Do you want to build a high-converting WordPress sales funnel?
A sales funnel lets you create a series of steps that guide your visitors through a journey—from building trust and addressing their needs to taking actions like signing up, downloading a freebie, or buying a product.
By using sales funnels, you can turn your website visitors into paying customers.
In this post, we’ll look at what a sales funnel is, its key elements for high conversion, and the types of funnels you can use.
Furthermore, we’ll walk you through the step-by-step process of setting up a sales funnel in WordPress.
This video tutorial shows exactly how you can set up WordPress sales funnels on your website:
Table of Contents
A WordPress sales funnel is the journey a user takes right from the time they find out about your business to becoming a paying customer by purchasing an item or becoming a lead by signing up for a form.
It’s a multi-step process that takes visitors on a distraction-free, well-planned journey from discovering your brand to purchasing.
The funnel typically consists of various stages designed to attract, engage, nurture, and convert leads. It often uses a combination of plugins, themes, and tools to optimize the user experience.
The exact steps in a sales funnel may vary depending on the goal you’re aiming for. But here are four basic steps it boils down to:
Sales funnels are like fixed roadmaps where each turn is predetermined. They are quite different from global website flow, where the traffic moves anywhere and everywhere.
Plus, a website can be distracting because it promotes several products.
A funnel, on the other hand, is designed to direct traffic through specific steps and provide a guided path for prospects to follow.
Your store/website can continue to serve as a catalog, while your sales funnel in WordPress focuses on getting more traction for your best-selling products.
You can create as many sales funnels as you like for physical goods and digital products that have some traction and social proof and use targeted ads to send traffic.
If you have invested your time and effort in ranking organically on Google, you know how hard it is!
Thanks to competition and an ever-changing algorithm, even quality content struggles to get on the first page.
On the other hand, the competition is raising ad costs, and turning ads into profits is becoming more difficult.
With these competitive forces in place, a thriving business has a system to generate leads, drive conversions, and maximize its order value.
And a sales funnel helps you do that and more!
Sales funnels for WordPress are crucial for WooCommerce businesses because they help optimize the process of turning visitors into paying customers.
Here are some key reasons why you need a sales funnel strategy for your business:
The best part about having your sales funnel run on WordPress is that you don't have to pay high monthly costs to be on a SAAS-based funnel builder.
There are various sales funnel elements.
For instance, your ad grabs their attention, the freebie builds interest, the paid product evokes desire, and the upsells maximize every sale's value.
Let’s check out the different sales funnel components and see how they move people from being interested in your offering to finally buying it.
An opt-in page is key to lead generation. You offer free products (lead magnets) in exchange for the customer’s contact information, especially their email address.
These lead magnets could be free courses, ebooks, guides, templates, cheat sheets, free slots in your webinar, etc.
This would get them excited and, in turn, give you their email addresses.
Now that you’ve aroused their interest, you can develop a series of nurturing emails (like email courses) that deliver value and address their pain points.
You can segment your email list based on the engagements shown by your audience in these emails.
A sales page is like the face of your brand, your money maker. It excites and convinces customers to buy your product.
This page contains all the required information about the offered product. It further helps the site visitors to make an informed decision.
Include the value proposition of your product, such as benefits, testimonials, product images, assurance, videos, etc., to convince prospects. Take a look at this sales page:
You must have a clean and easy-to-scan sales page. A busy landing page will distract customers and make them feel overwhelmed.
So keeping it simple but attractive should be your mantra.
Some would say that after a sales page, it doesn’t really matter how you design the checkout. But that’s not true because a badly designed checkout page may result in cart abandonment.
The checkout page is your final bid to persuade your visitors to pay for the products they’re considering.
Everyone gets anxious before paying. Calming your prospective customers at this point is very crucial.
Take a look at this beautiful checkout page created with FunnelKit - the best WooCommerce checkout manager plugin:
A clean, straightforward page with clear call-to-actions (CTAs) doesn’t cause any confusion and reduces the level of anxiety.
Add a few trust-building components, such as testimonials, value-added benefits, and what they get to the checkout page to win brownie points from your prospects before they pay.
You can customize the form fields and add optimizations, such as an auto-fill address feature like Google address autocomplete or express one-click checkouts.
These elements will surely seal the deal on your checkout page.
Order bumps are add-ons made before checking out and making a payment. They are a way to advertise another relevant product on the checkout page.
It adds value to your existing product and increases the checkout total as well.
You can create rule-based order bumps so that shoppers see the right offer based on the items in their cart, the total in their cart, the product category, etc.
Let the customers choose the variant of the product they wish to get. Or even offer some discount on the order bump offer to make it a more lucrative deal!
After grabbing the initial sale, one-click upsell is the post-purchase offer that boosts your order value.
It’s an offer page that comes after the checkout page and before the order confirmation page. This page offers your users relevant products that they can accept or reject with a single click, making the overall process quite convenient.
You can offer relevant product recommendations based on the user's order total, item bought, category of purchase, first order, and more.
What's more? You can also have a series of upsell and downsell offers. This way, customers are shown the next offer in the sequence based on whether they have accepted or rejected the previous offer.
Offering related products to the bought item is a clear-cut way to sell more and earn more on the same order.
The thank you page is the final opportunity to interact with your customer regarding this transaction. Here, you confirm their purchase and thank them for shopping with you.
If it's a digital product, you either deliver it on this page or give them step-by-step instructions for accessing it.
But, in the case of a physical product, tell the customer of the expected delivery date, and provide them with any other information.
Investing time in designing professional and polished pages will be very rewarding in the long run.
Emails are a component that can be included in every stage of a WordPress sales funnel and yield remarkable conversions.
Send emails at the awareness stage to introduce your brand to potential buyers and create awareness about your products and services.
At the interest stage, you can send targeted emails that address the user's pain points and showcase how your products can solve their problems.
Once the user has evaluated their options and decided whether to make a purchase, you can send emails that list features, pricing, and special promotions.
Use WooCommerce email marketing automation to deliver relevant content that keeps them engaged with your brand even after the purchase. This is especially important to maintain long-term value.
If users abandon their carts, you can set up cart recovery campaigns to bring them back and recover lost costs.
In this section, we'll answer all your questions about 'How do I create a sales funnel in WordPress?'
To build your sales funnels in WordPress, we’ll use the FunnelKit Funnel Builder.
The Funnel Builder from FunnelKit is a powerful sales funnel builder plugin that lets you design high-converting funnels for your business.
You can create opt-in pages, landing pages, custom checkouts, order bumps, upsells and downsells, and thank you pages.
You get free premium templates that can be imported and customized quite easily to meet your needs.
Setting up a WordPress sales funnel with FunnelKit is easy, and it's available in both free (lite) and premium versions.
Check out our detailed guide to install and activate the FunnelKit Funnel Builder.
Once that’s done, follow the steps mentioned below to make your very own sales funnel in 6 simple steps.
Go to FunnelKit ⇨ Funnels from the WordPress dashboard.
Create a WordPress sales funnel by clicking on the 'Create New Funnel' button.
You'll be directed to the templates page.
Select the WordPress sales funnel templates and choose your favorite page builder. After that, you can either choose to start from scratch or customize a pre-built template:
FunnelKit also integrates with and provides pre-built templates for popular page builders, such as Elementor, Bricks Builder, Divi, Oxygen, and Gutenberg.
But if your preferred builder is not on the list, click on ‘Other’ to design funnel pages with any page builder using shortcodes.
Click on the template you'd like to import.
Next, you'll be able to preview the template. This template contains 4 pages:
Click on 'Import This Funnel' and name your new funnel - 'WordPress Sales Funnel for Haircare Products'.
Click' Done' to add your sales funnel to your WordPress workspace.
Now that your funnel and selected template have been imported. You can even add more pages to your default funnel by clicking on ‘Add New Step’ at the bottom of the funnel builder page.
Next, customize the pages on your WordPress sales funnel.
Click on the name of your landing page to start customizing it.
Next, hit the ‘Edit Elementor Template’ button to customize your landing page design template.
All you need to do is, click on each page of the funnel and customize the content within.
You can change the design and layout of a funnel page in Elementor (that’s the page builder we selected at the start).
Start by putting your brand’s logo, content, background, images, CTA buttons, and more.
Once you’re happy with your design, hit 'Update' to save your changes.
Similarly, edit the checkout page design of your WordPress sales funnel. You can build global checkouts, one-page checkouts, WooCommerce order forms, multi-step checkouts, Shopify-style checkouts, and more.
Next, go to the Products tab and click on the ‘Add Product’ button.
Search and add the product you wish to design the checkout page for.
Important Note: Ensure that the products you wish to add to the checkout page are already created in WooCommerce.
If you want to offer a discount on your primary product, adjust the product quantity and set the discount percentage.
Click on 'Save' when you’re done.
You can even add more than one product to your checkout page. Just use the drag & drop feature to decide the order in which they are showcased.
FunnelKit lets you optimize your checkout page for effective conversions.
You can customize the fields on your checkout form as per your needs by going to the Design tab and scrolling down to Checkout Form Fields.
Its built-in checkout form field editor lets you add, edit, rearrange, or delete any field. All this is possible with a simple drag-and-drop—no coding required!
Furthermore, FunnelKit offers several optimizations you can incorporate into your checkout page. These strategies will enhance your overall sales funnel in WordPress.
All you need to do is go to the Optimizations tab and enable the available optimizations.
You can implement express checkout like Google Pay and Apple Pay, auto-fill address completion, multi-step field preview, auto-apply coupon codes, mobile-friendly optimization, and more.
Save the changes when you’re done.
A sales funnel allows you to offer relevant products to your users at different stages of their purchase.
Adding AOV-boosting offers is easily possible with the FunnelKit Funnel Builder.
An order bump shows complementary product offers on the checkout page that can be added to the cart with just one click.
To add an order bump, click on the ‘Add Order Bump’ button.
Name your bump offer, and then click on it to begin editing.
Next, import an order bump skin of your choice.
Now, you must search for and add a product to your bump. This product should complement your main product for better conversions.
You can even set its behavior and configure discounts from the Products tab.
Once you've decided on the product you wish to offer, click on the Design tab to style your Order Bump.
You can change the order bump’s skin, content, and style to make it on-brand.
Save the design, and you're all set.
From the Rules tab, you can even set conditions to define when a particular order bump is applied to a checkout page.
One-click upsells are the post-purchase offers that are presented to your customers after the checkout and before the thank you page.
Like with other pages, click on the name of your one-click upsell page to start customizing it.
Next, add products to the upsell offer from the Products tab.
Choose the product in the search bar. You can also add variable products with variants, such as different colors and sizes.
Modify the quantity and discount details of the added product.
You can add more than one product to an offer and more than one offer to an upsell.
After adding multiple offers, interlink the offers using Dynamic Offer Path.
This allows you to decide which page (a new offer or thank you page) should be showcased next in case your first upsell offer is accepted or rejected.
That's how you can offer a downsell to your shoppers with a WordPress sales funnel.
Under the Design tab, click on edit to customize the page in Elementor, just as you customized the sales and the checkout pages.
There are 10 special widgets in total, which you can use to personalize the upsell offer page with your favorite page builder.
You can also apply rules to these offers to determine when a particular upsell offer is made to a customer and change offer priority, order behavior, and more from settings.
Remember! You can add more than one bump and more than one upsell offer to your sales funnels.
A custom thank you page gives you an incredible opportunity to close the sale on a high note.
FunnelKit Funnel Builder lets you create beautiful order confirmation pages that you can customize as per your business needs.
Editing and customizing your thank you page is the same as you did with the other steps in your WordPress sales funnel.
👉 Refer to our complete guide to set up your thank you page in WooCommerce.
Well done! This is how you can create a high-converting sales funnel in WordPress with FunnelKit.
Sales funnels come in all shapes and forms. There is no one definite way to design a Sales Funnel for your business.
Here we've listed the 5 most converting funnels that you need to know about:
An Optin Funnel consists of an opt-in page and a thank-you page.
On the opt-in page, you offer the users a free lead magnet to help you capture their attention.
They give you their email address, to which you send automated follow-up emails to nurture them into buying your product.
Further, through your pitch emails, you can send them to the sales page to buy the product.
Make sure that the paid offer is a perfect extension of the free offer and builds on it.
We’re sure you’ve seen ads of companies selling free products on Facebook or Instagram.
You don’t realize that it is not entirely free, and they charge you for the shipping.
This is the Free Plus Shipping model. In this model, you offer the customers valued products for free, and they only pay for shipping.
Getting a product that actually costs money for free excites customers enough not to be bothered about the shipping cost.
It is a great method to bring in customers and have them test your products.
Webinars are really popular these days. With the pandemic, everything has shifted online, and seminars are no exception.
As webinars are informative and of great value, it is a very good incentive to attract traffic to your page.
These can be pre-recorded or live. On the signup page, you can inform the prospects of the date and time of the webinar.
If it's a pre-recorded one, provide them with the replay video right after they sign up and hook them.
Your emails will help you build hype in the days leading up to the actual webinar.
You can use FunnelKit to set up this WordPress sales funnel effortlessly.
“Lose weight in 10 Days”, “5-Day Keto Challenge”, “Improve your cooking skills in 15 minutes every day”.
Do these sound familiar?
Challenges are designed to entice interested prospects by promising a fixed result at the end of an activity.
Here, people do not compete against one another but make progress toward a shared goal.
Using challenge funnels to your advantage, you can create a WordPress sales funnel asking people to take up the challenge.
This is an easy yet effective way to gain people’s attention and trust. It makes them feel you’re aligned with their vision.
The self-liquidating funnel is a very popular front-end funnel that generates revenue at the backend funnel.
In this funnel, your main goal is to break even on your ad costs with the initial purchase.
You don’t need to match your product cost or even gain profits from this product. That will all be taken up in the backend funnel.
You just need to sweeten your way into your customers’ good books by first giving them a heavily discounted product. Then engage them with complementary offers after they’ve made the purchase.
But make sure that your small offer benefits your customers, providing them with a quick win.
After the first sale, you can encourage customers to spend more on upsells, downsells, or bundle purchases. This funnel is best suited to relevant products that naturally follow the initial offer.
A self-liquidating funnel is a very efficient sales funnel that generates leads and gains profits from the said leads.
Creating a high-converting WordPress sales funnel requires effective design, optimization, and ongoing management.
Follow these best practices to ensure your sales funnels perform at their peak:
A WordPress sales funnel should guide users through a streamlined journey with minimum distractions.
Keep your landing pages, checkout flows, and email sequences simple and intuitive.
Use clear call-to-action (CTA) at each funnel stage to drive users to the next step.
More than 50% of users access websites via mobile devices, so ensuring your funnel is mobile-friendly is important.
A responsive design, optimized images, and mobile-specific CTAs will improve the user experience across all devices.
Customize your funnel pages using different responsive modes that are available in every page builder.
Test your funnels on different devices to ensure they are easy to navigate on mobile.
People are more likely to convert when they see positive reviews from others who have done the same.
Add customer reviews, testimonials, and user-generated content throughout your funnel to build trust and provide validation.
To increase credibility, you can also display real-time purchase notifications or customer testimonials on your landing pages.
Email marketing is a crucial part of any WordPress sales funnel.
Once visitors enter their email addresses, use automated email sequences to nurture leads, re-engage cart abandoners, and upsell customers.
FunnelKit Automations helps you set up custom automation workflows tailored to user behavior.
You can also personalize your email campaigns based on user actions within the funnel, such as purchase history or browsing behavior.
A/B testing lets you identify which elements of your sales funnels drive better results.
With FunnelKit Funnel Builder, you can test different variations of:
To improve open and click-through rates, you can also use FunnelKit Automations to A/B test different email campaigns, including subject lines, email design, workflow delay times, and other factors.
Go beyond your website and leverage multiple channels to bring traffic into your sales funnel.
Use social media ads, such as Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, or Google Ads, to drive traffic to your funnel’s landing pages.
Set up services like PushEngage to send personalized push notifications, which can boost conversions by reminding users of offers or abandoned carts.
Advanced upsell and cross-sell techniques can significantly increase your average order value (AOV).
Present low-priced, relevant products to your shoppers on the checkout page as order bump offers.
FunnelKit Funnel Builder also lets you set up one-click post-purchase upsells and downsells after the checkout to help boost revenue with every order.
Set up dynamic rules to present the right offer at the right time.
Leverage scarcity and urgency to push visitors to take action.
Use limited-time offers or countdown timers to increase urgency during sales or promotions.
Show low stock notifications when a product is almost out of stock to encourage immediate purchases.
Set up FunnelKit Cart’s threshold-based discount rewards inside your shopping cart to unlock free shipping, discounts, and free gifts.
Tracking the performance of your sales funnels is critical to understanding what’s working and what isn’t.
FunnelKit Funnel Builder integrates with Google Analytics to set up goal tracking and monitor metrics such as conversion rates, bounce rates, and time on page.
Not just that, FunnelKit lets you view detailed step-by-step metrics of each page in your sales funnel.
Analyzing these statistics helps you make data-driven decisions to optimize your funnels.
In this section, our experts have answered some of the most commonly asked questions related to WordPress sales funnels.
1. Does WordPress have sales funnels?
WordPress is a content management system (CMS) primarily designed for building websites, blogs, and online stores.
While WordPress doesn’t include built-in sales funnels, there are many plugins that can help you create and manage sales funnels within your WordPress website.
2. Can you create a sales funnel with WordPress?
Yes, you can create a sales funnel with WordPress. It has many plugins and integration tools that enable you to create highly effective sales funnels directly on your WordPress website.
Find a plugin that offers high-converting and optimized sales funnel templates. Then, customize it according to your business needs.
3. What is the best funnel builder for WordPress?
There are many funnel builder plugins available for WordPress, each with its own set of features.
Our experts recommend you use the FunnelKit Funnel Builder to create WordPress sales funnels.
It has pre-designed sales funnel templates and integrates with drag-and-drop page builders such as Elementor, Bricks Builder, Oxygen, Divi, Gutenberg, and many others.
It offers a wide range of conversion-focused elements and integrations with popular email marketing platforms.
4. Can I sell in WordPress?
Yes, you can sell products and services on your WordPress website.
With the most popular E-Commerce plugin, WooCommerce, you can set up an online store to sell physical products, digital downloads, memberships, and services.
You can then utilize plugins like FunnelKit to design beautiful sales funnels and make sales.
5. How is a sales funnel different from a marketing funnel?
A marketing funnel is a starting point for attracting potential customers by creating awareness and piquing interest in your product.
Once prospects are aware and interested, they transition into the sales funnel.
This stage is about converting interest into action.
That's it! We’ve covered how you can easily create sales funnels in WordPress.
FunnelKit Funnel Builder provides all the features, templates, and pages you need to create a high-converting WordPress sales funnel.
Beyond what we’ve discussed above, you get the contacts activity feature that allows you to view each step of your buyer's journey and how much they spent at each step.
The analytics section helps you monitor the performance of your funnels; more specifically, it shows visits, revenue, and even revenue per visit.
And there’s the performance dashboard where you can see your top-performing pages and funnels at one glance.
You can even A/B test the price, messaging, and product for every offer in your sales funnel, ensuring you’re making data-driven decisions rather than guessing what your prospects might want.
And there’s so much more! Get your hands on FunnelKit, the ultimate funnel builder, and start creating your sales funnels in WordPress today!