When Maya Angelou said “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better” I know she wasn’t talking about marketing. But, I think with the state of the economy, the buying cycle we live in now feels a bit like that. Even after we make our purchases, we are still researching to make sure we made the right choice, comparing our experience to the reviews we see online to make sure we know better and can instruct our friends to do better with our knowledge. We also want to have an answer when someone asks how that new thing we posted about buying last week turned out. Would we recommend it or should we have gone with the one we saw on the TikTok Shop?
The marketing funnel was once a straightforward concept. Make consumers aware of your brand > get them interested > make them want to buy > and finally keep them loyal so they will buy again. With traditional advertising methods, the focus was on the top of the funnel. Reach as many people as possible with the coveted impression and cash in. But times have changed.
With the metrics, data and targeting we have today, we don’t aim for the top of the funnel with digital marketing. Who wants an impression from a college kid for a minivan? I’d rather have the email of the parents who are interested in buying a minivan. With our tactics today, we can get that for our advertising clients with lead-generation ads. Imagine again that you’re sitting on your couch watching a show on your phone and an ad pops up, you like what you see so you click the link and buy it immediately. You skipped the entire middle of the funnel because your consideration was the time it took for the TikTok review to play through.
There are so many entry points for an advertiser to hit in today’s market that the funnel seems to be obsolete. This development can feel overwhelming to a creative team forced to pick a single campaign goal. Marketing departments now have to combine educating new users about the brand, giving details about the product for consideration, and including a call to action that will entice them to make the purchase immediately before the timeline refreshes and they lose your content to the FYP black hole.
Marketing agencies that thrive don’t just pivot, they evolve. With the ad landscape shifting faster than a TikTok trend, staying ahead means ditching the one-size-fits-all approach and crafting strategies that meet consumers exactly where they are.
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