Welcome to yet another blog by your favourite digital marketing expert.
Jokes apart, expert or not, every digital marketer is aware of the digital marketing funnel and they use this in all their digital marketing strategies. Let us understand the basics of the digital marketing funnel. The name funnel symbolizes that from the target audience only few end up buying a product (Financieras, 2021).
Let us imagine a sieve with holes in it. The large number of customers who enter the funnel are the potential customers/visitors who might visit a sales website. These customers get filtered through the sieve and make their way to the bottom of the pile, the ones who bind themselves to the website and order again and again. I know you are thinking about the die hard and faithful Apple customers but its more than that.
Different stages are as follows: Reference: Visser, Sikkenga, B., & Berry, M. (2022). Digital marketing fundamentals : from strategy to ROI (2nd edition.). Noordhoff.
Reference (of image) : Visser, M. (2021). The Digital Marketing funnel [Photograph]. ResearchGate. https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-Digital-Marketing-funnel_fig4_350278011DMF
A little confused? Your guru is here for help!
Let us look at 2 ecommerce giants in the United States as an example. We will compare them against each of the digital funnel stages and see how they rank.
Which scores better – Amazon or QVC – MEASURED AGAINT SUCCESS FACTORS OF DIGITAL MARKETING FUNNEL??
Strategy:
Before we dive into the comparison, I think we should discuss bit the basics of ecommerce as we are comparing between two ecommerce websites. A website could be called an ecommerce website if customers can buy and sell products and process payments as well.
Now, let me be a mock customer for you so that I can explain this better. I will try to buy a couch from these websites and evaluate on the basis of different stages of the funnel. I will grade these 2 ecommerce websites against success factors of DMF based on experience I had from customer perspective while shopping for a new couch for my new place.
This is what the search page looks like when I searched for sofa.
AMAZON
QVC
1st comparison from the funnel – VISIT
Amazon – 8/10
Pros: I have lot of options to make the search lot easier in the very beginning of my search for the sofa for instance choosing brands, price range, deals colour, measurements , material, shape, condition of sofa, sofa room type and most importantly the availability option. After the selecting the budget option, I still had lot of options to make a choice and the description of each sofa was
Cons: Instead of giving these categories related to sofa on one side of the website if they were on the top it would have made the website look less cluttered. Anyways during my search for sofa I was interested only to look for sofas so the other categories options on the top were of no use.
QVC – 6/10
Pros: Although, Amazon has discount as one of the categories while I was shopping for a sofa but It’s not as noticeable or I would say I was more attracted to see the $15 off on first order very clearly in the bold letters on the very top of the page.
Cons: Very few choices for the budget I had.
So, for me the winner is Amazon when it comes to 1st stage – Visit because I have of options/choices as compared to QVC which looks bit boring overall.
2nd comparison from the funnel – CAPTIVATE
| Amazon | QVC |
| Amazon still comes up with decent number of sofa options which are in my budget. | QVC result for number of sofa options after selecting the budget dramatically drops down to just 3 options |
The winner for stage 2 which is Captivate will be Amazon for me as there are still lot of the product I am looking for which is a sofa for my living room to choose from unlike QVC.
3rd comparison from the funnel – DECIDE
AMAZON – 7/10
Pros – With a multitude of options available even after narrowing down my search, I felt I had many options to choose from which gave me a sense of freedom and authority over my choice. The display images of the products are also of superior quality.
Cons – Some products had more than a 1000 reviews which led me to believe that these products might not be authentic and have generated fake reviews.
QVC – 5/10
Pros – The website featured more expensive and the thumbnail images used were of superior quality which instantly captivated me to decide among the more expensive products.
Cons – The advertisement or option for easy payment below each product led me to believe that the website is trying to oversell by providing easy payment options. Although, this might be beneficial for some customers but generally, this seemed like a over-the-top marketing trying to push customers to buy instantly which made me feel restricted towards deciding to buy from this website.
4th comparison from the funnel – ORDER
Amazon 9/10
Pros – Buy and add to cart buttons are readily available for customers to make a quick decision. Furthermore, “Only 2 left in stock” is used to create urgency and does not seem cheeky to the customers. a range of color choices are available. Also, a range of choices are available for the type of delivery and delivery times.
Cons – Trying to persuade customers buying accessories along with the product takes the focus off the actual product
QVC – 2/10
Pros- The simplicity of the product page intrigued me as there is no unwanted information. The product page only showcased information about the product alone without indulging in persuading the customer to buy other addition accessories or items, unlike amazon.
Cons- No options in color choices were available for the product I chose limiting the number of alternatives. The product page is over- simplistic. The product’s photo also seemed digitally altered or created, moves the customer away from the product being real and authentic. Also, after choosing the product I did not see any options for types or times of delivery.
5th comparison from the funnel – PAY
AMAZON – 5/10
Pros – Although no security platform has been mentioned the final payment page looks more secure in general. Before the payment is done, amazon provides you with all the information about the delivery as if you have already paid.
QVC – 1/10
Cons – I did not find a security system or portal that is being used to protect my banking details. 5 out of 10 times I would not continue from paying at this website as the payment system does not seem secure.
1st comparison from the funnel – BIND
AMAZON – 8/10
Overall as the website is seemless and sophisticated, I would return and buy from this website as there are a number of options available in my price range.
QVC – 6/10
I would not prefer binding myself to QVC purchses, however for specialised and unique products I could buy from QVC
Do you think this is a fair assessment? What do you consider while you window shop on ecommerce websites. Feel free to let me know in the comments.
Hold tight for next week’s blog.
Digital Marketing by Navneet 
good content and help me a lot!
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