A conversion funnel maps the path from stranger to customer. In marketing terms the stages are often awareness, consideration and conversion. In a store's analytics they are concrete steps: a visit, a product view, an add to cart, a checkout started and an order.
Seeing the funnel step by step shows where you lose people. A store with plenty of add to carts but few orders has a checkout or shipping cost problem, not a traffic problem.
- Top of the funnel: reach new people with ads, creators and content, measured with reach, CPM and CTR.
- Middle: persuade with product pages, reviews and retargeting.
- Bottom: remove friction at checkout and win back drop-offs with abandoned cart emails.
- After the sale: bring buyers back with email flows.
Common mistakes: buying more traffic when the leak is lower down, and treating the funnel as a straight line. Real shoppers jump between steps, leave and come back days later, often on another device.
To study how competitors run each stage, see which ads they show new audiences in the Ads Library and which emails they send after a sign-up in the Email Library.