Why Brands Need a Full-Funnel Marketing Strategy - and How One Cleaning Brand Grew by Embracing It

Most ecommerce brands are stuck in a dangerous habit: they only market to people who are already ready to buy. They chase bottom-funnel metrics, push hard on ROAS, obsess over last-click attribution, and then wonder why growth flatlines.

The reality is painfully simple: people don’t wake up wanting your product. You have to guide them there.
And the brands winning right now - especially on Amazon - understand that the customer journey is a psychological staircase, not a single step.

At Zeal Agency, this philosophy sits at the heart of how we grow premium, brand-conscious ecommerce businesses. We focus on intent-driven optimisation and build strategies that carry shoppers from “I’m not thinking about this” to “Take my money” with precision.

One of the clearest examples of this is the work we recently completed with a cleaning brand looking to scale their enzyme-based product line. They weren’t struggling because the product was poor. They were struggling because they were only showing up at the bottom of the funnel - in a crowded category where trust, differentiation and education matter more than any discount.

Here’s why the full funnel matters, and how we used it to unlock profitable growth for them.

The Marketing Funnel Is a Psychological Model 

Every customer moves through five recognisable stages:

1. Unaware – They’re not thinking about the problem.
   

2. Problem Aware – They’ve noticed an issue (odours, stains, ineffective cleaning, products not working).
   

3. Solution Aware – They understand the type of product that could help (enzyme cleaners, eco-friendly formulas, problem-specific solutions).
   

4. Product Aware – They’re comparing brands.
   

5. Most Aware – They’re ready to buy.
   

Most brands operate almost entirely in stages 4–5.

The full-funnel approach unlocks stages 1–3 - and this is where scalable, defensible growth actually happens.

Different Platforms Monetise Different Mindsets

To understand why the funnel matters, you must understand the psychology of each platform:

• Meta creates desire. It interrupts the scroll, shows people an emotional transformation, and seeds the idea of needing something.
  

• Google captures intent. People tell Google their problem in real time: “best odour remover”, “enzyme cleaner vs bleach”.
  

• Amazon converts that intent. Amazon is where they choose a product and want speed, trust and convenience.
  

So, the question isn’t “Which platform converts?”
They all do.
The real question is: “Which mindset are you converting?”

The Problem: They Were Only Competing at the Bottom of the Funnel

When the brand came to us, they were:

• relying on high-intent Amazon traffic
  

• investing very little in education
  

• barely visible on Meta
  

• not capturing solution-aware traffic on Google
  

• and struggling to stand out in a category where shoppers don’t understand enzymes or why they matter
  

Their Amazon listing was strong, but the pipeline feeding it was weak. Traffic quality was inconsistent. Conversion was plateauing. And acquisition costs were creeping up.

Our Approach: Build a Demand Engine, Not Just a Conversion Engine

We rebuilt their funnel from the top down:

1. Build awareness and education on Meta

We ran education-first ads explaining:

• why traditional cleaners mask odours

• what enzymes do

• how the science works

• real household use cases (pets, carpets, bins, sofas)

• before/after transformations

This moved thousands of people from “Unaware” → “Problem Aware.”

2. Capture intent on Google

We layered paid search around:

• “enzyme cleaner UK”

• “remove pet odour permanently”

• “eco-friendly stain remover”

• “pet smell won’t go away”

This moved people from “Problem Aware” → “Solution Aware.”

3. Optimise Amazon to convert

We rebuilt their PDPs using our behavioural-science-led COSMO framework:

• simplified science

• visual proof

• emotional reassurance

• mobile-first design

• friction removal

• clear comparison between enzyme vs non-enzyme cleaners

This moved people from “Solution Aware” → “Most Aware.”

4. Create a feedback loop across all channels

Meta built demand.
Google captured it.
Amazon converted it.

And as we fed more people into the top of the funnel, Amazon’s organic ranking improved - lowering TACoS and improving margin.

The Result: Higher Quality Traffic, Lower Acquisition Costs, Faster Growth

Within months:

• Amazon conversion increased
  

• Google CPCs became more efficient
  

• Meta warmed up new audiences at scale
  

• Buyer education improved across every channel
  

• The category became less competitive because the brand secured its own demand
  

The brand moved from fighting for bottom-funnel scraps to owning the journey.

And that is the power of the full-funnel approach.

The Bottom Line for Ecommerce Brands

If you only market to shoppers who are already ready to buy, you’re renting growth.
Anyone can outbid you.
Anyone can undercut you.
And you’ll always feel like scaling requires more and more media spend.

When you operate across the full funnel:

• your acquisition costs fall
  

• your conversion rate rises
  

• your category becomes less competitive
  

• and your business becomes more resilient
  

This is the model we use at Zeal Agency.
It’s how we turn clicks into customers, and customers into loyalists.
And it’s how brands - including our cleaning client - grow sustainably, profitably and with far less volatility.

If you’d like to explore what a full-funnel strategy could look like for your brand, we can walk you through it.

What We Uncovered When a Leading Gifting Brand’s Ads Stopped Converting

Over the past few months, we’ve been working closely with a well-known gifting brand.
A commercially mature business, strong DTC performance, clear product demand - but a familiar frustration:

• Meta wasn’t scaling.

• Amazon was converting, but plateauing.

• CPMs were climbing.

• Creative was fatiguing

• And the commercial team felt stuck between opportunity and uncertainty.

What became clear, very quickly, is something we see across almost every £10M+ ecommerce business:

They didn’t have an advertising problem.
They had a conversion system problem.

This is a structural problem that erodes performance over time - inconsistent messaging, creative that wasn’t built from insight, platforms operating in silos, and an over-reliance on “what used to work.”

So we rebuilt the system from the only place meaningful growth ever starts:  the buyer.

1. Start With the Buyer - Not the Ads

Inside the first session, we gathered every signal available: reviews, search queries, past Meta audiences, gifting motivations, category expectations, objections, pressures, seasonal behaviour.

“Getting a deep understanding of the customer is point number one… that’s basically all you have to do.”

And yet the brand’s creative wasn’t speaking to:

• the emotional drivers behind gifting

• the reassurance buyers needed

• the context in which decisions were being made

• the moment of hesitation that was silently killing conversion
  

We call this the behaviour gap - and it exists in most brands who feel stuck.

2. Build Super-Personas That Actually Drive Creative

Our approach is embedded within our conversion engine process

We combine:

• customer insight

• reviews and testimonials

• keyword and category behaviour

• Meta signal data

• competitive cues

• emotional and situational drivers
  

• …to build what we call super-personas: real, behaviour-rooted patterns that shape what people notice, feel and choose.

  For this brand, it revealed distinct motivations we could build creative around - not demographics, but decision-making profiles.

3. Translate Insight Into a Message System

Once the personas were clear, the message hierarchy almost wrote itself.

Instead of one generic story, we needed:

• high-emotion hooks for cold audiences

• situational angles for mid-funnel

• reassurance-led messaging at point of conversion

• proof-led content for the hesitant buyer

• comparison for the overwhelmed buyer
  

• The insight was clear:  the brand was speaking too softly to the people who needed clarity - and too logically to the people who needed emotion.
  

4. Rebuild Creative for How Meta Now Works

Meta’s algorithm has changed.  Great creative alone isn’t enough.
You need volume, variation and behavioural relevance.

 “Algorithms now prioritise variety, distinctiveness and relevance… it’s basically SEO for Meta.”

So we built out a full creative system:

• platform-native assets

• polished on-brand formats

• UGC and testimonial-driven creative

• emotional storytelling

• product-led comparison

• situational formats

• graphic formats optimised for “crowded feed” moments
  
  

• 5. Engineer the Channel Mix to Compound, Not Compete

Meta creates desire.  Amazon converts it.  Search and landing pages reassure it.

The brand had been treating each as separate worlds. However, the true interplay:

• “Meta feeds search volumes in both Google and Amazon.”

• “Paid social can build desire and emotional connection you can’t get from PPC.”

The commercial unlock was simple:  stop forcing each channel to do the whole job.

6. Implement Structured Creative Testing

This brand had never run truly controlled creative tests - and most brands at this level haven’t.

Our system is strict:

• 20 creative variations per month

• £100 per variation

• isolated spend to avoid Meta favouritism

• named variables for learning extraction

• structured hook, format and message tests

• Frankenstein ads combining winning elements

“Meta will always pick favourites - you need budget separation to get a true read.”

This is where performance breakthroughs happen - not in bid strategies.

7. Create a Behaviour-Led Performance Loop

Every decision we made fed back into the next stage:

Insight → Message → Creative → Channel → Data → Updated Insight

“Every single decision is tagged so we can learn at persona, hook and format level.”

This loop is how the brand now scales with confidence - because spend no longer feels like guesswork.

The Outcome

The shift wasn’t dramatic.  It was structural.  And structural shifts create sustainable, profitable growth.

In their words: “For the first time, it feels like everything connects.”

• clarity on their buyers’ motivations

• a message system built from insight

• a creative engine that reflects real behaviour

• channel roles that compound performance

• a testing structure that actually produces learnings

• confidence in where to spend and why

Want to learn more about how ZEAL Agency ecommerce brands on Amazon and DTC - book a discovery call for a free 30 minute consultation