Sales funnel: fewer steps, each one measured

Sales funnel, conversion funnel: what are we talking about?

“Tunnel de vente” (sales funnel) is searched 1,900 times a month in France, “tunnel de conversion” (conversion funnel) 880 times. Both describe the same idea: a sequence of steps, from discovery to purchase, where some visitors drop off at every stage. It is called a funnel because the number of people shrinks at each step.

A lot of online content presents the funnel as a machine of email sequences, opt-in pages and cascading offers. For most small businesses, the opposite is what pays: a direct, honest path where a buyer who has made up their mind is never held back by a pointless step.

The four stages of a small business funnel

Whether you sell a product or a service, the funnel comes down to four stages. Each has a job and a metric:

1. 1
   Be found: appear on the Google, Bing or Shopping search, or in the AI assistant, where your customer expresses their need. Metric: impressions and clicks per page in Google Search Console.
2. 2
   Understand: a landing page that answers the search in one sentence, with the price or price range and what is included. Metric: share of visitors who go beyond the first page.
3. 3
   Feel reassured: verifiable facts (lead time, returns, legal guarantees, past projects, real reviews), placed close to the button. Metric: add-to-carts or clicks on “request a quote”.
4. 4
   Take action: a one-click payment or a form of three to five fields, plus a tappable phone number. Metric: purchases or enquiries relative to visits.

The funnel of an online shop

For a shop, the classic funnel is: category page or Shopping result, product page, cart, checkout, confirmation. Most people are lost between the cart and the checkout. The reasons shoppers give in Baymard Institute surveys are well known: extra costs (40%), a forced account (18%), a checkout that is too long (17%).

On our own sites, we have cut this funnel down as far as it goes: the buy button leads straight to a hosted payment page, with no account, the email is optional before payment, and the cart only appears on sites where people buy several products. On a site that sells a single product or a single guide, the cart is one step too many.

Example: the funnel of one of our PDF guide sites

On one of our sites that sells practical PDF guides, the whole funnel fits into three screens. The article answers a precise search and, at the right point, offers the guide that goes further. The guide page shows the real table of contents, an excerpt, the price and a line of reassurance under the button. The button opens the payment page; after payment, the guide downloads on the thank-you page and also arrives by email.

What is left out matters just as much: no account, no cart when there is only one product, no email capture pop-up, no permanent promo code. Bundles of several guides are offered on the guide page, not in a step imposed before payment.

The funnel of a service website: from search to quote

For a tradesperson, a practice or an agency, the funnel ends with an enquiry: a quote, a call, a booking. The shortest path starts from a precise search (“électricien mise aux normes tableau Lyon”, electrician for a fuse box upgrade in Lyon), lands on the exact service page, and offers two exits: call right away or send a short request.

The typical leaks: a generic home page instead of one page per service, a ten-field form, a phone number that cannot be tapped on mobile, no indication of when you will call back, no past work shown. Each one can be fixed in a day.

• One page per service and per area you actually cover, with what is included and a price range if you can show one.
• The phone number as a tappable link at the top of the page and at the end of each section.
• A form of three to five fields: name, contact method, the need in one sentence, postcode if useful.
• The response time stated, and kept.
• Proof: photos of jobs, real cases, Google reviews.

What to take out of the funnel

A profitable funnel is built mostly by taking things out. On our sites, these elements were removed because they added a step or a distraction without bringing the buyer closer to the purchase:

• Pop-ups that open on exit or on arrival to capture an email.
• Countdowns and promo codes with no real end date: it is false urgency, and buyers end up seeing through it.
• Menus with more than five items, which scatter attention.
• Intermediate pages between the button and the payment (summary, forced upsell, sign-up).
• Fields asked for before payment when they could be asked for after (personalisation, preferences).

Too wide a choice also slows the decision: in Iyengar and Lepper’s experiments, people bought more when offered a limited choice (6 options rather than 24 or 30). An offer that reads clearly in three options sells better than a catalogue with no hierarchy.

Measure every step

A funnel is run on four numbers: visits, moves to the next step, checkouts or enquiries started, purchases or enquiries sent. Google Analytics 4 provides the recommended ecommerce events (view_item, add_to_cart, begin_checkout, purchase); for a service website, set the form submission and the click on the phone number as conversions.

Review these numbers every month, page by page. The step where you lose the most people is the one to fix first; once it is fixed, the next one shows up.