Glossary
Sales Funnel
The path a visitor moves through from first contact to purchase, usually a series of pages designed to lead to a sale.
A sales funnel is the path a visitor travels from the first time they meet your offer to the moment they buy, and often beyond. It is called a funnel because a lot of people enter at the top and only some reach the bottom.
Traffic
down to
Landing page
down to
Email capture
down to
Follow-up
down to
Offer
down to
Sale
Each stage narrows. Not everyone who sees an ad clicks, not everyone who clicks opts in, and not everyone who opts in buys. A working funnel simply reduces how many people fall away at each step.
Funnels are a normal, legitimate way to organize a business. The same structure can be used honestly, by matching a real offer to people who want it, or manipulatively, by using fake scarcity and pressure to push people who should not buy. The tool is neutral; the choices made inside it are not.
Where funnels earn their reputation is the back end. After the first sale, many funnels present an upsell or two, which is where a lot of the profit actually comes from.
To see how the stages connect and where the money is really made, read how sales funnels work.