Funnel management is everything you do to a funnel after it goes live: owning it, measuring it, testing changes, retiring old versions and keeping its links and automations in working order. Building takes days. Managing takes the rest of the funnel's life, and it is where most firms lose the value they built. This article sets out a simple operating rhythm for a company running several funnels at once, and shows where each task lives in the levelpartner.ai platform.
What goes wrong without management
Give a firm a year of building funnels and you find the same mess. There are fourteen funnels in Sites, five of them live, two of them pointing at a calendar for someone who has left. A workflow still sends an offer that expired in spring. Nobody knows which page the ads point to. Leads still arrive, but some go nowhere.
Funnel management is the habit that prevents this. It costs an hour or two a week and saves the slow leak of leads through broken paths.
The four jobs of funnel management
Ownership. Every live funnel has one named owner who answers for its results and its upkeep.
Measurement. Each funnel has a number that matters, usually bookings or sales, reviewed weekly.
Testing. Changes are made one at a time, with a note of what changed and when.
Hygiene. Dead funnels are archived, old automations switched off, links checked.
Before you start
- A list of every funnel in Sites, with its status, purpose and the traffic pointing at it.
- A naming convention, such as offer, audience and version.
- A shared change log, which can be a note on the funnel or a simple document.
- Agreement on who owns each live funnel.
How to set it up
- List every funnel in Sites and mark it live, testing or retired.
- Agree a naming rule and record each funnel's owner in your register.
- Go to Sites, open Funnels, click the 3 dots next to a live funnel and select Edit.
- Open the Stats tab and set dates in the timeline drop-down.
- Note views, opt-ins and sales for each step in your change log.
- Select one step and click Create Variation to test a headline.
- Move the Slider to set the traffic split, then Start Split Test.
- Click Apply in the confirmation prompt.
- Go to Sites, then Analytics, to compare all funnels together.
- Book a weekly slot to review the numbers with each owner.
How to run a split test properly
Test one element at a time, starting with the one that matters most: usually the headline or the offer itself. Split traffic evenly and wait until each version has enough visits to show a clear difference, usually a few hundred each. Pick the winner, record it, then test the next element.
Do not test button colours while the offer is still unclear. Small changes produce small differences that are hard to see. For which step to work on first, see how to build a conversion funnel.
Suppose an audit finds nine funnels, only four of them live, and two of the five dead ones still have workflows sending reminders to old leads. Archiving and renaming would stop those stray messages. Each of the four live funnels would then get an owner and one key number. A three-week headline test on the busiest funnel would show whether a new version books more calls, and the winner would become the default.
Weekly time and what it replaces
Plan 15 minutes per live funnel per week for the review, plus an hour a month for hygiene. A firm with four live funnels spends about two hours a week. It replaces the occasional crisis when someone notices leads are not arriving.
Editing a live page to test an idea. The change is permanent, nobody records it, and next month nobody knows why the numbers moved. Use a split test or a copy of the step.
When not to add more process
If you run one funnel and one person owns it, a change log and a monthly check are enough. The full rhythm is for firms with several funnels and several people editing them. For how the numbers should be laid out, see the guide to the marketing funnel dashboard.
Troubleshooting
Leads are going to someone who has left. The calendar or assignment rule still names them. Update calendar team members and workflow assignment, then reassign open leads.
A retired offer is still being promoted. An old ad or email links to the funnel. Unpublish the page and add a redirect to the current offer.
Split test results swing every day. There is not enough traffic yet. Wait until each version has a few hundred visits before deciding.
The report shows zero for a live funnel. The funnel was duplicated and the report points at the old copy. Update the report to the funnel that is receiving traffic.
Frequently asked questions
How many funnels should a firm run at once?
As many as you can review each week. For most firms of this size that is two to five. If you cannot name the owner and key number of each one, you are running too many.
Should I delete old funnels?
Archive them rather than delete. You may want the copy or structure later. Make sure archived pages are unpublished and any automations tied to them are off.
Who should own a funnel?
The person who answers for the result it produces, usually the marketing lead or the head of the service it sells. Shared ownership means no ownership. For a broader view of which funnels to run, see sales funnel strategy, and for the work of building new pages, see the guide to funnel building.