The Essential Guide to Upper Funnel Advertising: When and Why to Scale Beyond Conversions
Why Growing into Upper Funnel Advertising is Crucial for Long-Term Success
In today’s highly competitive e-commerce landscape, businesses are constantly looking for ways to drive growth and stay ahead of the competition. For brands advertising on Amazon or similar platforms, the journey often begins with lower-funnel strategies aimed at immediate conversions. Sponsored Product Ads, Sponsored Display Ads, and keyword-targeted campaigns form the foundation of this initial growth phase, delivering strong ROAS (Return on Ad Spend) and measurable results. However, as a brand scales and reaches a saturation point, relying solely on bottom-funnel tactics can limit long-term growth. This is where upper funnel advertising becomes a strategic necessity.
The Advertising Funnel: A Quick Overview
To understand the importance of upper funnel advertising, it’s essential to grasp how the advertising funnel works. The funnel is typically divided into three stages:
Upper Funnel (Awareness): Focuses on increasing brand visibility and reaching new audiences who may not yet be familiar with your products.
Middle Funnel (Consideration): Targets audiences who have shown some interest in your brand or category but haven’t made a purchase.
Lower Funnel (Conversion): Aims to drive immediate actions, such as purchases, by targeting highly intent-driven audiences.
Most brands start their advertising journey in the lower funnel, where results are more immediate and easier to measure. But as brands mature, expanding into the upper funnel is necessary to sustain growth.
Signs It’s Time to Move Up the Funnel
If your brand has been focusing exclusively on lower-funnel campaigns, you might notice diminishing returns over time. Here are a few key indicators that it’s time to incorporate upper funnel strategies:
Stagnant Sales Growth: Despite maintaining or increasing your lower-funnel ad spend, sales growth has plateaued.
Increasing Cost Per Acquisition (CPA): The cost of acquiring new customers through lower-funnel ads is rising, signaling that you may have exhausted your immediate high-intent audience.
Low Brand Recognition: If your brand is heavily reliant on price or promotions to drive conversions, it may indicate weak brand awareness.
Competition Saturation: As more competitors enter your space and bid for the same lower-funnel audience, your ads may struggle to stand out.
Benefits of Upper Funnel Advertising
Expanding into upper funnel advertising isn’t just about brand awareness; it’s about creating a sustainable pipeline of future customers. Here’s how upper funnel advertising can drive long-term growth:
Building Brand Awareness: Upper funnel ads, such as Sponsored Brand Video Ads, Sponsored Display Video, or Amazon DSP awareness campaigns, help introduce your brand to new audiences. By increasing visibility, you ensure that potential customers think of your brand first when they’re ready to purchase.
Creating Demand: While lower-funnel ads capture existing demand, upper funnel advertising helps create new demand. This is especially important in competitive categories where differentiation is key.
Fueling the Middle and Lower Funnel: A strong upper funnel strategy feeds the middle and lower funnel by driving traffic to your storefront or product detail pages. Retargeting these audiences with consideration and conversion-focused ads becomes more effective, lowering your overall CPA over time.
Increasing Customer Lifetime Value (CLV): Customers who are introduced to your brand through upper funnel campaigns are more likely to engage with your brand story, increasing brand loyalty and long-term value.
Upper Funnel Advertising Strategies to Consider
Once you’ve recognized the need to expand into the upper funnel, it’s time to choose the right strategies. Here are some effective upper funnel tactics:
Sponsored Brand and Sponsored Display Video Ads: Video content is highly engaging and can significantly boost brand recall. Use video ads to showcase your brand story, key product benefits, or customer testimonials.
Amazon DSP Awareness Campaigns: Amazon DSP (Demand-Side Platform) allows you to run programmatic ads targeting audiences across Amazon-owned sites, apps, and external websites. DSP campaigns are powerful for building awareness and driving traffic from audiences who fit your ideal customer profile but haven’t yet interacted with your brand.
OTT (Over-the-Top) and Streaming TV Ads: With the rise of connected TV, running Sponsored TV ads on platforms like Amazon Fire TV or Prime Video can help you reach a broader audience in an immersive format.
Influencer and Social Media Campaigns: Partnering with influencers or running upper funnel campaigns on social media platforms like Instagram, TikTok, or YouTube can further expand your reach beyond Amazon.
Measuring the Impact of Upper Funnel Advertising
Unlike lower-funnel campaigns, upper funnel efforts don’t always yield immediate conversions. This can make measuring success challenging. However, there are key metrics you can track to evaluate the effectiveness of upper funnel ads:
Impressions and Reach: Measure how many potential customers were exposed to your brand.
View-Through Rate (VTR): For video campaigns, this indicates how many viewers watched your ad.
Click-Through Rate (CTR): A higher CTR suggests that your ad creative and messaging are resonating with your audience.
Brand Lift Studies: These studies measure changes in brand awareness, perception, and purchase intent before and after a campaign.
Retargeting Performance: Monitor how your middle and lower funnel campaigns perform after launching upper funnel ads. An increase in conversions and a decrease in CPA are good signs that your upper funnel strategy is working.
Final Thoughts
Expanding into upper funnel advertising is a critical step for brands looking to sustain long-term growth. While lower-funnel strategies drive short-term results, upper funnel campaigns build the foundation for future success by increasing brand awareness, creating demand, and lowering acquisition costs over time. As your brand matures, a balanced approach across all stages of the funnel will ensure that you continue to scale in a competitive market.
At Anywhere Ads Agency, we specialize in helping brands transition from lower-funnel dominance to full-funnel advertising excellence. Our team of experts can craft tailored upper funnel strategies designed to grow your brand, wherever you are. Ready to take your advertising to the next level? Let’s talk!
