If you’re new to online sales funnels, how they work, how they make money and need clear examples, you’ve come to the right place. There are at least 10 that I will show in this post.
I’ve been using most of the sales funnels on this list to make money online for many years, particularly in the affiliate marketing world and besides using myself as an example, there are countless other people who use these exact same online sales funnels to run very profitable online businesses, in and outside of the affiliate marketing world.
Here are the 10 examples of online sales funnels that work and make money:
- Funneling traffic to 1 page sites, and then your offer.
- Funneling traffic to webinar presentations, followed by an offer.
- Using Bing Ads to funnel traffic to landing pages, offers or opt in pages.
- Using a regular blog to get traffic and then funneling them to affiliate products.
- Using YouTube Ads to funnel traffic to your video and offer in the description.
- Using Facebook Ads to find and funnel audiences to an online product offer.
- Using Pinterest to funnel people to an offer or your blog to gather followers.
- Funneling traffic to an opt-in page to collect email lists.
- Using an existing email list to funnel subscribers to offers.
- Creating YouTube videos with promotions in the description and funneling viewers there.
In this list of 10 online sales funnels, I’ve used 9 of them, the only exception being webinar funnels and I’ve had some of amazing success with each. If you want to see how much success I’m talking about, see my affiliate income reports page here.
I will be giving you specific examples of how the online sales funnel flows with each of the methods shortly, because despite the above examples being short, they require more context for you to fully understand it, especially if you’re just starting to learn what they are, so you can actually put them to use.
So let me first explain:
- What exactly online sales funnels are.
- Share the most important thing to understand about them so you get success.
- Get into details of each example above so you can have good context and can pick which one works best for you.
What are online sales funnels?
Online sales funnels are simply a way of getting traffic and then directing that traffic to a desired outcome (A to B), which can be 2 things:
- To buy something (most common).
- To opt in to an email list.
The way you direct that traffic to the desired outcome (one of the 2 options above) is the online sales funnel and it can be done in one of the 10 ways mentioned above.
An example of an online sales funnel looks like:
1) Let’s say I get 1,000 visitors to my website (getting the traffic).
2) Then on the website, I link people to an offer that pays me $50 (the sales funnel begins here because I start directing them where to go).
3) Of the 1,000 visitors who came to my site, 500 people clicked on the link to buy the product. In other words, 500 people are now progressing through the sales funnel I set up.
4) Of those 500 people who clicked, 10 people purchased it, so I made 10 sales. In other words, 10 people now continue towards the end of the sales funnel.
5) The 10 sales multiplied by $50 makes me $500. This is where the sales funnel ends.
6) Therefore my online sales funnel made me $500.
And if you need a photo reference, here it is:
The 3 rules to making your online sales funnels work (make you money):
The goal of any sales funnel is to intelligently lead your traffic somewhere where you’ll make money, but before that’s even set up, there’s 3 major rules you’ll want to follow so the odds of the sales funnel making money increases.
Rule #1: Target specific niches, otherwise your sales funnel will “leak”.
If you can find a specific niche you know a lot about, it’ll be a lot easier to steer that niche down a sales funnel that makes you good money and has minimal leaks (meaning too many people are leaving the funnel).
For example:
If I target people who have “athletes foot”, which an issue that affects people’s feet, that is a niche. I can use one of the methods above to find niche audiences who have that problem, and steer them down a sales funnel where I sell an eBook with natural solutions to athletes foot.
Because I target a specific niche audience and let them know “hey I’ve got the solution to your athletes foot”, I can keep them inside the sales funnel and have as many people as possible get to the end of it and buy my eBook so I can make money.
In short, targeting specific niche audiences can help you make more money from your sales funnel. See more niche examples here.
Rule #2: Start with one sales funnel, that matches your experience level.
Despite me showing you 10 examples in this article, you shouldn’t try all 10 if you’re new. Begin with 1 and I recommend using a blog or YouTube channel to drive traffic there (for new people) and then run a sales funnel through those options to make money.
Rule #3: Keep your sales funnel short.
Your goal is to get as many people in your niche through the entire sales funnel. The more people who get through the whole funnel, means more people buy whatever you’re selling and keeping your sales funnel short, but properly directing people to the end will increase those odds.
Detailing each of the 10 examples of online sales funnel:
What I’m going to do now is:
- Use the athlete’s foot niche as my example.
- With this niche, I’m going to be promoting an eBook that again pays me $50 as an affiliate.
- I will show you how I would take that niche and offer and create online sales funnels using the 10 examples above.
1) An example of creating an online sales funnels with 1 page sites:
1) First I’d create a simple 1 page website selling the $50 eBook that helps stop athlete’s foot.
2) Then I’d get traffic to the 1 page website. For this, I’d run pay per click ads and target people who have athletes foot issues.
3) The ad would attract ONLY people who have that issue, which is a specific niche (online sales funnel starts here).
4) I’d get 2,000 visitors to my 1 page site, all of which have the athlete’s foot problem.
5) I’d pitch the eBook to these 2,000 visitors and write a great product review of why it stops athlete’s foot. You can optionally also use something like this product review template to do this.
6) If I write a great review, I can probably get about 500 people to click to buy it (online sales funnel ends here).
7) Of the 500 people, if I can get 50 people to buy, at $50 a pop, I’d make $2,500 from this sales funnel.
2) An example of creating online sales funnels with webinars:
1) First, I’d set up the webinar and in it explain how the $50 eBook I am selling helps stop the problem.
2) Then I’d get traffic to the webinar page through pay per click ads and possibly YouTube videos (online sales funnel starts here).
3) Then if I can get 1,000 people to see the webinar (all of them have the athlete’s foot problem), a get 100 people to buy, I’d make $5,000 from it (online sales funnel ends here).
3) An example of creating online sales funnels with Bing Ads:
1) I’d create a page promoting the $50 eBook.
2) I’d create an ad on Bing Ads to attract only people with the athlete’s foot problem.
3) Let’s say my ad gets 1,000 clicks (sales funnel starts here), so 1,000 people visit my page and because it’s an ad, I spend $100 on it.
4) Then out of the 1,000 visitors, 20 people buy the product (online sales funnel ends here).
5) 20 sales X $50 is $1,000 and since I spent $100 on the ad, my profit from this online sales funnel is $900.
4) An example of creating online sales funnels with blogs:
1) I’d make a blog website that talks about different ways to stop athlete’s foot.
2) This blog would cover creams, natural solutions and as much content as possible.
3) The blog would get 5,000 visitors a month and when they land on the site, I’d push the $50 eBook on solving athlete’s foot on it, no matter which page they land on (online sales funnel starts here).
4) Each month, out of the 5,000 visitors, 100 buy the $50 product, so I would make $5,000 a month (sales funnel ends here).
5) An example of creating online sales funnels with YouTube Ads:
1) I’d make a YouTube video explaining how the $50 product solves athlete’s foot problems.
2) I’d create an ad on YouTube ads and run it to that YouTube video (online sales funnel begins).
3) That video would get 3,000 views in one month and I’d spend $200 on the ad.
4) I would promote the $50 product in the description of that video.
5) If 10 people buy the product, I’d make $500 (online sales funnel ends here).
6) Profit wise, the sales funnel here would make me $300 since I spent $200 on the ad.
6) An example of creating online sales funnels with Facebook Ads:
1) I’d use or make the same landing page promoting the $50 product.
2) I’d go on Facebook Ads and target people most likely to have that problem (demographics).
3) I’d create the ad and whoever clicks on it likely will have that problem (online sales funnel begins).
4) The ad would get 1,000 clicks and I’d spend $50 on it.
5) 1,000 clicks means 1,000 visitors come to my site promoting the $50 product.
6) 20 people buy the product, so the project makes $1,000 in revenue (online sales funnel ends).
7) Because I spent $50 on the Facebook ad, my profit would be $950.
7) An example of creating online sales funnels with Pinterest:
1) I’d make Pinterest Pins with images of people with athlete’s foot.
2) The images would get a combined total of 500 link clicks (online sales funnel starts here).
3) I’d link all my Pinterest Pins to my site promoting the $50 product.
4) Out of the 500 link clicks (visits), I’d get 5 sales. Therefore, I’d make $250 and because it’s regular Pinterest, I’d spend $0 since it’ll all be free traffic.
8) An example of creating online sales funnels to collect email lists:
This example is a little bit different because the main goal is to collect emails of people who have athlete’s foot issues, so that’ll be the end goal of this sales funnel, not to sell the $50 eBook on that subject. So:
1) First, I’d make a landing page (squeeze page since it collects emails) that talks about free tips to stop athlete’s foot naturally.
2) Then I’d use one or more methods (probably pay per click) to get traffic to that squeeze page.
3) The squeeze page would get 700 visitors (online sales funnel starts here).
4) Out of the 700 visitors, 100 people opt in, meaning I collect an email list of 100 people (online sales funnel ends here).
9) An example of creating online sales funnels with an email list (That you already have):
So if example 8 was collecting emails, this example would now continue off that. So with that in mind:
1) I’d take the 100 people I collected the emails from and send out emails with tips on stopping athlete’s foot naturally (start of online sales funnel).
2) Eventually down this email marketing campaign, I’d pitch the $50 eBook to them and say this is the one that’ll solve the problem.
3) If 10 people buy the eBook, my email marketing campaign made $500 (end of sales funnel).
10) An example of how to create online sales funnels with YouTube videos:
1) Just like with the blog, I’d make a YouTube channel, but popular it with tons of videos on the subject of stopping athlete’s foot. I’d make YouTube video reviews on things like creams, products and natural methods to do it and separate that into their own respective videos.
2) In each video, I’d link people directly to buy the $50 eBook.
3) If my YouTube videos have good thumbnails and good content, they can get 10,000 views a month from people (online sales funnel starts here).
4) If out of these 10,000 people, 200 buy the product, I’d make $10,000 a month from this sales funnel (it ends here).
Just so we’re clear, with this example, I am doing YouTube affiliate marketing and I am using this example simply because it is most familiar to me.
With each example, do not neglect the 3 rules!
These online sales funnel examples work not just because I have a good flow in each one, but it’s actually more so because I targeted a good niche topic to start all of this from.
The sales funnel itself is honestly secondary to success. The niche is primary and because I chose a good one, only then was the sales funnels I created around that niche profitable.
More on online sales funnels:
How do I create an online sales funnel?
A simple way to create an online sales funnel is with a YouTube video and promoting a product on it.
Can you make money from sales funnel?
Yes if you know how to properly attract visitors to your sales funnel and lead them through the proper steps, it can make a lot of money.
What is a sales funnel example?
A simple example of a sales funnel is making an ad to teach people about affiliate marketing and steering them onto a page where they get a free eBook on affiliate marketing if they opt in. The goal of this sales funnel is list building.
What is the difference between marketing and sales funnel?
They are very similar. A sales funnel is specifically a series of steps in which you get people to your offer, while marketing is technically more of how you set up the sales funnel.
Note: There are many ways to create online sales funnels.
The examples I gave you here were very basic but no matter which option you choose, this subject is one that does require skills and practice and if you’re interested in getting started, I would honestly do this through affiliate marketing and get the proper affiliate marketing coaching to do it.
Basically, I help people learn this stuff through a program called Wealthy Affiliate which helps you create affiliate businesses that apply one or more of these sales funnel and help you make a passive income in the process.
I hope this tutorial on sales funnel examples was clear and if you have questions, let me know!