• Use custom funnels on 29 Next to better control the customer journey and improve conversion rates
• Increase average order value with fully customized checkouts and post-checkout upsells
• Build funnels using your preferred CMS and seamlessly connect them to your 29 Next store

Whether it’s investing in ad optimization or killer TikTok UGC, DTC marketers have a variety of creative methods to attract customers to their website and encourage them to make a purchase. But luring a customer to your site with a great ad is only half the battle - you still have to reel in the sale with an effective conversion strategy. 

That’s where customized conversion funnels can become your greatest asset. 

If you aren’t using funnels (a.k.a. landing pages) as part of your paid media strategy, you might be missing out on the #1 way to improve conversion rates at checkout and increase your average order value (AOV). On 29 Next, you can deploy externally-hosted funnels with totally custom designs, native payment integrations and post-checkout upsells. 

Let’s take a look at why funnels are effective and how you can use them to improve your AOVs. 

What are Funnels and Why are They Effective?

Like we said in the intro, a great ad is the starting point of any paid media campaign. But once a customer clicks to your site, your role as marketer switches from generating interest to closing a sale - especially since you are paying for each click. Rather than send the customer to the storefront, marketers use funnels as a more direct way to convert interest into sales during a customer’s shopping session. 

In DTC ecommerce, funnels are optimized sales paths used to get customers with purchase intent to complete a sale with minimal friction. A typical DTC funnel might look like this:

Whereas a brand’s storefront experience is designed to encourage exploration about the brand and its products, funnels are typically product or offer-specific and are designed purely for conversion. Using funnels simplifies the customer journey by eliminating extra options and steps that may cause friction to completing a purchase.

Since customers entering a funnel are ones demonstrating purchase intent - otherwise they wouldn’t have clicked the ad - it’s critical to capture that intent with attractive offers and in a way that limits the risk of the customer leaving your site. If your landing page is indirect, unclear, or poorly designed, or you present calls to action at the wrong stage, a customer may navigate away. But if you streamline the purchasing process and deliver a shopping experience that feels personal, your customers will reward you with a sale. 

Putting yourself in the customer’s shoes, it’s simple to see why funnels are more effective than an organic storefront shopping experience. They are like a highway to your destination, free of red lights and off ramps that get in the way of completing a purchase. 

Get Higher Conversion Rates with Custom Checkouts

Once a customer is in your funnel, you’ll want to push them through to the checkout with a high-value cart. Your checkout page is the optimal, and perhaps the final, opportunity to convince the customer to add to their order. 

Many of the custom checkouts sellers on 29 Next use include branded images, bundle offers, testimonials, FAQs, and other snippets of marketing content to prevent a last minute opt-out from the customer. Take a look at this comparison between a custom checkout on 29 Next and standard Shopify checkout. 

After switching to 29 Next and using custom funnels, a majority of brands are seeing their conversion rates improve (even double), as well as seeing their AOVs increase at a meaningful clip (more on that below). When you’re running paid media campaigns, especially with today’s high customer acquisition costs, you need to drive a high AOV in order to drive meanigful profit margins. Combining higher conversion rates and higher AOVs compounds growth and can help you scale up faster. 

Boost AOVs with Post-Checkout Upsells

One of the most important steps in a marketing funnel, especially for DTC brands, is an upsell path. Upsells introduce the customer to a new offer, one that is usually complementary to the initial order. They are much like the upsells you get at fast-food restaurants (would you like fries with that?), but with ecommerce, the upsell is as much about the offer as it is about when you present it to the customer. 

At the fast food restaurant, you’re unlikely to walk away from the register if the cashier pushes too hard for an upsell, but online the risk of a customer exiting a sales flow is much greater. A poorly timed upsell offer, often in the form of a webpage introduced between the shopping cart and checkout pages, may frustrate the customer into abandoning the flow altogether. The last thing you want to do is push a customer away when they are so close to the finish line. 

That’s why sellers on 29 Next are using post-checkout upsells in their funnels to boost their AOVs. Offering the upsell after the customer has completed the checkout removes the risk of abandoning the sales flow. It also offers the customer an opportunity to add products they may like at the moment of highest purchase intent – and without entering their payment details again. This is particularly helpful with digital products, such as a warranty or complementary literature. 

‍On 29 Next, additional sales from post-checkout upsells are added as line items to the initial order. This allows the entire order contents to be reflected on the post-order summary page, as well as in a single order confirmation notification.  It’s also helpful for marketers to better analyze the complete customer journey and true order value. Further, 29 Next preserves the marketing attribution values from post-checkout upsells, creating a clearer picture of which marketing channels are most successful. 

Run your Custom Funnels on 29 Next

In the face of rising platform fees, ad costs, and general customer acquisition costs, 29 Next sellers are using custom funnels to scale their businesses profitably. By presenting refined offers and upsells - particularly post-checkout upsells - to capture more revenue from high-intent buyers, they are able to maximize the returns on their paid media campaigns.

The math is simple; higher conversion rates + higher AOVs = greater profits. Together with 29 Next, custom funnels can supercharge your sales and bring you into the golden land of DTC profitability.