Does "the marketing funnel" exist anymore?

Hi Edward,

We ask ourselves this all the time. We end up using variations of the traditional funnel to speak with clients and curate conversations around content types and themes (who should see what when) to drive audiences towards lead/purchase. But it’s all done with the knowledge of the non-linear reality. Like the cliche in art: once you know the rules, you can break them. Buyer psychology still requires awareness, consideration, etc. The non-linear funnel becomes a measurement question, rather than a productivity/strategy obstacle.

Hi Edward, good question. I should’ve qualified that as it does matter. We are in the B2B space, with occasional B2C campaigns. I agree with your points: when thinking of a micro-journey of an individual (sort of a B2C focus within a B2B campaign) the funnel perspective assists with development and execution and optimization. But measurement -- both in a literal make-sense-of-the-spaghetti and actionable visual reporting strategies -- is where forcing a funnel approach can become an obstacle. We try to have conversations early and often about what does and doesn’t fit within the traditional linear concept, and often have to zoom in to fix dropoffs or such, as you mention. Measurement informing marketing becomes more of a tactical resolution process than a strategic funnel all-in-one rinse-repeat template. 

I think the linear funnel has always been just a simplification of reality or a framework to make it simpler to communicate and, well, frame your marketing strategy approach into the different stages. 
I worked on mapping and analysing the customer journey in an eCommerce platform once. We quickly found that while the linear funnel was useful, multi touch attribution of a particular conversion to the users’ various marketing impressions and website sessions was much more complicated than just a path with dropoff/conversion probabilities between the steps.

Already the fact that the same person might have multiple ‘buying intents’ at the same time that cross over made things much harder. You think a person might be in their most likely final website session where the conversion will happen because all signals point to that but then they see a new fancy TV on the way to the checkout for an air fryer and suddenly they reconsider their life choices, opening up a new funnel that has little to do with the first one.
People are messy so marketing is a whole bunch of spaghetti