The marketing funnel is one of the most widely taught concepts in digital marketing. It describes a person’s path from first discovering a brand to buying, then to loyalty. Applied to advertising, it prevents the most common mistake: showing the same ad to everyone, at every moment.
The three levels of the funnel
Courses speak of top, middle and bottom of the funnel (TOFU, MOFU, BOFU). You will find these stages under different names; only the words change.
| Level | Customer’s question | Intent | Example |
|---|---|---|---|
| Top: awareness | “Does this brand exist?” | Low | Introduction video |
| Middle: consideration | “Is it right for me?” | Medium | Comparison, testimonial |
| Bottom: conversion | “Am I ready to buy?” | High | Limited offer, cart reminder |
After the purchase, a fourth level (retention, advocacy) often completes the model.
Level 1: awareness
Goal: become known to an audience that does not know you.
- Campaign objectives: awareness, video views, traffic.
- Audiences: broad, by interests, or lookalike audiences.
- Creatives: short, useful or entertaining content; the product need not be front and center.
- Metrics: CPM, reach, view rate, cost per view.
Pitfall: judging these campaigns on sales. They prepare what follows; they do not replace it.
Level 2: consideration
Goal: convince those who showed interest.
- Objectives: traffic, engagement, leads.
- Audiences: people who watched a significant share of a video, visited the site, or engaged with the Page.
- Creatives: proof, demonstrations, reviews, comparisons, answers to objections.
- Metrics: CTR, CPC, cost per lead, pages per visit.
This is where the pixel becomes essential for building audiences. See Create a pixel.
Level 3: conversion
Goal: trigger the action.
- Objectives: sales, qualified leads.
- Audiences: abandoned carts, product page visitors, contacts.
- Creatives: clear offer, honest urgency, reassurance (shipping, returns, guarantee).
- Metrics: CPA, ROAS, conversion rate.
See Create retargeting audiences.
Linking objectives, audiences and metrics
The typical error is mixing levels: targeting a cold audience with a sales objective, then concluding that “advertising does not work.” Here is a consistency grid.
| Level | Meta objective | Audience | Key metric |
|---|---|---|---|
| Awareness | Awareness / Traffic | Broad, interests | CPM, reach |
| Consideration | Traffic / Engagement / Leads | Visitors, viewers | CTR, cost per lead |
| Conversion | Sales | Carts, contacts | CPA, ROAS |
To choose the objective, see Choose the campaign objective. To read the numbers, see Digital advertising formulas.
Splitting the budget across levels
There is no universal split. A few reference points for reasoning:
- an unknown brand invests more in awareness, having no warm audience;
- an already known brand can concentrate budget on conversion;
- a warm audience is small: putting a large budget on it saturates it quickly;
- the cost per result generally rises the further you are from the purchase… but so does the value of a result.
Example of reasoning. Total budget: $600. A new online shop might test a 60 / 25 / 15% split (awareness / consideration / conversion), then correct it according to results: if the retargeting audience is saturated (high frequency), reduce it; if cost per sale is too high at conversion, check whether awareness is feeding the warm audience enough.
Beyond the model: its limits
The real journey is rarely linear: someone can buy after a single ad, or hesitate for weeks. On TikTok, one video can play all three roles at once. The funnel remains a reasoning tool, not a law. A good student can use it and discuss its limits.
The same reasoning on TikTok
The levels are identical; the formats change: vertical video, a hook in the first seconds, sound. See Getting started with TikTok Ads and TikTok or Meta: how to choose.
Frequently asked questions
What are TOFU, MOFU and BOFU? They are the three levels of the funnel: top, middle and bottom of the funnel, meaning awareness, consideration and conversion.
Do I need one campaign per level? It is the clearest practice: each campaign has its own objective, audience and metric.
Can a small budget use a funnel? Yes, in simplified form: one awareness campaign and one retargeting campaign are often enough.
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