The traditional sales funnel is no longer the reliable path it once was. With consumers bouncing between discovery, engagement, and purchase at lightning speed – and often skipping steps altogether – it’s time for brands to rethink their strategies.
How can brands stay ahead in this new landscape where the funnel has collapsed?
Here are 5 practical ways to keep up with the evolving consumer journey:
1. Break down siloed teams
One of the biggest challenges for brands is siloed teams, where those responsible for top-of-the-funnel activities, like awareness campaigns, and bottom-of-the-funnel activities, like sales, operate separately.
In today’s modern marketing, where the funnel has collapsed, the lines between awareness, consideration, and conversion have blurred. Consumers now jump from discovery to purchase within moments, so the traditional handoff between teams doesn’t work as smoothly as it once did.
Instead of focusing only on awareness or only on conversions, brands need to align teams to create integrated content and ads that work across the entire journey. One strong creative is capable of building brand awareness and facilitating sales transactions.
By fostering collaboration between creative and eCommerce teams, brands can produce cohesive campaigns that serve multiple purposes, ensuring that ads and content are not just creatives, but optimized for conversions.
2. Expand beyond walled gardens
In an era where media consumption is fragmented and consumers move fluidly across channels, brands must look beyond closed ecosystems and invest in open environments.
Walled gardens – like those of major social platforms – can offer scale, but often restrict control, transparency, and access to first-party data. While they remain essential to the mix, overreliance on them can limit long-term growth and flexibility.
Brands should not put all of their eggs in one crowded basket. Instead, they should diversify their spend across other channels where audiences freely move, that is, on the open web. Consumers are savvier than ever, seeking experiences that resonate and encourage authentic engagement. That means expanding into environments with great choice and control, such as streaming services, publisher sites, and out-of-home placements.
It’s not just about reach, it’s about owning more of the customer journey. By tapping into a broader mix of channels, brands can meet consumers wherever they are and engage them at any stage – whether they’re in the discovery phase or ready to purchase. This multi-channel approach ensures that you capture attention and drive action across the full spectrum of consumer touchpoints.
3. Refine your content and creative plan
Content is still king, but not all content is created equal. User-generated content, articles, and branded stories are all part of today’s content ecosystem, but how can your content do double duty? The best content today serves multiple purposes: building awareness and driving transactions.
In our work with Moët & Chandon, we saw the power of this approach firsthand. By integrating interactive and checkout elements into their video campaign, Moët achieved a 109% increase in orders sold compared to their forecast. Additionally, 52.7% of customers who selected a product completed the entire checkout process, proving that this type of shoppable content can guide customers from discovery to purchase within a single experience.
Look for opportunities to refine your content plan so that each piece engages at every stage of the customer journey. Whether it’s a video or article with built-in conversion elements, aim to create content that not only informs and entertains but also encourages action. The goal is to build awareness and nudge customers toward purchase – all within one seamless experience.
4. Leverage first party data to personalize content and experiences
In today’s fragmented customer journey, relevance is everything. Consumers expect personalized experiences from brands that recognize their preferences and offer tailored recommendations.
With increasing privacy regulations and third-party cookie deprecation, brands are facing significant signal loss in advertising, which makes it harder to track consumers and deliver targeted messages. This is where first-party data – collected directly from your own platforms – becomes invaluable. It offers a more reliable way to understand your audience and deliver personalized experiences based on current consumer behavior, preferences, and actions.
Whether it’s personalized product recommendations, dynamic ads, or targeted offers, first-party data helps brands stay responsive and in tune with customer needs. By mitigating the impact of signal loss, brands can still reach customers with the right message at the right time, driving conversions and keeping consumers engaged throughout their journey.
5. Embed shoppable content everywhere
Shoppable content is no longer a “nice to have” – it’s essential. As consumers become more accustomed to making purchases wherever they are, brands need to ensure that every touchpoint is a buying opportunity. From social commerce to native ads and even editorial content, everything should be clickable and shoppable.
Embedding shoppable campaigns across all channels – and keeping them always on – ensures that you can capture consumers at their moment of intent, whenever they’re ready to buy. Whether the consumer is scrolling through a feed or watching a video, the opportunity to buy should be just a click away.
Shoppable technology, like Vudoo, makes this possible by turning native ads, videos, and even article posts into interactive commerce moments. By embedding commerce directly into content, brands can engage consumers where they are and drive conversions when interest peaks, making every interaction a potential point of sale. As Wayne Gretzky famously said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don't take.”
The collapse of the funnel is a signal that the old ways of marketing no longer work. To stay ahead, brands must adapt by breaking down silos, expanding their presence across multiple channels, refining content strategies, personalizing messaging with first-party data, and embedding shoppable experiences at every touchpoint.
Fortunately, brands don’t have to do this alone – there are advanced technologies and partners, such as Vudoo, that can help navigate this shift. By leveraging the right tools and expertise, brands can stay agile, consumer-centric, and well-equipped to thrive in the evolving digital commerce landscape.