Top of the Funnel (ToFu): the part of the funnel almost everyone neglects

Everyone wants to close the sale; almost nobody wants to be discovered

I know plenty of businesses obsessed with closing: the perfect offer, the final discount, the best sales script. And their calendar is empty. It’s like sharpening the knife to cut a cake nobody brought —the problem isn’t how they close, it’s that nobody knows them yet.

That part almost everyone neglects because it “doesn’t sell today” is called the Top of the Funnel (ToFu): it’s the top of the sales funnel, where you attract people who don’t know you yet or even know they need you. Here you don’t sell: you spark interest and give value so that person, later, chooses you. It’s the mouth of the funnel —and if it’s closed, there’s nothing to close at the bottom.

Why almost everyone neglects it (and why that’s a mistake)

The TOFU has an image problem: it doesn’t bill today. So many see it as an expense —“why write a blog or invest in being known, if that doesn’t sell?”— and put all the money at the bottom, on closing. The result is always the same: a perfect closing machine, with no one to close.

The TOFU doesn’t sell directly, but it’s the only thing that fills the funnel. Without people entering at the top, there are no leads to nurture and no sales to close. Neglecting it is like wanting to harvest without having sown.

What you do at the Top of the Funnel (attract, don’t sell)

At the top, your job is to show up where your potential customer is searching —even if they aren’t looking for you yet—. How? By talking about their problem, not your product: useful content, SEO to appear on Google, social, ads, a guide that solves a real doubt. The person comes for the topic; along the way, they discover you.

When B&W Foto Video came to us, nobody knew they existed: a shop in the Gràcia neighborhood of Barcelona, no website, no social media. They had an excellent service —digitizing VHS tapes, Super 8, audio, a lifetime of memories— but the mouth of the funnel was closed: customers only came from the shop window or referrals. Their problem wasn’t closing, it was that no one new discovered them.

The first phase was exactly that: attraction. With a landing page and Google and Meta Ads campaigns, we made B&W show up right when someone searched “transfer VHS tapes to digital”. People from all over the country who would never have known them started to arrive. That’s the Top of the Funnel working.

What to do and what not to do at the Top of the Funnel

The difference between a TOFU that attracts and one that scares people off isn’t the budget: it’s the focus. Look:

The rule is simple: at the top you give, you don’t ask.

A good TOFU improves the WHOLE funnel (and lowers your costs)

When the TOFU is done well, not only does more people come in: better people come in. A lead who discovered you through content that solved something arrives more informed, trusts more and costs you less to close. Your CPA drops without touching the close, just because at the top you attracted the right person.

And there’s a bonus: authority. Showing up again and again with something useful positions you as a reference. For B&W, opening the mouth of the funnel transformed them: from a neighborhood shop into a company serving the whole country, with sales growing 1,700%. But it all started by getting discovered.

The mistake of measuring the TOFU by sales

Here’s the trap that kills the most TOFU strategies: measuring it by immediate sales. If you judge a piece of content or an awareness campaign by how many bought today, you’ll conclude it “doesn’t work” and you’ll cut it —killing exactly what feeds tomorrow’s sales—.

The TOFU is measured by its own metrics: reach, qualified traffic, new leads. That’s why it helps to have a CRM that measures each stage separately and shows you the full journey: which content or campaign each lead came from and how it closed weeks later. Without that, you switch off what suits you most without realizing.

How we work it at The Funnel Box

At The Funnel Box we don’t treat the TOFU as an expense, but as the engine of the funnel: we build the content and advertising that fill the mouth, connect them to the lower stages, and measure everything with a CRM to know what attracts the people who later buy. That’s how it was with B&W and with every client who went from “nobody knows me” to having a funnel that brings clients on its own.

If you feel your business closes well but no one new finds you, the problem is at the top. In a consulting session we look at it together and build your Top of the Funnel.

Frequently asked questions

Does the Top of the Funnel work if I sell an expensive or B2B service? Yes. The more expensive or considered the purchase, the more the person needs to know you and trust you before deciding —and that’s built at the top of the funnel—.

How long does it take to show results? The TOFU is sowing: content and SEO take weeks or months to mature, advertising is faster but switches off when you stop paying. The ideal is to combine both.

Do I have to be on every channel? No. Better to be good on one or two where your audience really is (Google, one social network) than bad on all of them.

How do I know if my TOFU works if it doesn’t sell directly? By its metrics: qualified traffic, new leads and, with a CRM, how many of those leads end up buying later.

Is TOFU the same as branding? They overlap, but they’re not the same. Branding builds how you’re perceived; the TOFU uses that perception to attract concrete traffic and leads to your funnel.