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For an e-shop owner, the biggest mistake isn’t necessarily low traffic. It’s often that all of the marketing is treating the visitor as if they’re ready to buy now. The conversion funnel organizes content and campaigns around the user’s actual intent stage, so the e-shop isn’t “shouting buy” to people who are still trying to figure out what they need.
For an e-shop owner, the biggest mistake isn’t necessarily low traffic. Often, all the marketing is treating the visitor as if they’re ready to buy now. In reality, another user is just discovering a need, another is comparing solutions, another is looking for reviews, and another has already added a product to their cart but is hesitant to checkout. That’s where the conversion funnel comes in: it organizes content, campaigns, and messaging around the user’s true intent stage, so that the e-shop isn’t “shouting buy” to people who are still trying to figure out what they need.
The conversion funnel is the model that describes a user’s journey from the first contact with a brand to the final conversion, which in an e-shop can be a purchase, newsletter subscription, account creation, offer request or repurchase. Its logic is not theoretical; it is deeply commercial. If you know what stage the user is in, you can show them the right message, on the right channel, with the right intensity. A visitor searching for “how to choose running shoes” needs educational content, not necessarily a discount. A user searching for “Nike Pegasus 41 price” is much closer to the market and should be quickly guided to a clear product page, social proof and simple checkout.
The TOFU MOFU BOFU approach, as presented in the Semrush guide, divides the funnel into three practical levels: Top of the Funnel, Middle of the Funnel and Bottom of the Funnel. For an e-shop, this structure helps to connect SEO, Google Ads, Meta Ads, email marketing automation, remarketing campaigns and conversion rate optimization into a single system. Instead of randomly producing blog posts, banners and newsletters, you build a flow that moves the user from curiosity to trust and from trust to purchase.
The first crucial fact is that a large portion of buyers do research before making a decision. According to Google/Ipsos, 531% of buyers say they always do research before buying to make sure they’re making the best choice. This means that the awareness stage is not “distant” branding; it’s a point of influence for future sales. As the chart below shows, pre-purchase research should be viewed as a business opportunity, not just an informational search.
The value of the conversion funnel is seen when each stage takes on a different role. TOFU creates demand and brings in new users. MOFU cultivates trust, answers objections and helps with comparison. BOFU reduces friction in the final decision and leads to a sale. For an e-commerce owner, the goal is not to have “a little bit of everything’, but to have content and campaigns that click on a specific search intent, a specific buyer persona and a specific commercial goal.
TOFU content needs to be useful before it becomes commercial. This doesn’t mean it shouldn’t lead to products. It means the commercial connection needs to be natural: internal links to categories, “shop the guide” sections, product selection quizzes, downloadable checklists, and soft calls-to-action to sign up. The right content marketing strategy at this stage doesn’t just chase traffic; it builds brand memory and collects signals of interest that will later fuel lead nurturing and remarketing.
At this stage, trust is more important than pressure. An e-shop can create MOFU assets such as product comparison tables, needs-based guides, calculators, product finders, “best sellers” collections, user-generated content, detailed reviews, and educational newsletters. Email marketing automation is particularly helpful here, because it allows for personalized flows: if a user viewed a category three times but didn’t buy, they can receive a selection guide; if they downloaded a checklist, they can be sequenced with products per use case. MOFU is not just a reminder. It is systematic uncertainty reduction.
Baymard Institute data shows how critical BOFU is. The average documented cart abandonment rate is 70.19%. This doesn’t mean that every abandonment is the e-shop’s “mistake,” because many users are simply doing research or comparison shopping. It does mean that checkout is one of the most expensive friction points in the ecommerce funnel. As the chart below shows, for every 100 carts, about 70 don’t end up in a completed purchase.
Cart abandonment isn’t driven by a single factor. Baymard tracks specific reasons for checkout abandonment, with high additional costs at the top. For an e-commerce store owner, this finding is a practical guide to prioritizing: Before you increase your campaign budget, make sure users aren’t leaving because they discover slow shipping, are forced to create an account, or don’t trust the checkout form.
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The first step is to map the customer journey based on real data, not assumptions. Open GA4, Search Console, CRM, email platform, and ad accounts and record where users are coming from, what pages they visit before buying, where they abandon, and which keywords lead to informational, comparative, or purchase intent. Break down searches into TOFU, MOFU, and BOFU. For example, “how to clean leather shoes” is TOFU, “best leather cleaning products” is MOFU, and “buy leather shoe cleaner” is BOFU. This classification will determine your content, landing pages, and audiences.
The second step is to define a basic buyer persona for each major product category. Not generalities like “woman 25-45”, but practical characteristics: what problem is she trying to solve, what fears do she have before buying, what comparison criteria does she use, what objections do she most often have, which channel does she trust. Then, match each persona with content per stage. In TOFU, you might need a guide, in MOFU a comparison table and in BOFU a guarantee, social proof and direct incentive.
The third step is to create a content map. For each product category, design at least three types of content: an educational article for the awareness stage, a comparison guide for the consideration stage, and an optimized sales page for the decision stage. Connect them with internal links. The TOFU article should lead to a relevant category, the category should lead to a selection guide, and the guide should lead to specific products. This way, SEO does not work in isolation from sales, but feeds an organized sales funnel.
The fourth step is to build remarketing campaigns based on behaviors. Don’t treat all visitors the same. One audience is those who read an article, another is those who viewed a product, another is those who added to cart, and another is those who bought once. For TOFU audiences, use educational creatives and social proof. For MOFU audiences, show comparison, best sellers, reviews, and FAQs. For BOFU audiences, use dynamic remarketing, cart reminders, conditional free shipping, or a limited offer, but without training the audience to always expect a discount.
The fifth step is to optimize the points with the greatest commercial impact. Start with product pages and checkout. Make sure images are clear, titles are descriptive, benefits are obvious, technical specifications are easy to read, reviews are visible, shipping is clear, and product returns are understandable. Add guest checkout, popular payment methods, trust messages, and a clear indication of total cost before the final step. Conversion rate optimization at this level often has a greater return than another increase in media spend.
The sixth step is to measure each stage with different KPIs. In TOFU, track organic traffic, impressions, engagement rate, new users, and signups. In MOFU, see returning users, guide views, product clicks, add-to-wishlist, add-to-cart, and email engagement. In BOFU, measure conversion rate, checkout completion, cart abandonment, revenue per visitor, average order value, and ROAS. A mature conversion funnel isn’t just measured by the last sale, but by whether each stage delivers more “warm” users to the next.
Finally, work iteratively. Every month, choose a product category and audit its funnel: which keywords are driving traffic, what content is missing, which questions are not being answered, which advertising audiences are underperforming, which checkout step is losing users. With this process, the conversion funnel becomes a functional development tool and not just marketing jargon. For e-shops that want steady growth, the biggest opportunity lies in connecting content, data, user experience, and commercial intent into a consistent strategy.
Sources: Semrush: TOFU, MOFU, BOFU: A Practical Guide to the Conversion Funnel | Baymard Institute: Cart Abandonment Rate Statistics | Baymard Institute: Reasons for Abandonments During Checkout | Think with Google / Google-Ipsos: Consumer Shopping Behavior Statistics
