Funnel Leakage

Definition

The loss of potential customers at each stage of the conversion funnel—every drop-off that makes your CFO cry.

Example Usage

We lost 30% of cart-ready customers at checkout; that funnel leakage is costing us $50K monthly.

Origin

Metaphor from process engineering, applied to marketing funnels in the 2000s.

Fun Fact

The biggest leakage points are often not where marketers expect; cart abandonment frequently beats awareness loss by magnitude.

Source: Conversion optimization and funnel analysis terminology

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