Marketing funnel for a small business

The measurement advice follows Google Analytics Help: Mark events as key events, Recommended events and Enhanced measurement events. The stage names, the leak list and the example business are ours; the business is made up.

The five stages

Marketing books use many names (awareness, interest, desire, action, and so on). For a small business we find five plain stages easier to work with:

• Find: someone with a need hears of you for the first time, through a search, a map listing, an ad, a post or a friend.
• Consider: they look closer. They read your service page, check prices, look at photos and reviews, and compare you with one or two others.
• Contact: they call, send a form, book online or walk in. For most service businesses this is the step the website exists for.
• Buy: the enquiry becomes a paid job or an order. This often happens off the website, on the phone or in person.
• Return and refer: they come back, leave a review and tell others. This stage feeds the top of the funnel again, which is why some people draw it as a loop.

Content and channels for each stage

Each stage answers a different question, so each needs different content. This is our view of what usually fits:

• Find: a complete Google Business Profile for local searches, service pages that match what people type, helpful articles, social posts and, if the budget allows, search or social ads. The question here is "Who can help me with this?"
• Consider: clear service pages with a value proposition at the top, prices or price ranges where you can give them, photos of real work, reviews, and answers to common questions. The question is "Why you?"
• Contact: a phone number that can be tapped on a phone, a short form, online booking if it suits your work, and a clear next step on every page. The question is "How do I reach you, and what happens next?"
• Buy: a fast reply, a clear quote, simple payment. Much of this is service, not marketing, but it decides whether the earlier work pays.
• Return and refer: a thank-you email, a review request, useful reminders (a yearly service, a seasonal offer) and a newsletter. Our email marketing basics guide covers the list and the rules.

When you plan posts and emails, tag each idea with the stage it serves. A content calendar that is all "find" content brings visitors who have nothing to read next; one that is all offers talks only to people who already know you.

What to measure at each stage

In Google Analytics 4 the steps that matter are tracked as events, and the ones that count as results are marked as key events. Google describes key events as a way to "measure actions that are important to your business and evaluate the marketing channels that lead users to take those actions." A standard property can mark up to 30 events as key events, so pick the few that match your funnel.

• Find: users and new users by channel (organic search, paid search, social, referral, direct), plus Search Console impressions and Business Profile views. These are counts of reach, not key events.
• Consider: views of service and pricing pages, and engagement on them. Enhanced measurement collects page views and scrolls with "No code changes are required."
• Contact: this is where key events start. Google's recommended event for a lead is generate_lead, sent when a user "submits a form or a request for information". Enhanced measurement can also send form_start and form_submit; Google notes "You can use these two events to see how many users started to fill out a form and compare the information to users who submitted the form." Count tapped phone numbers and bookings too.
• Buy: online shops send purchase, which GA4 marks as a key event by default. For sales that close offline, Google lists lead events such as qualify_lead and close_convert_lead (when a lead "became a converted lead (a customer)"), recommended "when you want to measure the full lead generation funnel for online and offline activity." If that is more than you need, a simple sheet of enquiries and which became jobs works.
• Return and refer: returning users, email clicks, new reviews, and customers who say a friend sent them. Ask "How did you hear about us?" on the form or the phone. A customer feedback survey can ask the same question after the job.

To see how many people move from one step to the next in GA4, build a funnel exploration; our GA4 funnel exploration guide walks through the report. To turn the numbers into money, see marketing ROI.

Where small businesses leak

This list is our view from working on small business sites, not a study. These are the gaps we see most often:

• All effort at the top. Money goes into ads or posts while the service page they land on is thin, slow or vague. More visitors to a weak page means more people leaving.
• No clear next step. A page ends without a button, the phone number is an image, or the form asks for ten fields.
• Slow replies. An enquiry sits for a day and the customer has already booked someone else. This is a leak no website change fixes.
• Nothing measured past the form. The business knows how many forms came in but not how many became jobs, so it cannot tell a good channel from a busy one.
• No follow-up after the sale. No review request, no reminder, no email. The cheapest customers, the ones you already have, are left alone.

Fix the leak closest to the money first. A better reply time or a clearer contact step usually helps sooner than more traffic at the top.

A short example

A made-up window-cleaning business in a mid-sized town:

• Find: people search "window cleaner near me" and see its Business Profile with photos and reviews; a few see a local social post.
• Consider: they open the residential service page, which shows a price range by house size and a short list of what is included.
• Contact: they tap the phone number or send a three-field form. The form sends generate_lead, marked as a key event.
• Buy: the owner replies the same day with a quote and a date, and notes in a sheet which enquiries became jobs.
• Return and refer: after the first clean, a thank-you email asks for a review and offers a reminder every three months.

Looking at a month of data, the owner sees plenty of form starts but far fewer submissions. Cutting the form from six fields to three is the first change to try, before spending more on posts.

Frequently asked questions

What are the stages of a marketing funnel?

In plain words: find, consider, contact, buy, and return or refer. Other models use other names, but they describe the same path from first hearing of you to buying again.

Is a sales funnel the same as a marketing funnel?

They overlap. The marketing funnel usually starts earlier, when someone first finds you; the sales funnel usually starts at the enquiry. A small business can plan both in one funnel.

Which GA4 events should a small business mark as key events?

The ones that mean a real lead or sale: a form submission (for example generate_lead), a booking, a tapped phone number, and purchase for an online shop. Page views and scrolls help you read the consider stage but are not results.

Want help fixing the weakest step in your funnel, from service pages to tracking? See our services.