What makes someone go through the entire customer journey and purchase your product? Let’s break it down, together.

If this is your first time reading the New Edition Newsletter, I’m Brandon Blum, Founder and Managing Partner at New Edition. We are a boutique creative agency based in New York City that helps seven and low eight figure eCommerce brands create content.

This past week, a client called me in full panic mode. Their top-of-funnel was crushing it—CTRs through the roof, CPMs looking great, traffic flowing nicely to their site. But here's the kicker: their conversion rate was sitting at just over 1%. And that wasn't even sales conversions—that was email signups. Oof.

I've worked in digital marketing for over ten years. I’ve seen this problem before. It’s called the leaky funnel. 

The marketing funnel is, on its surface, very basic. It's very easy to understand.

However, peel back a few layers of the onion and - boom - it becomes complicated, frustrating, disorienting. Solving it requires a surgical approach.

In this week's newsletter, we go back to Marketing 101 and take a look at the concept of the marketing funnel. Because, odds are, you have leaks and we need to plug them fast, before Q4.

Disclaimer: this is not an exhaustive list. The goal here, again, is to break down your marketing funnel so you can clear the space to make tweaks, changes and reprioritizations.

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Back to the basics: A quick look at your marketing funnel

1. Top of funnel (Awareness)

Key Insight: Top-of-funnel success requires targeting specific demographics across multiple channels while obsessively tracking what actually pulls people into the later stages of your funnel.

Paid Ads

Video & Static. EVERY ad should be created directly for at least one of your target customer demographics. Need to develop a target audience strategy? 

• Respond directly to this email with “need help with target audience strategy” and we’ll help create one for you (for free).

Influencer Seeding

Send affordable monthly product units through talent agencies, Instagram DMs, and TikTok Shop.

VERY important to track performance here, whether with a tool like Archive or manually via a tool like Notion. 

• Respond directly to this email and I’ll send you a screenshot of a manually built Influencer Seeding Database that we build for clients.

Press

A good press piece can go a long way.

I would try to bootstrap this as much as possible, or bring on an advisor or consultant to teach you how to prepare materials for press and get set up on affiliate platforms.

Search

Set your brand up on Google Analytics 4 and Google Search Console. See what people are searching and the pages they are landing on.

Build lead gen mechanisms into these pages, to capture their info before they leave.

Word of Mouth

This will always be the best advertising. Brand evangelists are one of your greatest, most cost-efficient assets.

2. Middle of funnel (Consideration)

Key Insight: Middle-of-funnel marketing builds trust through consistent presence, social proof, and community—not aggressive selling or constant promotional messaging.

Organic Content (long & short-form)

Brands often want organic content to drive revenue, but that's extremely difficult to achieve.

Instead, use the "look alive" approach: ensure your organic socials are active, on-brand, and value-based when people discover your brand through your top-of-funnel channels.

• Let’s chat - FOR FREE - about your social strategy. I’m serious. Grab a time that works for you here.

Retargeting ads 

These well-timed reminders can drive significant revenue that doesn't show up in attribution data.

Target previous website/social visitors across Google and Meta networks. Create simple "brand" campaigns featuring your logo and tagline, reminding viewers of your value proposition.

Think of these as ads people don't click on but see, then add "look into [your brand]" to their mental or actual to-do list.

Influencer Collaborations

Collab posts on IG are not only a great organic growth lever, they are great top-of-middle funnel content.

This content puts valuable social proof on your feed. The right creators WILL drive follows, email subscribers, and occasionally conversions. This requires budget, but can lead to a ton of learnings.

• Here is a list of UGC and Creator Platforms to look into.

Events

Every brand needs an IRL events strategy right now. I cannot stress this enough. Not only is it a content secret weapon, it’s the absolute BEST way to build community around your brand.

Pop-ups, shop-in-shops, etc., this tactic is a full-funnel marketing strategy in itself.

Email/SMS

I view Email/SMS primarily as retention and loyalty tools. I don’t like working on brands that pummel subscribers with five emails a day.

Instead, set up basic email and SMS flows with targeted messaging—they'll move prospects down the funnel and drive conversions. 

Check out Sendlane if you’re looking for to begin building out effective Email/SMS flows. Respond directly to this email and I’ll connect you to their team.

👇 HERE’S MY FREE OFFER TO YOU 👇

3. Bottom of Funnel (Conversion)

Key Insight: Bottom-funnel conversion requires removing every possible barrier while providing compelling incentives and social proof at the decision moment.

Offer Testing

About a month ago, I received a Lime & Lou Instagram ad and moved through their funnel in about four minutes.

How? They offered the perfect gift with purchase. Test different offers to see what converts.

The right offer incentivizes fence-sitters without discounting your brand.

Friction Reduction (Easy Checkout, Free Shipping)

I always recommend a strategic free shipping threshold - rule of thumb: make it 10% above your site’s AOV.

Make sure you’re offering as many payment methods as possible. Make your return policy prominent on the page and easy to understand.  

Product Imagery/Video

There’s a lot going on in this space right now with AI. Regardless, whether you use AI tools or hire a photo team, having quality product imagery and video on your PDPs is a non-negotiable.

Optimized Landing Page(s)

Landing pages are crucial. Why spend money driving traffic to messy pages? I took this from Nik Sharma, but I couldn’t agree more. Every landing page must answer: What's being sold? What will it do for me? Is there social proof? When will it arrive?

Looking for a landing page tool? I've used Zipify in the past but there's a new kid on the block, Refunnel, that I want to try out. Respond to this email with “landing page help” and I’ll connect you to both of their teams.

Reviews/Virtual Try-Ons

Still important for social proof and product education. Especially for categories like apparel, where fit is so personal. 

For reviews, I recommend Yotpo. If you’re building an apparel brand, check out TrueToForm.

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Your marketing funnel is bleeding money at every stage—and Q4 is too important to ignore it.

The three nonnegotiables: targeted top-funnel ads that pull people in, trust-building middle-funnel content that keeps them engaged, and frictionless bottom-funnel experiences that convert.

Which leak will you fix first? What did I miss? Shoot me an email ([email protected]) and let me know!

See you next time ✌️