How to Calculate Your Marketing Funnel Metrics & Budget

As your marketing team knows, the customer journey is constantly evolving. It’s complex, dynamic, and tricky to nail down

A marketing funnel gives structure to an otherwise chaotic experience. It helps your marketing team better understand the customer’s mindset while shopping for a solution to their problem. A strong marketing funnel also helps uncover gaps in the customer journey to help you continuously improve your strategy.

In this article, you’ll learn what a strong marketing funnel looks like, how a marketing funnel differs from a sales funnel, and the most important metrics to track to build a smarter, more effective strategy for attracting and converting buyers.

A marketing funnel is a model used to organize the customer journey.

This funnel represents the stages a potential customer moves through as they interact with your brand, starting with awareness and ending with loyalty.

Beyond its use to provide structure to the customer journey, a marketing funnel is also used to track and measure a marketing team’s efforts to attract new business. Campaigns, webinars, blog articles, social media, demos, and other marketing activities all fall into various stages of the funnel.

There is no one-size-fits-all template for a “good” marketing funnel. It all boils down to your organization’s goals and your target buyers.

That’s why it’s crucial that you understand your customer, their needs, and the major hurdles your product or service can help them overcome.

Many organizations turn to a model called the AIDA, meaning:

• Awareness. The buyer is aware they have a problem and knows solutions exist.
• Interest. The buyer begins exploring how different solutions can help.
• Desire. The buyer evaluates your solution against alternatives.
• Action. The buyer makes a decision whether or not to purchase your tool.

Elias St. Elmo Lewis created the AIDA model in the 19th century, which still rings true today. Now, many B2B organizations have adapted the AIDA into three stages: Top of the funnel, middle of the funnel, and bottom of the funnel.

Let’s look at each of these stages in detail.

1. Top of the funnel metrics

The top of the funnel (TOFU) encompasses the awareness stage. This is the moment when your marketing team introduces your brand and provides high-level context around the problems you solve and the value you deliver.

Buyers at this stage might not know about your product or services yet. That’s why TOFU content should focus on education, credibility, and relevance, such as:

• Paid ad placements across your social media or digital media channels.
• Guest appearances on podcasts or webinars within your vertical.
• Educational content that supports SEO and GEO to drive organic traffic to your website.
• Product-focused landing pages that introduce your solution and the challenges it helps solve.

2. Middle of the funnel metrics

The middle of the funnel (MOFU) represents the stage where buyers are actively evaluating solutions.

At this stage, your marketing efforts should build trust and demonstrate why your solution is credible, reliable, and worth consideration.

Some examples of MOFU content include:

• Gated content that speaks directly to your buyer’s pain points and priorities.
• How-to guides with clear, actionable steps.
• Product overviews that provide a practical, high-level view of how your solution works.
• Email nurture campaigns that guide potential buyers through the funnel with educational and product insights.

3. Bottom of the funnel metrics

The bottom of the funnel (BOFU) is the final stage of the buyer journey, and it’s where you ask potential buyers to take action.

Depending on your organization’s strategic goals, that action may be making a purchase or engaging directly with Sales.

The bottom of the funnel is a crucial time to reinforce value, reduce risk, and clearly differentiate your solution. BOFU content includes:

• A live demo with an in-house expert.
• A buyer’s guide that clearly compares your solution to competitors.
• Customer stories that provide real-world proof and outcomes.

At first glance, marketing and sales funnels look similar because both are designed to guide buyers toward conversion.

But there are important differences.

Marketing funnels typically cast a wider net. They start with awareness—introducing your brand to people who don’t know you yet. Sales funnels take qualified interest and turn it into a closed deal.

A sales funnel typically ends when a customer signs a contract at the conversion stage. A marketing funnel, on the other hand, extends further by focusing on retention, loyalty, and turning customers into long-term advocates.

Once you’ve established your funnel strategy, you need to measure its success. That’s where calculating marketing funnel metrics comes into play.

Here are four commonly used metrics and why each is important.

Cost per acquisition (CPA)

Cost per acquisition (CPA) measures how much you spend to turn a prospect into a buyer.

To calculate CPA:

Campaign cost / Acquired customers = Cost per Acquisition

CPA helps you understand how efficiently your budget is driving results. If costs exceed targets, it’s a signal to reassess your strategy.

Customer lifetime value (CLV)

Customer lifetime value (CLV) represents the total revenue a customer generates over their relationship with your business. This metric is especially important for SaaS organizations with subscription-based models.

CLV is tied closely to customer retention, making it particularly important for software-as-a-service (SaaS) companies, which often use a subscription-based model for users to pay at regular intervals.

To calculate CLV:

Average customer lifespan in years x Average annual customer value = Customer Lifetime Value

You can also calculate the individual CLV of a customer and compare it to your established benchmark to gauge whether that customer was ideal for your organization.

Return on ad spend (ROAS)

Return on ad spend (ROAS) shows how much revenue your advertising generates compared to how much you spend. It helps you understand which ad campaigns are driving the most impact.

There are many different ways to calculate ROAS, but here is a simple equation we recommend:

Revenue generated from ads / Cost of ads = Return on Ad Spend

Conversion rate

Conversion rate is the percentage of leads that complete a desired action, like:

• Signing up for a demo
• Clicking an ad
• Contacting Sales
• Signing up for  an email list
• Making a purchase

Be sure to look at conversion rates for each of your marketing channels so you can identify what’s working and where to optimize.

To calculate conversion rate:

(Conversions / Total visitors) x 100 = Conversion Rate

You should work to improve your conversion rates on a regular basis because even small increases will help you reach your goals faster.

Measuring marketing funnel metrics manually is a full-time job.

A marketing performance management platform, like Planful for Marketing, automatically calculates these metrics so you can track, monitor, and measure the impact of your marketing efforts.

That way, you can focus on more critical tasks like strategic goal-building and optimizing your campaigns to accelerate growth at your company.

• Marketing funnel metrics reveal performance gaps and help teams understand where buyers stall or convert throughout the journey.
• Consistent measurement improves forecasting accuracy by showing how each stage of the funnel contributes to leads, revenue, and ROI.
• Automated tracking enhances decision-making by enabling marketing teams to make faster optimizations across channels.

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What are the most important marketing funnel metrics to track?

Key marketing funnel metrics include cost per acquisition (CPA), conversion rate, customer lifetime value (CLV), and return on ad spend (ROAS). These metrics show how efficiently leads move through each stage of the funnel and where performance gaps may exist. Tracking them consistently helps teams understand which channels and campaigns drive the most impact.

How do I calculate marketing funnel metrics for my campaigns?

Most marketing funnel metrics use simple equations, such as cost per acquisition (campaign cost ÷ acquired customers) or conversion rate (conversions ÷ total visitors × 100). The key is ensuring the underlying data is accurate and tied to each funnel stage. Once calculated, these metrics help marketers evaluate performance and adjust budgets or tactics accordingly.

How does Planful help automate marketing funnel metrics?

Planful automates the calculation and tracking of marketing funnel metrics so teams no longer have to rely on manual spreadsheets or disconnected systems. With real-time visibility into cost per acquisition, customer lifetime value, conversion rates, and ROI, marketers can optimize campaigns faster and collaborate with finance using a shared source of truth. This improves accuracy and alignment without adding reporting overhead.