#253 - 2025 Funnel Hacks: Fix These 4 Conversion Killers Now

If you've got a funnel that has stopped or stalled in the last 12 months, I bet you I know why. And inside this episode, I'm going to show you the four things that are killing most people's conversions right now and what you can do to fix them. So let's dive right on in.

Hey, hey everybody, it is Kate here from hello funnels, and welcome back to the Doing It Online podcast. Today we are talking about one of my favorite topics, of course, funnels. But today what we're actually talking about is the less fun side of funnels and that is when funnels go wrong. When you might be out there following the best intentioned advice, you might be out there funnel hacking some big name star that you've seen and you're like, well, of course they know what they're doing and you try and it fails. Or maybe you've had a funnel and it's been working for a while and suddenly it's just, just stopped. Well, I've noticed that there are four things right now this year that are really, really crushing people's conversions that probably in previous years have not really been the case. But right now they are a big no, no. And I'm going to walk you through them one by one. The very first thing that I will put on the no no for 2025 list and this is something that I literally just finished running a test on because I'm not about just going, I feel like something doesn't work or a couple of people, I've, a couple of my clients maybe have said it's not working so well. When I think something might be an issue, I'm going to test it. I'm going to put my own money where my mouth is. And so I tested this with about a thousand dollars in ad spend and I can unequivocally say that this is definitely the case. So the first thing on the no no list is countdown timers on your tripwire pages. Now if anyone is watching this going, what is a tripwire page? A tripwire page is when you have a lead magnet or an opt in bribe as I like to call them. So basically some really cool free thing, right? You out there, you promote it, whether it's through social media or through ads, people, they pop their details into a form that hit submit that form, refreshes, they land on a page and that is usually prime real estate, right? And so normally people might just be like, thank you, it's in your inbox or hey, come and join my, you know, I was Going to say Facebook group. I don't know if people even do those anymore. Come follow me on Instagram, whatever it is. But another option when they have a related and, you know, great offer is to have a special offer on that page. And I actually love that as a strategy. But the thing I wanted to test specifically was the countdown timer. So one thing, and this was kind of my hypothesis that was going into it, is that right now people are more skeptical than usual, right? So if they have never heard of you and then they have trusted you enough or you piqued their interest at least enough by some free thing, and then they opt in and they land on a page and it's one thing to be showing them an offer, but it's the next thing to be like, you know, super high pressure. You've got 10 minutes to buy this thing or it goes away. I think that in some markets, and again, this is not gonna be across the board. So if you're unsure, feel free to test it yourself. But I think for some markets, just that countdown timer, that is a step too far. That is a. Hang on a second. You know, that's the old bait and switch. You said you were giving me a free thing and now you're like demanding that I buy this thing. How dare you. And the reason that I can say with some certainty that this seems to have proved itself to be the case is as I said, I've ran side by side split tests. So if anyone's opted into my list recently and seen me do this and be like, hey, but you do that. Yeah, I was testing it. I don't do it anymore. I only tested it for about a week and it was a miserable failure. So I ran these two side by side. So what I would say was interesting was that of the page that, you know, one page, exactly the same offer, everything the same, it just didn't have the countdown timer, didn't have a mention of the discount going away. And the other one had a 20 minute timer. I didn't want to do 10 minutes. I was like, I know some people do 10. I was like, oh, I felt gross just doing the 20. The immediate thing I noticed, and that I think some people might mistake for actually one working better than the other was, yes, we got a small uptake of sales on that page. So by adding the countdown timer to that page, we had a very small increase of people buying on that page. However, when you looked at those people who didn't buy when they went through the rest of the funnel, everything else was down, massively down. And so my particular funnel that followed up this sequence, it's not really about that offer. It has, there's a longer sequence, there's a couple of different offers made inside that sequence. And I know that they usually convert at pretty set amounts by the addition of adding that timer. And that was the only thing that was different. The conversion rates everywhere else more than halved. So the open rates were way down, the click through rates were way down, and the conversions and sales rates pretty much disappeared. It was just like that one little thing was just a step too far. Now I do want to put a big caveat on all of this is that I always say, like I tested this on my account, everyone's account is going to be different. Everyone's audience has a different level of tolerance to these kind of things. I would even guess that some people just having an offer on that landing page might be a step too far. So whenever you are considering doing any of this, I really, really recommend that you split test if you can. If you don't have the tech to split test, then simply have a couple of weeks running to one and then a couple of weeks running to a different version. Do it manually, it's fine. But look at not just those initial numbers, because if I had just gone on those initial numbers of hey, we got a tiny little uptick in sales from that landing page by adding the countdown timer, then I would have gone, great, let's switch it over. And then I actually would have killed the rest of my funnel. So that's number one is having a countdown timer on your tripwire page. Number two, and, and this one is so, so crucial is not actually having proper tracking. Now one of the things that just drives me so insane about paid ads, particularly things like, you know, paid social media ads, Facebook, et cetera, is the tracking is just historically terrible and it seems to go on waves. Sometimes it's kind of close, other times it's nowhere near it. And they seem to be taking away more and more options to actually make the tracking worse and worse. So it becomes harder and harder to know not just if your funnel is working overall because there's manual things you can do there, and I recommend my clients do that. When you're getting started with ads is actually have a whole separate funnel that you run your paid traffic to, but once you get to a certain point, you're having multiple campaigns, multiple ad sets. And the way that you're going to really be growing is that you need to know which ones are and aren't working is you're not going to get that very reliably from inside Facebook itself or even from any kind of manual tracking. It's going to be very difficult. So once you get to a point where you're spending probably 300 a day or more on ads, I would say it's time to bite the bullet and invest in some proper tracking. The one that I use is a tool called Hiros. There are other ones out there. They're not cheap. That's the one thing I would say. And, and that's why you kind of want to make sure it's going to be worth your while. But the thing is the results, you see a night and day, like I can look in Facebook and it will say, no, no sales came from that particular ad set at all. And then I go into Hiros and they say no, 11 did, and you can click through it and actually see the sale. It is far more accurate. And where sometimes Facebook over reports and sometimes it underreports, which means you might end up turning off ads that are working or adding more budget to ones that aren't, hires is going to be the thing that means that you can make better decisions. And overall, as you're scaling, it will save you money. So this is not a sponsored price for hires at all. I'm not affiliated to Hiros, but it's just there's definitely a certain point that you get, particularly in running funnels, that you're like, I need to know my numbers and I need to know they're accurate. Otherwise you're really just guessing and you can lose a lot of money that way. So proper tracking, super important. None of these other ones require paid tools, by the way. That was the only one. But it does make a difference. Number three is waiting too long to make your offer. Now, this again was one that was a little bit controversial because previously the sort of like the school of thought was that if someone gets onto your email list, you got to spend a bit of time wooing them, right? You got to spend a bit of time schmoozing them again, letting them get to know you. But where I think this is wrong. Well, not so much wrong, but where I think there is a second school of thought that is probably better suited for making more conversions is when you actually think about what kind of state of mind a person is in when they do actually opt into your email list or jump into one of your freebies. Because usually, you know, they're scrolling through social media or whatever it is they're scrolling through. Their inbox, they're seeing ads depending on how you promote. And they are getting bombarded with so many different things, many of which will be similar, to be honest, with what you're saying, because the algorithm knows them and they know if they're engaging with you, they're going to show them all of you know, your online friends. So they're seeing all this stuff for something to have cut through and had them go, oh, hang on a second, I'm interested in that. I, you know, I'm going to do something, I actually click on it. I'm going to break out of this doom scroll and actually, you know, break away and go to a different site. For that to happen, they usually need to be in a state where they're probably pretty actively and consciously searching for a solution to something, unless it's something completely weird and random and they want to send the crazy meme to their best friend. But usually if they're going to be like, oh, that freebie sounds good, I'm going to opt in for it. It's not because it's something totally unrelated. It's not because it's something that they've got no interest in. It's for a lot of people, it's, I currently have this problem. I'm aware enough of this problem that seeing this solution sounds interesting to me and I have enough intent behind it that, yes, I'm going to hand over my email address. They're not idiots. They know what happens when they do that. They're going to start getting emails from you. So for all of those things to happen, they're in that state of probably being quite active and trying to solve their problem. So if you're not then providing them with your solution, if you wait, two things will happen. Number one, they just clicked on something which has now gone and told Facebook and all the social media algorithms that they are not just a little bit, but really interested in that thing. So interested that they will click on it. And so now they are going to show even more of your competitors, peers, etc. To them the next time they log in. So all of a sudden things got even more crowded and your competition just went up. The other thing that happens is they're going to jump in and consume whatever your freebie is. And if it was good, they're going to be like, great, what's next? I want more. Right? And if you don't give them that more, if they now have to wait 7 days, 10 days, 14 days before they see an offer from you, they will have seen so many offers from other people as well as freebies that you've just lost them. So now, of course, it's not 100% of people, but it definitely is the percentage of people that I call a buy now buyer. And so for those people, what I found really made a huge impact on our funnels was actually removing the warm up bit at the front and getting straight to the pitch. So whereas previously we might have a couple of days of warm up and introduction and then we would go into an offer, we got rid of that completely, went straight into the offer first, then kind of went reverse and then into the warm up, and then the funnel continues on from there. But making that switch, bringing that pitch or that offer forward, more than doubled our conversions. So definitely something to test again. All these things, please test don't necessarily go. Kate said it, therefore it is set in stone. Everyone is different. We always test first. Okay, great. All right, number four. And this one is a bit of a bonus, and this one has a bit of a funny backstory. So I was at the start of this year going out and I had my research hat on, right? I was funnel hacking a bunch of people, which is just a nice way of saying going through and stalking what they were doing. I signed up for a few different programs to see, you know, what was being taught. Not funnel specific, but just sort of things in the Internet marketing. You know, I'm a forever learner. I always want to know, like, what is new, what is working, what is not working, so I can try it myself. And if it works well, so, you know, I can help my clients with it also. Now, one of the funnels that I saw being taught was one that kind of pulled me up a little bit, actually, because it was a very long funnel with no real strategy behind it and no deadline. And this person was like, no, this is all you need to do. People will just naturally know when the right time is to buy and they will come to you, right? And I saw them getting very loud about how they'd created this new style of funnel. They were changing everything to this new style of funnel. They knew that their revenue would go back for a month or two or they switch things over. And then this was going to be the thing, right? And so I was like, wow, they putting, you know, they're putting their money where the mouth is. I say, this is the thing. I personally a big believer in that you always need a deadline. Because I know I always need a deadline. If someone tells me I can buy something in three Weeks, like, cool, I'll come back to that and then I'll forget about it. So I tend to like to build things and use marketing strategies that I know I personally enjoy and respond to. But if this person was saying, you know, and they had huge following, apparently making millions and millions of dollars, I was like, great, let's give it a try. I love to test things out. It was an abysmal failure, guys. It is probably the lowest converting funnel I have ever, ever created, right? I ran it, I ran about a thousand dollars worth of traffic to it. It was just all, it was all bad. So I was like, okay, let's just take pretty much the same emails, same offer, same, and let's actually put a deadline in and let's see what happens. And it went from converting at less than 1% to converting at over 3% by just giving a deadline, just telling people like, you can't buy it forever. You have to buy it within this set number of days. So that, you know, that's number four, basically. Not having a deadline is an absolute conversion killer. And the follow up to my little story was that this big name person who was out there talking about how they rated everything recanted not long after and said, we made a massive mistake. We're going back to what we were doing previously. This doesn't work. So I really hope that not too many people followed them and their online course that was teaching that in the time because, you know, it's terrible strategy. People need deadlines. So just to recap, number one thing that kills conversions in 2025 is having an actual countdown timer on your Tripwire page. Sorry, guys, just, just does. Well, it did for me. Test it first. Number two, not having any proper tracking because you're going to be flying blind and you're going to be turning things off that work and turning things on that don't. And that is really going to cost you a lot of money. Number three, waiting too long to make your offers in your funnels. Bring it forward. If you're not comfortable going like right away, just bring it as close as feels good, okay? And just watch what happens. And number four, not having a deadline at all. Just going out there and, you know, assuming people will just feel it in their aura. When is the right time to buy again? Test it for yourself and see. But when I tested it, the conversions were about a fifth of what happened when we actually had a deadline in and everything else is pretty much the same. So if you have been making any of these mistakes or even if you haven't. And you're just thinking that now might be the time that you want to create a funnel is. I would actually love to help you with that. To personally help you with that. I have actually been working behind the scenes is why we had a little bit of a lull in our episodes recently and I've been creating a brand new three day event. It's virtual, it is live and in that event we are going to help you over those three days to design, actually create and launch your own funnel. Now this funnel is designed to grow your list, to make sales every day, to grow your social media as well and to add hundreds, if not thousands of people to your email list, to your other launches, to your other funnels and otherwise just be this amazing, reliable little engine that helps you to grow your business and helps to solve so many of the problems that we're having in the digital marketing space right now. It's such a powerful little funnel and thanks to AI and thanks to some really great templates that I've been honing, you can literally get this created in it's a few hours a day, over three days. We're going to go through, we're going to do it together, it's going to be fun, you're going to have support, you're going to be able to get feedback. Those are this templates for everything, There's AI for everything. So it's such light touch. I'm sure in like six months time will be I just press a button and everything will be completely done for you. But it's good to come in and learn how to do it in between anyway. But as I said, it's going to be live so we have a limited number of tickets because this is a hands on event. The first 100 people to buy actually get $100 off. So just $97 a ticket. And I believe this is a bit pre recorded so I believe there are still discounted tickets available. So if you want to grab yourself a seat, find out the dates, find out the details, all you need to do is head to hellofunnels.co automate or just grab the link below. If you can't understand my Australian accent, grab yourself a ticket. Come, come and let's build a funnel together. And if you actually want a bit more about the exact type of funnel we're going to be building, go back, check out the previous video because I walk you through it, I walk through what it does, how it works and how it has been an absolute game changer for my business this year, and I'm really, really excited to help you create one for your business as well. So hopefully I will see you inside. Bye, guys.