Upper funnel activity takes ten months to pay off

Brands that are still spending in upper funnel after ten months experience greater efficiencies versus those who ceased the activity after three, new research shows.

In Elevating eCommerce: The Unseen Power of Upper Funnel Spending, measurement platform Fospha analysed the impact of mid and upper-funnel activity on brands’ performance over time, paying particular attention to Meta, whose platforms have the biggest proportion of spend in higher-funnel objectives.

Why upper-funnel spending matters

A focus on short-term metrics can distort the true impact of marketing and advertising efforts, which requires visibility over the performance of higher-funnel strategies and channels. 

The analysis indicates that the longevity of upper-funnel spend is a huge driver of how much success a brand ultimately finds with this objective. Prematurely halting spend if results aren’t immediate may be a missed opportunity for future reward. 

Takeaways 

• In the short term, brands spending in Brand/Awareness ads were worse off than competitors who stuck to just Conversion: after 3 months, CAC was up 33% and ROAS had dipped.
• But after ten months, ROAS was 27% stronger for brands that maintained awareness spending than those that stopped after three.
• It also became cheaper to acquire a new customer, with CAC 41% lower.

Key quote

“Patience is key when it comes to spending in upper funnel – while it might seem a long time to wait, the long-term improvements are a compelling pay-off” – Jamie Bolton, VP Growth at Fospha (via LinkedIn). 

Sourced from Fospha