Log #023 | Why a funnel is a sh*tty Marketing analogy

Across all marketing, the journey of a customer is always referred to as a funnel. But, why do we call it that? Turns out we’re using a concept from 1898 when E. St. Elmo Lewis created the AIDA model.

The AIDA model made a lot of sense at the time (and still does to a large degree) as it shows the journey of a customer through their relationship with the product:

But back then, for each product, the number of options and competitors were a lot more limited. How many different cars could you purchase back then? How many different toasters and ovens and products could you truly buy?

Also, the complexity of journeys has increased significantly. Let’s take a travel company for example. A company like Booking.com has customers that purchase 1-2x a year. But there are also many different competitors:

The AIDA doesn’t capture that often consumers go from awareness to interest to forgetting about the company back to awareness then jumping immediately to desire and then finally 1-2x a year they take an action.

At Uber, we quickly realized the same thing as traditional funnels failed to capture how our customers actually moved through the journey sometimes skipping stages entirely.

Here’s the actual definition of a funnel:

The definition of a funnel is “a tube or pipe that is wide at the top and narrow at the bottom, used for guiding liquid or powder into a small opening.” You use a funnel to guide something into a smaller container.

“Hmmm that seems reasonable. We want to guide our users through a funnel too”. WRONG.

If a 100 people knew about your product you’d want 100 of them to buy.

You actually don’t want a funnel. You want a cylinder.

Instead, you know that only 5 of the 100 will buy and so you’ve created this inverted pyramid and then said “Hey okay let’s call this a funnel”. Fine, if that helps you sleep at night.