From Funnel to Demand Gen + Demand Capture

"The funnel" construct causes more problems than it solves. Try Demand Generation and Demand Capture instead. 

Demand Generation: Get people who haven’t engaged with your category or brand to do so. Get them into the “store.”

Demand Capture: Get people already engaged in your category or brand to buy from you. Get them to the check out.

It’s better than funnel stages because:

1. One fewer bucket to debate.

2. It reminds everyone that behavior is the outcome that matters most.

It’s better than “brand and performance” because:

1. Lifecycle, SEO/GEO, site/app upsell/x-sell and others tend to get orphaned as they sit on other teams, which is a huge miss.

2. When “brand” shows up, the bias toward goaling against brand tracker data - an enormous risk - becomes hard to resist. 

3. Inferring that one team should care only about brand and one performance and not vice versa is a poor incentive to good marketing.

I deeply wish these words didn’t matter as much as they do, but teams take them seriously - and literally - as do AIs. They become part of the intellectual operating system of your company - get them right.

The logic used to bucket things into Demand Gen vs. Capture likewise matters. Demand Gen tactics often have slower decay curves in MMM - watch the performance folks try to sneak their stuff into Demand Gen when they see this.

The bucketing turns on audience and the intent (what are we trying to do here?) of the channel/tactic. Tactics obviously sit on a spectrum from clearly one or another to grey areas - use consistent logic and you’ll be fine.

If you’re trying to get people into your store (site, app, location) or category who aren’t yet, it’s Demand Gen. If they’re in the store or category (searching in it), it’s Demand Capture.

- If the audience is in your 1P ecosystem in any way, it's Demand Capture. Even if the demand signal is old. Even if the message is about a new product. All of lifecycle (yes, even reactivation), all retargeting, all site/app triggers - Demand Capture.

- Anything you call “brand” is usually Demand Generation. An event that happens to capture leads or even sales (popups) is Demand Gen if the core intent is reaching new people. On the other hand, CTV/OTT retargeting is Demand Capture.

- If the audience has signaled behavioral intent (search), it's Demand Capture. Even if you're bidding on terms in a category new to your brand. The audience has told you they’re in the category.

- SEO/GEO: By the logic used for SEM, they’re Demand Capture. Their job is to get you seen by people shopping your category. But, these items are often traffic optimized and unpaid, so I bucket them as Demand Generation.

Dropping the funnel does NOT mean dropping brand. The opposite. Demand Generation IS the job of brand. Without it, the best possible future for your company is a profitable, shrinking entity.

You're not killing brand thinking. You're freeing it from the KPI trap that strangles it.