Understanding the Buying Funnel

Before diving into all the various ways to research, group, and choose keywords, let’s take a step back and examine how people buy products or services.

There are five stages to the buying funnel (Figure 2.1):

• Awareness
• Interest
• Learn
• Shop
• Buy

Understanding where a keyword falls in the buying cycle can help signal where a consumer is within the buying process. That way, you can ensure that your ad and landing page match the consumer’s shopping phase.

Although the buying funnel often refers to actual physical product sales, the same principles apply to business-to-business (B2B), service, retail, and other industries.

Note: The buying funnel is a subset of the broader known buying cycle. The entire buying cycle has two additional phases known as retention and advocacy. While customer loyalty and lifetime visitor values are important considerations for your entire marketing program, they can be distracting when we initially discuss keywords. Hence, we will work only with the initial aspect of the buying cycle, the sales funnel, during our exploration of keywords and revisit the full buying cycle in later chapters.

The shopping cycle is illustrated as a funnel because many searchers will enter the beginning of your product’s buying funnel. However, as consumers learn more information about your product as compared to others, fewer consumers will transition from one section to the next. One of your jobs as a marketer is to move as many prospects as possible through the funnel so they become customers.

Examining the Buying Funnel Phases

Awareness starts the funnel. If consumers do not know about your products, they can never buy from you. A marketer’s first job is to make sure consumers know that your products exist. If consumers are unaware of your product, they will not realize your product can fix their problem, let alone understand that you offer a way to help them. At this stage of the buying funnel, your job is to shout from the rooftops that your product exists.

When you correlate this part of the buying funnel to keywords, the keywords are very general. Consumers do not yet know enough to do a search for the product’s benefits, features, or part types. These keywords are often high-volume, low-converting words such as TV, plumber, laptop memory, and real estate.

Once a consumer knows that your product exists, your next function is to generate interest for your product or service. At this stage, you want consumers to think about your product and how it will make their lives better. We will discuss features and benefits more in Chapter 4, “Writing Compelling Ads,” when we explore ad copy writing. At this stage of the buying funnel, you want to focus on benefits. Essentially, a benefit is what your product will do for consumers so they desire your product.

After consumers have become aware of and interested in your products, they need to learn more about those products so they have enough information to make informed purchasing decisions. This is known as the learning or information-gathering phase of the buying funnel.

This stage is where consumers start to delve into product specifications and features and begin to compare products. If a searcher were looking to buy a new HDTV, this is where they would start to examine the features and differences associated with plasma vs. LCD vs. LED televisions. Consumers want to know about pixel burnout rates, what the magic mirrors are in LEDs, and what size TV they need for optimal viewing.

If you were an accounting firm, this is where you would showcase that you offer payroll services, are integrated with Intuit QuickBooks, and have a lawyer on staff for incorporation services.

It is in the learning stage where searchers first learn your industry jargon. The searcher’s query is often more specific and commonly includes brand names and service specialties. Showcasing both benefits and features is useful for consumers during this phase.

Using these examples, you could easily put keywords such as Chicago QuickBooks accounting firm, Samsung LED TV, and plasma TV pixel burnout rate into your keyword list.

Once consumers understand enough about the industry or product that they can start looking at product specifications to make informed decisions, they will begin to compare similar products to each other. This is known as the shopping phase.

At this phase, a consumer might have decided they would like a plasma TV because it’s light enough to hang on the wall and, based on how far their couch is from the wall, they want a 52-inch set. However, the consumer might not know if a Sony TV has certain features that a Samsung TV does not have. Therefore, while the consumer has decided on a 52-inch plasma TV, the brand and actual model are still in question. Or the consumer might have determined that they want a Sony, but there are multiple types of Sony plasma TVs, and therefore the consumer needs to compare the various model types.

Keywords at this phase are often quite specific and indicate a certain level of knowledge about the product. Sony Vaio Z series laptop, Sony plasma 52-inch TV, and Chicago accounting services with lawyer on staff are keyword searches that describe consumers in this aspect of the buying funnel.

Finally, a consumer has made up their mind on the actual product they are willing to purchase. At this point, the only question left to answer is where to buy the plasma TV or which accounting service can offer both a lawyer on staff and quick phone support.

These keywords are often product part numbers or company names: Jim’s accounting service or Samsung UN55D6000 55 1080P LED TV. A consumer will examine prices, warranties, shipping costs, service contracts, return policies, and similar items before finally making a decision on where to buy the specific product.

How Do Consumers Flow Through Your Buying Funnel?

The buying funnel is different for every business. It is important to examine your company to determine how people find their information, make their decisions, and finally engage companies within your industry.

There is no time limit to the buying funnel. A used book sale might consist of five minutes from initial query to buying. A B2B $100,000 software integration package may take six months or more.

Some consumers will jump directly into the learn phase or buy phase of the buying funnel. If you are shopping for a new book and you already know an author you like because of a previous book you have read, you do not need to learn more about the author—you just want to see what other books that author has written and maybe take a quick look at customer reviews. If you are tasked with finding both a software package and an integration vendor to move your company’s email to a lower total cost of ownership system, the search may take many twists and turns through many months of discussions and searches.

Note: Jargon can be useful both as keywords and in ad copy. However, always keep in mind whether someone knows enough about your product to use jargon or understand the jargon you are using. If searchers are early in the buying funnel, jargon terms may confuse them because they are still learning about your product. Later in the buying funnel, jargon can be useful as keywords. When someone uses a jargon keyword, you know that they know something about your products or services.

Always keep in mind that every single keyword you choose for your AdWords campaign will fall into at least one phase of the buying funnel. Some keywords may be somewhat ambiguous as to which exact phase of the buying funnel they fall into. In those cases, you may wish to test different landing pages for these keywords to see if the informational page or a product page has a higher return for your company.

It can be a useful exercise to examine your keywords and see in what aspect of the buying funnel you are reaching prospects. If all your keywords fall into the awareness and learn phases but you do not have any in the buy phase, you might help a consumer decide which product to buy but then not capitalize on their search when they are finally buying.

Conversely, if all your keywords fall into the buy phase, you might be generating very few sales. By using keywords further up in the buying funnel, you can generate more awareness and sales for your company.

Of course, having the keyword in your account just means your ad might show for the search result. Both your ad and your landing page need to continue engaging the consumer so that you receive both the click and the conversion associated with that keyword. The first step is making sure you have the proper visibility.