Last updated on June 25th, 2025 at 03:48 am
The idea of sales funnel leakage is frustrating.
The last thing you want is for your sales funnel to be losing traffic, sales, and leads… all because it’s not optimized as well as it should be.
That’s what we’re going to help you fix.
Because at ClickFunnels, sales funnels are sorta our thing 😉
We’ll explain the basics of sales funnel leakage. And then we’ll dive into six steps for identifying and fixing leaks in your sales funnel.
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Understanding the Basics of Sales Funnel Leakage
Sales funnel leakage refers to the loss of leads, traffic, or sales that occur within the sales funnel.
To be extra clear, when we say “sales funnel”, we’re talking about those page-by-page experiences that are built to convert traffic into leads or leads into paying customers.
Most sales funnels have a landing page, a thank you page, and some upsells, downsells, or pop-ups along the way.
Leakage is when one (or several) of those parts of the sales funnel is dropping traffic that shouldn’t be dropping.
This can occur for many different reasons. For example…
- No sense of urgency or scarcity
- Incontinuity or irrelevance between the sales funnel pages
- Disconnect between the advertisement and the landing page
- Uninteresting sales copy
- Confusing messaging
- Slow load speed
- Uninteresting offer to the target market
So on and so forth.
Every sales funnel is a little leaky… That is, no sales funnel converts traffic at 100%.
What we care about here, though, is identifying and fixing the leaks in your sales funnel that shouldn’t be there.
The leaks that are fixable.
We don’t care about fixing all of the leaks. That’s impossible. Just the ones that we can fix.
Below, we’ve outlined six steps to identifying and fixing leaks in your sales funnel.
Let’s dive in!
Step 1: Visualize the Sales Funnel
The first step to identifying leaks in your sales funnel is to visualize your sales funnel.
That means sitting down and looking at all the steps involved in your funnel — advertisement, landing pages, pop-ups, upsells, downsells, checkout process, thank you page… all of it.
Grab a piece of paper and map it out…
More specifically, try to map out the following…
Traffic – How are you driving traffic? Advertisements? SEO? Email? Something else? Make sure you know exactly where your traffic is coming from for this specific sales funnel.
Landing Page – What landing page do people visit when they click on the link?
Upsells/Downsells – What upsells and/or downsells are included in the sales funnels? Make note of those.
Checkout Process – What’s the checkout process look like after people click-through to buy?
Why is this important?
Because in the next step, we’re going to look at the conversion rate for each page and try to find drop-off points – the places with the most drastic dips in conversion.
If your funnel is underperforming, this process will help you determine the source of the leakage.
Step 2: Look for Drop-Off Points
After you’ve visualized your funnel and you know exactly where your traffic is coming from and where it’s going…
Now it’s time to figure out what it’s doing.
Which CTAs are people clicking… and where are they abandoning?
If you suspect you have a leaky funnel, this is where you find out where the problem lies.
We need to take a look at each stage of your sales funnel and determine the conversion rate — that is, how many of the people who visit that page click-through to the next step?
For example, let’s pretend that you’ve got 10,000 people to enter your sales funnel through an advertisement. Your numbers might look something like this…
- Landing Page – 10,000 Visitors, 25% CR
- Checkout Process – 2,500, 5% CR
- Upsell – 125 Visitors, 50% CR
- Downsell – 62 Visitors, 50% CR
Looking at those stats for each page… can you spot where most of the leakage is coming from?
That’s right — the Checkout Process.
2,500 people are clicking through to the checkout process, but only 5% (125) are actually buying.
That’s what you’re trying to spot.
Dive into your analytics and look at the numbers. Where are your biggest drop-off points?
And if you can’t find reliable and easily visualizable analytics in the software you’re using… find new software.
With ClickFunnels, you can build and visualize the performance of your sales funnels…
Once you’ve identified those, then it’s time to ask yourself the even more important question: why are people dropping off at that point?
That’s the next step.
Step 3: Research Drop-Off Point Problems
You know when people are leaving your sales funnel.
But why?
You can’t fix your sales funnel leakage without identifying exactly why people are leaving your sales funnel.
So this is where the rubber meets the road.
You’ll want to come up with a hypothesis.
To help you do that, we’ve put together this list of common reasons that people leave sales funnels at certain steps. Take stock and see if any of these might fit the bill.
- Low Ad Conversion Rate – This probably means that you’re targeting the wrong audience with your ads, your ad copy isn’t compelling to your target market, or there’s incontinuity between the people you’re targeting and the offer you’re promoting.
- Low Landing Page Conversion Rate – This probably means that your offer isn’t compelling enough to your target market, your copy poorly explains your offer, or there’s not enough trust, urgency, or scarcity being built on the landing page. This could also be due to a slow landing page load speed.
- Low Checkout Conversion Rate – People are losing steam during the checkout process. This probably means that the price is surprisingly high, they don’t trust you enough to give you their credit card information, or the checkout process is clunky and confusing. It’s also possible that they’re still not sold on the value that you’re offering.
Spot anything that might be the culprit for your sales funnel?
Are you building enough trust? Expressing your offer clearly? Targeting the right audience?
At this point, you’ve probably come up with a few ideas for things to try to patch your leaky funnel.
(If not, don’t worry. We’re going to give you a list of ideas in the next few steps)
Start with the low-hanging fruit — easy changes that might have a positive impact on the effectiveness of your sales funnel.
Step 4: Snag the Low Hanging Fruit
Before you go crazy and recreate your entire sales funnel, let’s try to make some small changes and see what impact they have.
You might be surprised at how much you can increase your conversion rate with just a few little adjustments.
Here are some ideas based on the drop-off point of your sales funnel…
- Low Ad Conversion Rate – Try targeting a new audience, writing more compelling sales copy, using a more eye-catching image or video, or running ads on a platform where your target market spends more time.
- Low Landing Page Conversion Rate – Try reworking your landing page title, subtitle, and copy. Or try adding a countdown timer, credibility badges, testimonials, or case studies. Check to see how fast your load speed is. Also, make sure your CTA is easily visible and compelling.
- Low Checkout Conversion Rate – Try adding some additional credibility (testimonials, badges, etc) to your checkout process. Make your checkout process super simple and intuitive.
Those fixes are a great place to start.
They might not fix everything… but they’ll likely give you a little boost in conversions.
Step 5: Test Your Changes!
Now make sure to test your changes!
Don’t just assume that the new version of your ad or landing page is going to perform better than the previous version.
Test it.
Run an A/B test of the new version against the current version and see which one wins.
Your sales funnel software should make this process super easy (like we do at ClickFunnels).
Step 6: Gaze at the High Hanging Fruit
You’ve grabbed the low-hanging fruit by creating some simple variations of your weakest pages and testing them against the previous versions.
By the end of those tests, you’ll have a better idea of what exactly is the cause of your leaky sales funnel.
And it’s possible you discover a deeper-seeded problem.
Maybe…
- Your offer just isn’t good enough
- Your copy needs a complete overhaul
- Your price is wrong
- Your funnel needs redesigning
… or something else.
Don’t get discouraged.
This is a part of entrepreneurship and marketing — you have to test stuff out, try new things, and see what works.
So take stock and take heart.
Then take a step back and ask yourself this question: how can I make this better?
Here are some ideas for higher-level fixes.
The Offer – How could you make your offer so sexy that it’d be irresistible to the people in your target market? Answering that question requires you to have a crystal clear idea of who your target market is, what they want, and how you can serve them. After hearing your offer, your target market should say “Hell yes!”
The Messaging – First and foremost, the goal of your copy is to be clear about what you’re offering, why it’s valuable, and who it’s for. Try to get more clarity (and less sales-y) around your messaging… and it will naturally become more persuasive.
The Funnel – It’s possible that your funnel needs to be entirely reworked. People aren’t likely to go straight from browsing Facebook to paying you $5,000 for your course, for instance. Timing is everything. Maybe you need to create a funnel to get people on your email list first. Or maybe you need to host a webinar or masterclass and sell people live via video. Take a deep look at your funnel and look for the missing pieces; the things that are keeping people from saying “Hell yes!”
Spot any idea for your sales funnel?
Do the same with these as you did for your low-hanging fruit changes. Apply them, test them, and see if they convert better than the previous version.
Final Thoughts on Sales Funnel Leakage
Sales funnels are machines of conversion.
But leaky sales funnels don’t live up to that standard.
They lose traffic, leads, and sales at an alarming rate.
And that’s why you should identify where the leaks are coming from, fix them, and test the fixes. We’ve outlined the six steps to doing that above.
Now it’s time for action.
Click the link below if you need software that will support you on your sales funnel journey!