product sales, event registrations, etc. From there, decide on the type of funnel you’re building, like a quiz, account creation flow, webinar, video sales letter, or something else. Each type of funnel has different steps and content to match your objectives.
Step 3: Create your click-through page
First, design a compelling click-through page with a clear call to action. Remember, the goal of your click-through page is simple and straightforward—persuade visitors to click the primary call to action and start the funnel. Keep the page clear and focused to avoid distractions.
Image courtesy of Sleep Number
Step 4: Create the middle parts of your funnel
Next, build out the “meat” of your funnel. This step is going to look different depending on the type of landing page funnel you decide to build, but generally speaking you’ll be creating a few different pages for visitors to progress through.
For most funnels, you’ll also be able to build these pages via your landing page builder (if you’re using Unbounce) since you can easily link one page to the next with your calls to action.
Image courtesy of Sleep Number
Step 5: Create your conversion page
Finally, build your final conversion page where you’ll be asking visitors to share their content info or complete a purchase. This is where conversion-centered design principles will be critical. You want to remove as much friction as possible from this page to maximize the percentage of prospects that complete the final stages of your funnel.
Step 6: Connect the dots between your funnel
Before you go live, make sure each page in your funnel flows smoothly to the next. Use links and calls to action to guide your visitors seamlessly through each stage. Make sure the transition between pages feels natural and logical.
And it may seem obvious, but it has to be said—test every single link yourself. Go through the entire funnel in an incognito window to make sure each link works and brings you to the destination it’s meant to.
Step 7: Integrate your funnel with your other marketing tools like CRM and email
Connect your funnel to any other core tools in your sales and marketing tech stack like your CRM and email marketing tools. This integration helps you track leads, automate follow-ups, and maintain engagement with your prospects.
Once again, after your integrations are in place—test everything. Make sure your follow up messages deliver and info for new leads ends up in the destinations it’s supposed to.
Step 8: Double-check that you have the proper analytics tracking in place
Set up analytics to monitor the performance of each page in your funnel. Tracking metrics like conversion rates and bounce rates will help you identify areas for improvement. If you’re using Unbounce, you’ll have built-in analytics around page visitors and conversion rates, and you can integrate your pages with Google Analytics natively.
Step 9: Launch your funnel and drive traffic to your click-through page
Once everything is set up and tested, launch your funnel and start driving traffic to your squeeze page. Use whichever marketing channels you have in place like social media, email, and PPC ads to attract visitors.
One simple way to turn the traffic tap on immediately (without ponying up even more on PPC campaigns) is to launch a popup or sticky bar on your website. For example, you could add a sitewide sticky bar banner that nudges visitors toward your click-through page so that no matter where visitors enter your website, they’re always one click away from your funnel.
Step 10: Consistently A/B test every step of your funnel
With your funnel now live, shift your focus toward constant testing to squeeze the absolute most juice out of the orange as you can.
With multiple pages throughout the funnel, each with dozens of test-worthy elements on the page, there’s no reason not to be running A/B tests 24/7. There’s always more to learn, and more conversions to earn.
Recommended reading: How a three-word A/B test led to triple-digit conversion growth
Landing page funnel best practices
Creating an effective landing page funnel requires following certain best practices to maximize conversions and guide visitors smoothly through the sales process. Here are key practices to keep in mind.
1. Follow the principles of conversion-centered design on your landing pages
Conversion-centered design (CCD) focuses on creating landing pages that drive specific actions and involves using persuasive design techniques and psychological triggers to guide visitors toward those actions. Key principles include creating a clear focus, building a logical structure, maintaining consistency, highlighting benefits, drawing attention, establishing trust, and reducing friction.
Why it’s important:
- Creates focus so visitors know exactly what action to take.
- Builds structure to guide visitors smoothly through the page.
- Reduces friction to make it easier for visitors to convert.
To put it as simply as possible, the fewer links you have on the landing page, the better your conversion rates will be.
2. Set up your analytics and tracking tools from the start
Setting up analytics and tracking tools is essential for monitoring the performance of your landing page funnel. Unbounce’s built-in analytics as well as tools like Google Analytics help you track key metrics such as conversion rates, bounce rates, and user behavior.
What gets measured gets managed, so make sure you have the proper tracking systems in place before you even go live with your landing pages.
Why it’s important:
- Tracks metrics to understand user behavior.
- Identifies weak points to allow for targeted improvements.
- Monitors performance to ensure your funnel is effective.
3. Don’t just press publish and then move on to the next thing
Launching your landing page funnel is just the beginning. It’s crucial to continually optimize and refine your funnel and landing pages based on data and feedback. Regularly test different elements, such as headlines, images, and calls to action, to see what works best.
A/B testing isn’t just a box to check from time to time. The best marketing teams adopt a culture of experimentation. This encourages every single person on the team to constantly be brainstorming, looking for inspiration, and asking questions that could potentially unlock greater and greater conversion rates.
Why it’s important:
- Leads to better performance through ongoing optimization.
- Identifies the most effective elements through regular testing.
- Ensures continuous improvement to keep your funnel effective.
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How to create a high-converting landing page sales funnel with Unbounce
One core theme throughout this entire funnel journey?
Landing pages.
The keys to creating winning funnels are your landing pages throughout. If your initial click-through pages are subpar, nobody will even start the process, let alone finish it. If your mid- and bottom-funnel pages are lackluster, you’ll lose the initial bit of momentum your click-through page helped to create.
With Unbounce, you can build an unlimited number of landing pages, all with an easy to use drag-and-drop builder, to create funnels as long and complex as you need.
Beyond the builder itself, the Unbounce platform will also give you the keys to advanced AI copywriting tools, built-in A/B testing, sitewide sticky bars and popups, and integrations with the most popular marketing tools on the market.
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