What Is Funnel Hacking (And How To Make It Work)

Updated:
September 11, 2024
Created:
December 12, 2022

Funnel hacking involves examining your competitor's marketing strategies and then adapting the same tactics to sell your products. It's one of the best, most efficient ways to get your own business off the ground without putting in all the work in developing your own marketing funnel from the ground up.

You can quickly get your online business up and running by strategically investigating and following your competitor's already successful customer journey flows. Then, after you make your initial sales, you can go back and optimize your funnel.

You can improve your own sales process by examining your competitor's funnel elements, such as their pricing strategies, the design of their landing pages, and the content of their email marketing and ads. By carefully going point by point, you can pick out the shady marketing tactics and keep the good ones.

This blog post will explore everything you need to know about marketing funnel hacking and how it works. So, if you're unfamiliar with marketing funnel hacking, don't worry - we'll go through everything in detail. To start, let's explore the definition of funnel hacking.

What is Funnel Hacking?

Funnel hacking is a business tactic used by online small business owners. They practice funnel hacking when they wish to improve the effectiveness of their sales funnels by looking at their competitors' funnels.

Essentially, funnel hacking is espionage for your sales funnels. First, you analyze what's working well for your competitors and then copy their best practices in building sales funnels to improve your sales funnels. By doing this, you can make your funnel more appealing and user-friendly. In other words, you can apply your sales model and marketing processes to your competitor's sales and marketing strategy.

You should never, however, take anything or any content that belongs to another company. You won't even be using any of their content or logos or wording. Instead, you will simply be entering each level of their funnel and putting it into practice on yours.

Who is Russell Brunson?

The digital marketer who teaches marketing funnel hacking is named "Russell Brunson." He's the co-founder and CEO of the page and funnel-building software ClickFunnels.

Russell Brunson is a marketing nerd who became interested in the field when he was 12 years old. Because of this interest, he is now one of the top digital marketers in the same industry. He has studied digital marketing, tested his ideas through the years, and has now built a prosperous firm.

His earlier failures and disappointments never stopped him from pursuing his ideas, and ClickFunnels is the most prosperous company he has ever founded. He is the one that primarily markets ClickFunnels, and he does the most of it by emphasizing the value of funnels to students in funnel hacks masterclass.

Sales and Marketing Process

Your approach to reaching, interacting with, and converting target prospects into successful customers is your sales and marketing process. The term "sales and marketing process" covers everything from initial early contact to sales funnels and final purchase processes.

What is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a marketing tactic depicting a consumer's purchasing path. Because many potential clients may start at the top of the sales process, the model uses a funnel as an example.

However, only a small percentage of these individuals buy something.

Customers display a deeper commitment to the purchase goal with each level of the funnel they complete. This funnel concept is commonly used by most companies, both online and offline, to direct their B2C marketing initiatives at each stage of the sales funnel.

The four fundamental phases of the sales funnel are:

  • Action
  • Awareness
  • Interest
  • Desire

Marketing Funnel

A marketing funnel outlines the interaction between you and your customers. Marketing funnels show the paths to conversion from the first moments someone hears about your company through the point of purchase and beyond.

A marketing funnel can help you determine what your own business has to do to influence customers at various stages. By analyzing your funnels, you can increase sales, patronage, and brand recognition. But, of course, the best method for generating dependable sales is to build profitable funnels.

Marketing Funnel Vs. Sales Funnel

In reality, marketing and sales operations go through the same funnel, with marketing personnel working at the top and sales representatives at the bottom. Let's examine the interaction between the marketing and sales funnels in traditional business-to-business (B2B) organizations with an outbound sales force:

First, using advertising and marketing strategies like search engine optimization (SEO) and pay-per-click (PPC) advertising, the marketing team will draw in potential customers (PC). The marketing department will provide a valuable incentive for contact information to encourage prospects to become leads.

An ebook, report, sample, or digital tool that is offered for free is referred to as a "lead magnet." The marketing team has now generated "marketing qualified leads," or MQLs, and verified a person's interest.

The marketing team will transfer control to the sales team by giving them MQLs. The sales team tries to qualify the lead for fit and validate the MQL's interest. The sales team has created a "sales qualified lead," or SQL if there is a suitable fit.

The sales team will then convert SQLs into customers after that. The illustration shows how marketing and sales cooperate to send prospects through the funnel.

Why Is Funnel Hacking Important?

The term funnel hacking is one of the quickest and most effective ways to grow any business. If you can go far into your competitor's sales funnel and then reverse-engineer what they are doing, you can start examining your competitor's practices within your company.

This step could involve everything from email sequences to price points to landing web pages to online store retargeting ads. Split-testing various elements of your sales may produce excellent results. Blind testing, on the other hand, appears to be a time-consuming process.

You can get equivalent results in your company with less work and expenditure by using funnel hacking techniques and fully immersing in your competitors' funnel practices.

While this will take some time, learning what is and isn't working is ten times faster than coming up with new ideas. Your number of customers will increase dramatically if you use a smart strategy.

Benefits of Funnel Hacking

One of the most important and valuable talents in marketing is funnel hacking. Your competitors have conducted several split analyses. Additionally, they have recognized and enhanced their models. You can use their split-test results. Then, apply it to your existing funnel as well.

  • This helps you save a lot of time when conducting split tests.
  • You can better grasp your specialty by researching your competitors.
  • You can increase your earnings more quickly.
  • You can learn more about their tactics by researching your rivals.
  • With optimization, you make significant financial savings. Since you are aware of the effective and ineffective methods. You can spend money on something other than ineffective parts of your business.

Drawbacks of Funnel Hacking

There aren't any disadvantages to funnel hacking as long as you stay faithful to your audience and keep providing fresh, unique content. However, You might get a harsh awakening if you cease the funnel-hacking journey and start funnel copying.

If you model a funnel too precisely without adjusting it to your brand, you risk missing the mark for your target demographic.

Emulating flourishing businesses is vital because a proven funnel only sometimes signifies a successful business.

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What is ClickFunnels?

ClickFunnels is a marketing and advertising funnel software that assists companies in increasing conversion rates. It's a full-service online sales and marketing solution that covers everything you need to manage your business from beginning to end.

You can construct beautiful, high-converting sales funnels using ClickFunnels to help close more deals and generate more cash.

Furthermore, ClickFunnels has many strong features that allow you to easily create your sales funnels, measure your progress, and improve your results. So it's no surprise that ClickFunnels is among the most important promotional tools.

ClickFunnels also integrates with DeadlineFunnel for ease of use.

Funnel Hacking Tools

You must direct visitors to a page and convert that traffic if you want to construct successful funnels. For example, a procedure for turning that traffic into customers can be built using the "customer journey," yet the journey only requires a small number of pages. However, the following are some of the resources your competitors are using to attract and convert more visitors:

Ghostery

Ghostery is one of the best Chrome extensions for this purpose. With the aid of Ghostery, you can learn more about the different pixels and trackers used on websites. For instance, you can determine whether or not a website is using Facebook pixels to determine whether or not it is running Facebook advertising.

Of course, the program allows users to remain "hidden" from these trackers and pixels, but it's also useful for discovering which trackers are used on the website.

SEMrush

Marketers can learn more about rivals by using the SEO tool SEMrush. For example, you may use the tool to look into information such as how much organic traffic your rivals receive and the search terms they are ranked for. SEMrush also estimates their backlink sources, paid advertising budgets, and other factors.

BuiltWith technology profiler

This is another Chrome add-on that enables you to see the technologies used to create the website you're visiting. It is a "site profiler" application that details every technology it discovers on a specific web page, including programming languages, advertising pixels, statistics, and more.

Thus, for example, you can check if a website uses WordPress, Google Analytics, AdSense, and other monetization methods.

Guide to Funnel Hacking

Identify Your Goal and Target Market

Having a clear vision is essential before using any funnel hacks. Understanding who you are aiming for or the amount of your target revenue is required for this initial phase. Create your target segments and ensure they are as exact as possible.

Many businesses have failed because they missed this stage, and because you need a clear idea of who you are serving, this might ruin your funnel.

However, in this phase of funnel hacking, you'll need the essentials of your target market information nailed down into precise metrics, like marital status, age, number of children, income level, occupation, interests, and other specifics. You can achieve funnel excellence if you handle this phase diligently and create your ideal customer profile.

Draw A List Of Your Funnel-Hacking Competition

Before you do anything else, compile a shortlist of your top competitors. Ideally, the ones you think will out-earn you should be where you start funnel hacking. Next, find the largest companies in your industry with the strongest online brand recognition. Keep in mind that we are curious to discover what services or products they are offering and are heavily promoting online.

Make two different lists of your rivals:

Direct Competition

This is when two or more business enterprises compete for the same prospective markets by offering identical products or services. Because they offer the same products to comparable clients, Apple and Microsoft are two examples of direct competitors.

Indirect Competition

A dispute between vendors whose products or services are different from one another but may meet comparable consumer needs is known as indirect competition. The contrast between group exercise courses and one-on-one personal training sessions is a prime example of an indirect competitor.

They compete directly on the problem they address (helping people get in better shape) but also indirectly because they cater to different markets—those who prefer one-on-one training against people who prefer group exercise.

After all, there is a reason why they are successful. These businesses don't necessarily have to compete directly; they could be in related markets. Whatever the case, their funnels must offer helpful ideas that you may utilize in some way.

Buy Their Products

The core of your funnel hacking is browsing through and buying their products. Then, open your wallet and place your funds wherever your study is if you want to understand the secrets of high-performing funnels.

The first step is connecting to the platform's order page for an online product. Next, purchase every version of their cross-sells, upsells, downsells, and anything else you can get your hands on after watching their video sales letter and reading all their sales funnel emails.

Save Their URLs & Screenshot Everything

Start by examining your competitors' funnels, such as their order pages, back-end funnel, downsells, front-end funnel, and upsells. Next, take a screenshot of your competitors' websites, including any advertisements or retargeting advertising you have.

You can also record a video while navigating your competitor's websites to review at a later date. Finally, save the URLs of such landing pages because you never know when you could need them.

Analyze Your Competitors' Traffic Sources

No matter how effective your funnel is, it will be useless if no one visits it. The top-earning funnels are crushing it for two key reasons:

However, there are many great tools you may use to research your competitor's funnels, such as:

SimilarWeb

It is one of the top analytics websites for monitoring competitors' performance on the search engine. The commercial version offers a lot of data on your competitors' websites, including keyword analysis, referrals, traffic volume, and many more.

Facebook Ad Library

It encourages marketing openness by offering a comprehensive index of all current advertising displayed across Facebook products. But, of course, you're welcome to browse the library whether or not you have a Facebook account.

Powerful Ad Spy

It is unsurpassed when it comes to spying on competitors' funnels.

SpyFu

Using SpyFu to search any opponent and gather keyword suggestions is a great idea. It will examine your rivals' PPC and SEO tactics and avoid mistakes.

Analyze their retargeting advertising and landing pages

It is a funnel hack that works well across various industries. One of your rivals may use retargeting on Facebook etc. If you encounter one of these ads, take a screenshot of both the advertisement and landing page. The offer and action may be broken down in it.

Also, this offer could come in the form of bonuses for previous tasks you completed, such as a funnel hacking secrets webinar, your own email sequence, or VSLs. Based on this, you may redesign a comparable landing page for your funnel and obtain suggestions for retargeting designs to show your clients.

Review Their Back-End

Reviewing every back-end email sequence routinely sent from your rivals' sales funnels is required during this stage of funnel hacking. They may automatically send promotional emails if you participate in their email campaigns. You can watch how they approach potential customers using this.

Furthermore, pay attention to how often they email you. Study as much as possible and focus on their sales disclosures. Review their sales text as a funnel hacker, and take note of what is and isn't working so you can improve upon it. This will tell you how they get customers into their sales funnel.

Recreate Your Sales Funnel

If you followed these steps, you ought to have connected the dots by now and be prepared to construct your funnel based on what you discovered about your competitors. Following are five simple steps for creating your funnel:

This work requires a significant amount of labor to do well. Studying your competitors' funnel doesn't mean you'll have a successful business. There is a lot more to managing a business than you may realize.

Things You Must Know For A Successful Funnel Hacking Experience

The demographic

Knowing who uses your competitor's product allows you to target the same market. These are things like:

This may help you gain new perspectives on your audience and uncover individuals you had no idea were part of your target market.

The Offer

You must find the deal made by your rivals because it's possible that it's not the initial purchase. To find out what their next offer is, you must purchase it. When you accept their next offer, what are you given? What is provided if you reject their next offer?

If you want to funnel hack several rivals, this might get pricey. If you have a tight budget, try to funnel-hack your primary rival. You're curious to know things such as:

Their Landing Page

When someone clicks on advertising, they go to a landing page. This is the most crucial page because it has been established that your competition is paying to drive traffic to it.

They have probably also invested a significant amount of money testing the products that are most successful on the market. You need to know if this is a sales or lead page. What do they provide, and how do they hope to keep you in the funnel?

The Traffic Source

There is traffic, so you need to figure out how they get people to visit their site so you can copy what they're doing. Does the company advertise? Where do they run their ads? Use the single ads? Natural traffic? Advertisements on Google? Running Facebook ads?

The Ad Copy

What is the actual sales pitch that is drawing customers in? What are their color choices and image styles? How long is their call to action?

Conclusion: How Funnel Hacking May Improve Your Business

Funnel hacking is one of the most powerful steps businesses can take to grow. By observing what other prosperous businesses are doing, you can discover fresh marketing techniques to aid in the growth of your own company.

Utilize the information, tools, and strategies we've given you to hack into your rivals. Noting that feeling overwhelmed at first is normal, you will progress in your hacking skills and even create high-converting funnels. In addition, our guidelines will help provide you with extra information to help you develop your unique brand and launch it quickly.

FAQs

Is funnel hacking legal?

Funnel hacking is undoubtedly legal. The funnel hacking process looks at rivals to determine what works and doesn't, then models and tests it in your company. While different regulations in each nation forbid some applications, creating a "funnel" to generate leads for marketing reasons has typically been seen as legal. Furthermore, there is no way funnels may be unethical or even unexpected by recipients if landing sites and lead collection forms are used properly and ethically.

Do you need help with your funnel-hacking efforts?

Funnel hacking is a fantastic approach to boost conversions, raise your income, and reduce waste. Funnel hacking is a procedure that modifies current sales funnels to boost earnings. Additionally, funnel hacking manipulates website visitors' psychology to increase conversion rates. Therefore, utilizing features like exit intent, which activates when a user tries to leave your website, is important.

Anthony Xiques

Anthony Xiques is a Product Manager at Deadline Funnel with a knack for blending technology and business strategy. He shows teams how to drive innovation and efficiency through a proven, results-driven approach. He’s passionate about developing systems, mentoring future tech leaders, and exploring the latest industry trends (but not all at once)

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