Oh no! Just when you thought it was safe to go back to thinking about your funnel….there’s another one. Well, at least another way of thinking about it. I heard an interesting concept on ‘The Ad Platform’ podcast by eMarketer.
The amazing increase in ad revenue of shopping sites like Walmart and Amazon was being discussed. And the comment was made that it was logical because Amazon, Walmart and other shopping sites that show ads are the ‘very bottom of the Marketing Funnel.’
The Marketing Funnel! I never thought to divorce the Marketing Funnel from the good old regular sales/conversion funnel. But it makes sense, if you think about it. Because there is a very definite funnel behavior driving visitors/customers to your site.
Very, very top of the funnel – Bids – as a company, am I even ‘in the game’
Very top of the funnel – Display, Social Ads – Build brand awareness
Top of the funnel – Deals/PLA
Funnel – Email, Retargeting
Bottom of the funnel – Branded Keywords, Direct Traffic, Bookmarked Traffic
Hmm…maybe it is not a funnel. Maybe it is more like a chute. After all, once you get someone into your Marketing Funnel, they are yours for losing. So don’t.
But wait. There’s more. The very bottom of the Marketing Funnel.

New(ish) – Very bottom of the funnel. Skip the line!
“tap into Walmart’s shopper footprint to get the the right sponsored ad experience, to the right shopper at the right moment.”
Really, really skip the line. Now you don’t have to spend the time and money getting visitors to know you and buy from you. You can “tap into e-commence giants’ shopper footprints.” In the tune of 160,000,000 per week*.
*https://www.linkedin.com/video/live/urn:li:ugcPost:6619995946614865920/