Funnels
Why more steps in your funnel can raise conversions instead of lowering them
Extra steps raise conversions when each one does persuasion work the buyer needs before they can say yes. Cold traffic arrives able to say “maybe,” not “yes.” Rush them to checkout before they agree with the problem and your solution, and they bail right there. Removing shortcuts can lower checkout visits and still raise sales. Steps that persuade nobody are just leaks.
The standard advice is to remove every step you can. Fewer clicks, fewer fields, fewer pages, buy button at the top so nobody has to hunt for it. Every step is a place to lose someone, so cut them all.
Sometimes that’s right. On cold traffic, in a market that’s been burned a few times, it’s often backwards.
I learned this one in my own funnel, and it cost me a few bad days before I figured it out.
The time I added resistance on purpose
When I launched a low-ticket training to cold traffic, sales came in fast at first. That happens early with a fresh campaign (Facebook loves to wine and dine ya early on). Then there was a weird stretch of about three days where I got two sales.
Very odd. Because at the same time, roughly 50% of the people who clicked the ad were making it to the checkout page.
Lots of people would call that a huge win. I knew something was up. The sales page had three big buy buttons at the top, and people were landing, seeing the shiny button, and smashing it like they were playing whack-a-mole. They hadn’t really gone through the page. They didn’t agree with the problem or the solution yet. So they got to checkout and left.
I deleted those top three buttons. Now folks had to watch the video and get through about 40% of the written page before they could even click to checkout.
“Ugh, Andrew! Why would you add such resistance in?”
Because it worked. There was a slight dip in the number of people reaching checkout. But 40% of the ones who did turned into a sale. Within about two hours of the change, sales started picking up again, and I settled into a solid $40 CPA on ice cold traffic in a tough niche.
So I made the path longer, lost some checkout visits, and made more money.
Why fewer steps backfires on cold traffic
The mistake is thinking of a step as a hurdle. On cold traffic, a step is where a belief gets installed.
Someone who comes from an ad doesn’t have enough to say yes. They’re saying maybe. “I’m interested enough to check this out.” They say yes after they’ve agreed with you about what the real problem is, and then agreed with you about the solution. As I put it in a masterclass once, “we have to get them to agree to what the real problem is. Then they can agree to what our solution is.”
When you let them skip straight to the price, you don’t remove the need for that agreement. You just move the decision to the checkout page, which is the worst possible place to have it. There’s no argument there. Just a form and a number.
And the colder and more jaded the traffic, the more this matters. The market I sell to views anyone as guilty before they have the chance to prove their innocence. Proof and explanation are what open the door for them. A funnel that skips them is asking a skeptic to buy on faith.
Count conversions where the money is
Part of why the “fewer steps” advice survives is that it makes one number look great. Click-to-checkout rate went up. Opt-in rate went up. Somebody puts it in a report.
But checkout visits aren’t sales. In my case, the metric everyone would have celebrated (half of clickers reaching checkout) was the symptom. The number that mattered was purchases, and the cost of each one.
It goes further down the funnel too. On an audit for a very skeptical, high-stakes market, I told the owner I was deliberately toning things down to seem more trustworthy, “even if it’s like anti CRO to some degree… even if it lowers like, the conversion rate by one or 2%… Because I think they’ll close more on the back end.” A step that filters and warms people can cost you a little at the top and pay you back later.
So before you judge any step, measure it against the money it touches. If you haven’t done that yet, start by working out which page in your funnel is actually losing the money. It’s often not the one that looks worst.
What a good extra step looks like
Not every step earns its place. There are two kinds, and they behave completely differently.
A persuasion step changes what the visitor believes. The video that explains why what they tried didn’t work. The proof section. The part of the page that names the real problem before it ever mentions your product. People who get through it are more ready to buy than people who didn’t.
A mechanical step just asks for something. A second form. An account they have to create. A page that exists because the software needed one. Nobody believes anything new after it. That kind of step really is pure loss, and the standard advice is right to cut it.
The test I use is one question per step: what does this person believe after this step that they didn’t believe before it? If you can answer that, the step is probably helping. If the answer is “nothing, they just typed their email again,” cut it.
When fewer steps really is better
I’m not arguing everyone should bolt on more pages. There are plenty of times the short path wins.
Warm buyers who already know you and already believe the argument don’t need to be walked through it again. For them, the extra persuasion is just a delay. Same with repeat customers.
The type of market matters too. Every market has its own way of buying. Coaching and info products sell through a presentation, e-commerce mostly sells through demonstration, and local businesses sell through phone calls. If you sell a physical product where one good demo does the persuading, forcing a long info-style sequence in front of it fights how that market buys.
And if a step is slow, broken, or confusing, it’s a leak no matter how good its intentions are. I like simple funnels because there’s less that can break. More steps only help when every one of them works.
What to do this week
Open your sales page on your phone and find the first place a buy button appears. Then write down what a visitor has actually seen before that point. If they can reach checkout before they’ve seen your proof and your explanation of the real problem, test a version where the first button sits after both, and compare purchases and cost per purchase (not checkout visits) over at least a few full days.
Does adding a step to a funnel always lower conversions?
No. A step that only asks for something, like an extra form or account creation, usually costs you people. A step that changes what the buyer believes, like proof or an explanation of the real problem, can raise purchases even while fewer people reach checkout. Judge each step by the sales that follow it.
Should I put a buy button at the top of my sales page?
For warm traffic that already trusts you, it can be fine. For cold traffic in a skeptical market, it often lets people reach checkout before they’re convinced, and they leave there. Try moving the first button below your proof and your explanation of the problem, then compare purchases, not clicks.
Why do lots of people reach my checkout but not buy?
Assuming the checkout itself works, the usual cause is that people arrived before they were sold. They clicked out of curiosity, hit a price with no argument behind it, and bailed. Check what visitors have seen before they can click to checkout, and whether your page asks for the sale too early.
P.S. Watch for a checkout rate that looks too good. When half your clickers are reaching checkout and almost none are buying, that isn’t a strong funnel. It’s a funnel letting people skip the part that sells.
