A marketing funnel is a model that splits a prospect's journey into stages, from first noticing a need to sending an enquiry or buying, and measures how many people move from one stage to the next. When the funnel starts on Google, you can tell the stages apart by the words people type: across 24 Italian searches we analysed on 28 October 2026, the median cost per click rose from $2.40 for discovery questions ("what is", "how does it work") to $8.66 for searches with a city or the word "quote".
You probably know the theory already.
The pages Google shows for "marketing funnel" in the UK repeat it: awareness, consideration, conversion, sometimes loyalty, and a drawing of a funnel. On 28 October 2026 the top results were glossaries and guides from Sprout Social, Semrush, Amazon Ads, Salesforce, Mailchimp and Coursera.
Few of them show how to recognise a stage in a search, and none walks you through building the funnel in Google Analytics 4. Semrush comes closest, mapping informational, commercial and transactional intent to the three stages.
When a company shows us its funnel, we usually find the same three problems:
- a template copied from an e-commerce course, with coupons and email sequences, applied to a firm that gets twenty quote requests a month;
- a bottom of the funnel full of conversions that aren't people, because tracking counts clicks and page views;
- the budget piled at the top, on informational questions, where Google's AI Overview now answers first.
Two public cases show what we mean.
Macropix makes LED walls and screens. Google Ads has brought it 2,906 quote requests since 2018, and the cost per request fell from €94.37 in 2024 to €39.44 in 2025.
Sunscape looks for land for solar farms in Italy. Between March and August 2026 its organic impressions grew from 329 to 5,809 a month, and Google Ads brought 144 enquiries from January to August.
So what does that have to do with funnels?
In both cases the gain didn't come from a longer funnel. It came from deciding which search belongs to which stage, and what counts as a result at the bottom. Here's what follows:
- what a marketing funnel is, and why Google's 2020 research made it less linear;
- the three stages on 24 Italian results pages: AI Overviews, map packs, video and cost per click;
- which channel and which page belong to each stage;
- how to build the funnel in GA4, step by step;
- what changes when an AI assistant answers first.
What is a marketing funnel (and why it isn't a straight line)
A marketing funnel is a staged map of the buying journey: many people with a vague need enter at the top, and a few, ready to ask for a quote, are left at the bottom. The usual labels are TOFU (top of the funnel, discovery), MOFU (middle, comparison) and BOFU (bottom, decision).
It has one job: showing you the step where people drop out.
But do people really buy in order, top to bottom?
No. Google measured it.
In 2020 Google's insights team published Decoding Decisions with the research agency The Behavioural Architects: 31,000 UK online shoppers, 31 product categories, 310,000 simulated purchases. The finding has a name, the "messy middle": the part of the journey where people loop between exploring and evaluating until they choose.
One figure gives the idea. In the SUV simulation, 30% of shoppers switched away from their first choice when a second brand was shown to them.
So should you bin the funnel? No. Read it as a list of questions, not as a ladder. Each stage matches a type of search, and the same person can ask the third before the first.
One note on scope: this guide stops where the enquiry reaches the business. What happens next, the negotiation, is the sales funnel and the sales team's job.
Marketing funnel stages on Google (a test on 24 Italian searches)
On Google, the stage is written in the search itself: "what is" and "how does it work" are discovery, "prices" and "cost" are comparison, a city or "quote" is decision. It's search intent applied to the funnel.
To see what really changes between stages, we picked 8 categories from the Italian market (LED walls, solar panels, accountants, windows, websites, SEO, steel fabrication, plastic moulding) and one Italian search per stage for each. That's 24 mobile results pages on Google Italy, read with DataForSEO on 28 October 2026, plus Google Ads volume and cost-per-click estimates.
| Stage | Example search (Italian) | Pages with an AI Overview | Pages with a map pack | Pages with a video carousel | Median CPC | Monthly searches (sum) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Discovery (TOFU) | cos'è un ledwall (what is an LED wall) | 8 of 8 | 0 of 8 | 6 of 8 | $2.40 | 1,260 |
| Comparison (MOFU) | serramenti pvc prezzi (PVC window prices) | 4 of 8 | 0 of 8 | 1 of 8 | $2.42 | 2,830 |
| Decision (BOFU) | serramenti torino (windows Turin) | 8 of 8 | 7 of 8 | 0 of 8 | $8.66 | 3,940 |
Read row by row, the table says three things.
A decision click costs 3.6 times a discovery click. The median CPC goes from $2.40 to $8.66. The top-of-page high bid reaches $36.24 for "agenzia seo milano" (SEO agency Milan) and $27.29 for "realizzazione siti web milano" (web design Milan).
At the bottom, Google shows the map. Seven decision pages out of eight had a map pack. The only one without was "preventivo impianto fotovoltaico" (solar panel quote): also the only one without a city.
At the top, the click is most contested. Discovery questions had an AI Overview 8 times out of 8 and a video carousel 6 times out of 8. Four price searches out of eight had no AI Overview at all, so the first organic result stays in view. For "ledwall prezzi" that was Amazon.
And the UK? We didn't repeat the test there, so don't read these shares as British. For context, Google Ads puts "marketing funnel" itself at 3,600 searches a month in the UK, with a $12.94 CPC (DataForSEO, 28 October 2026).
Which channel for each stage (SEO, Google Ads and the right page)
In a search-led funnel, discovery is covered by SEO guides, comparison by pricing pages, case studies and comparisons, and decision by Google Ads, a Google Business Profile and one page per service and area. Each stage also has its own number to watch:
- Discovery: a guide that answers in its first two sentences. The aim is to be read or cited, not to sell. Measure impressions and clicks in Search Console.
- Comparison: published prices, tables, case studies with numbers. If the cycle is long, a lead magnet fits here. Measure visits to service pages.
- Decision: ads on product plus city or "quote", a dedicated landing page, a tap-to-call number. Measure real enquiries, not clicks.
For the decision stage, Macropix is the clearest case.
Its campaigns are split into four product groups (LED walls, LED screens, totems, giant screens), each with its own ads, landing page and report. Together with cleaning up conversions, that's what took the cost per request from €94.37 to €39.44.
Then there's the ceiling, which no funnel guide mentions. In spring 2026 the Macropix budget rose to €2,000 a month and the cost per request rose with it. We took it back to €1,200: decision searches are finite, and pushing past them only buys worse clicks. The full bill is in our guide to Google Ads cost.
Sunscape shows the middle. Its customer is a landowner searching for things like "vendo terreno per fotovoltaico" (selling land for solar): small searches, split by region. Pages built per region and around two intents, selling and leasing, took organic clicks from 46 to 195 a month between March and August 2026. How SEO and ads share the same searches is in SEO and PPC.
How to measure a marketing funnel in GA4 (and the 1,487 "conversions")
In Google Analytics 4 you build a funnel under Explore, with the Funnel exploration template: up to 10 steps, each defined by an event or a dimension, never by a metric (official GA4 help). A funnel can be open, where users can enter at any step, or closed, where they must enter at the first.
For a search funnel, use an open one: it's the messy middle turned into a setting. Someone arriving from "windows Turin" enters at step three.
The template we start from for a business that collects enquiries:
- a session from search: session start with default channel group "Organic Search" or "Paid Search";
- a service or product page: page_view filtered on the page path;
- form started: form_start, if form interactions are switched on in enhanced measurement;
- enquiry sent: generate_lead, fired only when the form really goes through, for example with Google Tag Manager;
- qualified enquiry: outside GA4, in the CRM or a sheet shared with sales.
Switch on "Show elapsed time": GA4 shows the average time between steps. In B2B it tells you how many days pass between first visit and enquiry.
Sounds like a technical detail?
In 2024 the Sunscape Google Ads account recorded 1,487 "conversions" in a month at €0.61 each. They were technical events, not people. From May to November 2025 it had the opposite problem: €1,500 a month spent and zero conversions tracked.
In December 2025 we redefined conversions so that only real enquiries count. From January to August 2026 there were 144, at €107 each. A higher, uglier number, but a true one.
The rule we take from it: if conversions outnumber clicks, the bottom of your funnel is broken, and automated bidding learns from the wrong signal. Before you look at your conversion rate, check that every enquiry actually reaches someone: the one-hour test is in why your website isn't generating leads.
Does your funnel count real enquiries or technical events?
You've just seen an account with 1,487 "conversions" that weren't people. That's where we start: we check what your GA4 measures, which searches bring enquiries and where contacts stall, then decide what goes to SEO and what to Google Ads.
Book a strategy callB2B and e-commerce funnels (why small numbers change the rules)
In e-commerce the bottom of the funnel counts tens or hundreds of sales a month; in a B2B firm, a few dozen enquiries. With 2,906 requests since 2018, Macropix averages around thirty a month: at that scale, one fake conversion a day doubles the signal.
Who's in the funnel changes too. In B2B, the person searching on Google often isn't the person who signs: engineering compares specs, purchasing compares prices, management decides. The comparison stage has to answer all of them, and you define who they are with an ideal customer profile.
And when nobody searches for what you sell? Then the funnel doesn't start with search. It starts with people you can target by role and industry, with LinkedIn Ads, and search follows once your name is known. The order to switch channels on, with timings from both cases, is in our guide to B2B marketing strategies.
Marketing funnels and AI answers (what happens at the top)
At the top of the funnel, the first answer is often no longer a website: Google showed an AI Overview on 8 of our 8 discovery searches. According to Google Search Central, there are no extra requirements to appear as a source: the page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet.
Our sample has a concrete example. In the AI Overview for "cos'è un ledwall", one of the seven sources cited was macropix.it. That isn't a guaranteed placement: it's a page that answers a discovery question clearly, so it gets used as a source.
The traffic is still small, but visible: Sunscape logged 50 sessions from AI assistants between June and August 2026. How to isolate them is in ChatGPT traffic in GA4, and how to measure your presence in answers is in our guide to AI visibility.
For the funnel, one thing changes: the guide at the top no longer just has to win clicks, it has to be the source of the answer. A definition in the first two sentences, dated data, a table. That's the work we do in GEO.
Marketing funnel FAQs
It depends where you cut it: the marketing funnel runs from discovery to enquiry, the sales funnel starts at that enquiry and ends at the contract. Many guides use the two names as synonyms; in B2B it pays to keep them apart, because different people run them.
It depends on the model, but the basic three are discovery (TOFU), comparison (MOFU) and decision (BOFU). Many add loyalty after the purchase. On Google you can spot them by the words: "what is", "prices", a city or "quote".
No. Google's Decoding Decisions study (2020, 31,000 UK shoppers) shows that people don't move in a straight line but loop between exploring and evaluating. The funnel is still useful as a map of questions and as a way to measure.
No. For a search funnel, Search Console, Google Analytics 4 with funnel exploration and correct enquiry tracking are enough. Dedicated tools help when you have a long email sequence to automate.
It depends on the stage: with Google Ads on decision searches, enquiries come in the first weeks; with SEO it takes months. For Sunscape, organic clicks went from 46 to 195 a month between March and August 2026.
In short (and where to start)
A funnel is a list of questions, not a ladder.
Discovery: AI Overview 8 times out of 8.
Decision: CPC 3.6 times higher and a map 7 times out of 8.
In GA4: an open funnel, real events, up to 10 steps.
One last thing the guides on page one don't say: you draw a funnel from the bottom up. First decide what a real enquiry is, then the page that collects it, then the search that leads there, and only at the end the guide that answers at the top. Start at the top and you write articles for people who will never reach the form. If you want to build it with us, start with lead generation.
Speak soon!
