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Magnetic Keys
Performance

Marketing funnel

Also known as: sales funnel · purchase funnel

Definition

A marketing funnel is a model describing the stages a buyer moves through from first awareness to purchase and retention, used to diagnose where prospects are lost.

The funnel is a diagnostic tool, not a description of reality — real buying journeys loop, stall and restart, and in the UAE they frequently move into WhatsApp where no analytics tool follows. Treating the model as literal leads to over-engineered nurture sequences for people who were ready to buy.

Its practical value is in identifying the largest proportional drop-off. Fixing a stage where 80% of prospects leak returns far more than optimising one where 5% do, and that comparison is what the model is for.

More in Performance

Attribution window

An attribution window is the period after an ad interaction during which a resulting conversion is credited to that ad — commonly 1, 7 or 28 days for clicks and 1 day for views.

CAC (Customer Acquisition Cost)

CAC is the total sales and marketing cost required to acquire one new paying customer over a given period, including media spend, agency fees, tooling and salaries.

Cohort analysis

Cohort analysis groups customers by a shared starting characteristic — usually acquisition month — and tracks their behaviour over time, revealing retention and value patterns that blended averages hide.

Consent mode

Consent mode is a mechanism that adjusts how analytics and advertising tags behave based on a user's consent choices, allowing modelled measurement when tracking consent is withheld.

Contribution margin

Contribution margin is revenue minus all variable costs — cost of goods, shipping, payment fees, returns and marketing — showing what each sale actually contributes toward fixed costs and profit.

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of visitors or sessions that complete a defined action — a purchase, form submission or booking — within a measurement period.

All 87 terms
Put it to work

Definitions are free.So is the audit.

Thirty minutes on a call, then a written 5-page plan inside 72 hours showing where this actually applies in your funnel — and what it is worth fixing first.

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