How to Make a Sales Funnel with WordPress

Finding leads and converting them into paying customers can be tricky. Without a strong sales funnel, many leads may never convert, which isn’t good for your bottom line. However, setting up a sales funnel can seem daunting.

Fortunately, this process isn’t as difficult as it might first appear. Once you know a little about sales funnels and how to build them, you’ll be able to streamline the process. There are also handy tools and WordPress plugins you can use to more efficiently build your WP funnels. 

In this article, we’ll discuss what a sales funnel is and what you’ll need to create one. We’ll then detail how to set yours up, and introduce some tools you can use. Let’s get started!

What Is a Sales Funnel?

A sales funnel is a map of the steps potential customers complete as they transition from leads into paying customers. Sales funnels start with large numbers of leads, and end with a (hopefully large) fraction of those leads ultimately converting.

There are different types of sales funnels you can use. The most common is the Self-Liquidating Offer (SLO) funnel. It’s set up to pursue three goals: generating leads, making sales revenue, and recouping your costs. ‘Next-offer’ funnels are also common, and generate leads with free conditional offers. Then it encourages them to move up to an entry-level paid offer, and so on.

While sales funnels might seem like a lot of work to set up, they are vital to any eCommerce shop. This strategy helps you map your customers’ journey, and determine what you need to do at each stage. Breaking the process into clear steps can help you market your products more effectively and increase your conversion rate. 

Why Use WordPress Versus Other Services

There are many services that will offer to build your sales funnel for you. This may seem like a good option at first. However, it offers you limited control over your funnel, and might not be easy to integrate with the other tools you’re using.

Instead, your WordPress website is an excellent foundation for your sales funnel. It offers maximum flexibility, and control over every aspect of the process. Using plugins, you can also streamline your funnel pages and utilize marketing automation on key parts.

What Will I Need to Build My Sales Funnel?

Before you start building your sales funnel in WordPress, you’ll need to set up its foundation. Since WordPress is self-hosted software, you’ll want to sign up for a domain and web hosting. You’ll also need to install and configure WordPress itself. 

Next, you can pick out a WordPress theme. It should be lightweight to make sure your landing pages load quickly, as well as easy to manage and customize.

After that, there are a few other basic elements you’ll need. This includes the product or service you want your leads to purchase. You should also develop strong content that draws leads through the funnel towards conversion. 

Building WP Funnels

When using WordPress, you have the ability to create clear and easy-to-use sales funnels. You’ll first need to make sure you have the right plugins and payment gateway, and then create some essential pages. Let’s take a closer look at how this process works.

Install Plugins

To start building your sales funnel, we recommend picking up three different plugins. You’ll want a plugin that adds eCommerce functionality to your website, a page builder, and a dedicated sales funnel-building tool. 

There are a lot of quality options. A few worth starting with include:

• WooCommerce: The most popular eCommerce plugin for WordPress, and a simple easy-to-use solution.
• Elementor: A flexible page builder that can help you design your site without code.
• CartFlows: A free funnel-building plugin with plenty of options.
• Leadpages: A premium funnel-building alternative for larger businesses.

When selecting your plugins, you’ll also want to consider their reviews and update history. You can then install and activate your chosen tools on your website.

Add Payment Gateways

You’ll also need to add payment gateways to your website, which enable customers to make payments online. Your eCommerce plugin will generally do this for you.

For example, the WooCommerce setup wizard walks you through setting up a few payment gateway accounts. This includes both Stripe and PayPal. It’s often best to offer multiple gateways, so customers can select their favorite methods.

Install a Page Builder

If you’ve installed a page builder, you can use it to build key pages quickly and easily. Let’s explore how that works, using Elementor as an example.

Begin Building Your Pages

After activating Elementor, you can create the pages for your sales funnel. In most cases, a solid sales funnel will have (at the least) a landing page, a thank you page, and one or more pop-ups. If you want to create attractive upsell or downsell offers, you can create dedicated sales funnel pages.

Landing Page

To create your landing page, navigate to Pages > Add New. Select Edit With Elementor, which will open the page builder’s editing screen:

To add elements to your landing page, drag them from the left-hand menu and place them on your page.

You can start with a template, or work from scratch. Either way, your landing page needs a unified message, and should target a specific buyer persona. It will also need to include a Call-to-Action (CTA) button and a means of capturing leads. 

One of the most common lead generation tools is an email list opt-in form. To do this, you will need to integrate your email marketing software with Elementor. After building your landing page, click on Publish to make it live.

Thank You Page

The next page to create is your ‘thank you’ page. This simply thanks users for taking a desired action on the landing page.

This page should include a confirmation of what action was completed, such as “Thank You for Downloading!” Then, you can incorporate a second CTA leading people to the next part of your sales funnel:

The easiest way to do this is with a button, which most page builders make it easy to add. In Elementor, you’ll simply drag the Button element from the menu onto your page, and then customize it.

Sales Page

The last part of your funnel is the sales page. This page offers a product related to your initial landing page offer. Ideally, this should be an entry-level product that new customers might be interested in.

This page can be created in the same way as the landing and thank you pages. Make sure to include key information about the product, as well as a clear CTA.

Pop-Up

If your landing page is selling a product directly and not focused on capturing leads, you might want to create a pop-up that prompts visitors to sign up to a mailing list. To create a pop-up in Elementor, navigate to Templates > Popups > Add New:

Create a name for your pop-up, and click on Create Template. Then choose a template or create your pop-up from scratch using the drag-and-drop editor. 

(Optional) Set Up A/B Testing

After creating your pages, you might want to set up A/B testing to optimize your sales funnel. You can create two landing or sales pages that are slightly different, and test to see which one works best.

The data from this testing will help you optimize your pages. There are plenty of plugins that can help you run A/B tests, such as Nelio AB Testing.

(Optional) Set Up Analytics for Your Pages

You may also want to add a detailed analytics solution to your website to track high-converting landing pages. This helps you track the effectiveness of each page, as well as the number of conversions.

Google Analytics is a free and easy tool for managing detailed funnel analytics. After creating a Google Analytics account, navigate to Tag Manager and add a new account for your sales funnel:

Tag Manager generates two codes, and you’ll need to place the first one in the header of your sales funnel. To do this, copy the code and navigate to Appearance > Theme Editor in WordPress.

Select the header.php file, and paste the code after the <head> tag. Then copy the second piece of code, and paste it after the <body> tag. Update the file, and you’ll be able to start tracking data on your site.

Install a Funnel Builder

After creating your pages, you can build your sales funnel. This is best done using a funnel builder plugin such as CartFlow.

Create Funnels

After activating the plugin, navigate to CartFlows > Flows. This is where you’ll start linking your pages to create your funnel:

To get started, click on Add New > Create Your Own. You will need to add a title and edit the steps in the funnel. Your landing page should be first, followed by the thank you page and any sales pages. You can also add new pages to your flow using Add New Step, and drag them to the correct location.

Build Customized Digital Experiences on WP Engine

A sales funnel is a vital part of your marketing toolkit. The good news is that creating your funnel in WordPress is simple with the right plugins and tools.

To get the most out of your sales funnel, however, you’ll also need reliable hosting. WP Engine’s WooCommerce hosting solution offers users an incredible digital experience with high uptime. This leaves you with more time to focus on WordPress development!