Retargeting and the customer journey

Parts 5 through 7 built three distinct audience types — Core, Custom, and Lookalike — largely as separate techniques. This part connects them into one coherent structure: a real funnel, where a person moves through stages of intent, and the ad they see should change accordingly.

The funnel, applied directly to Bright Leaf Coffee

TOFU (Top of Funnel) — cold, no prior relationship
  Audiences: Core Audience (part 5), Lookalike (part 7)
  Message: broad brand introduction, the core product promise

MOFU (Middle of Funnel) — has shown some engagement, not yet converted
  Audiences: website visitors (part 6), video viewers, Page engagers
  Message: more specific, addressing a likely hesitation (shipping, quality, price)

BOFU (Bottom of Funnel) — high, demonstrated purchase intent
  Audiences: cart abandoners (part 6), checkout-reached-but-not-completed
  Message: direct, urgency-appropriate — a specific nudge to complete the action

Every audience type built across parts 5-7 has a natural home in exactly one of these three stages — the funnel isn't a new targeting technique, it's the organizing structure that makes sense of which audience should see which message, rather than showing every audience the identical ad regardless of how much intent they've already shown.

Why message has to change by funnel stage

TOFU ad: "Freshly roasted coffee, delivered monthly. Try Bright Leaf Coffee."
BOFU ad: "You left something in your cart. Here's 10% off to finish your order."

Showing a cold, general brand-introduction message to someone who already reached checkout wastes an opportunity — they don't need convincing that Bright Leaf Coffee exists, they need a specific reason to complete the exact action they already started. The reverse mistake is just as real: showing an aggressive "10% off, complete your order now" discount message to someone who's never heard of the brand reads as confusing and slightly desperate, with no context for why a discount is even being offered.

Sequential retargeting: message that evolves with time since engagement

Website visitor, day 1-3:   general reminder — "Still thinking about it?"
Website visitor, day 4-14:   social proof — "4.8★ from 2,000+ subscribers"
Website visitor, day 15-30:  a real incentive — "First month, 15% off"

Rather than one static retargeting ad shown identically for the entire 30-day window, a genuinely more effective structure shows a different message depending on how much time has passed since the original visit — early retargeting stays soft and reminder-focused, while an incentive is held back for people who still haven't converted after a longer window, rather than discounting immediately to everyone regardless of how close they already are to converting on their own.

Frequency across the funnel: a real balance

Someone in a BOFU retargeting audience genuinely benefits from being reminded more frequently than a cold TOFU audience would tolerate well — but even here, frequency has a real ceiling (covered directly in part 20's creative fatigue discussion), past which repeated exposure stops helping and starts actively annoying a real potential customer.

GreenDesk's B2B funnel: longer, and less linear

TOFU: Core Audience by job title/interest, Lookalike from existing customers
MOFU: website visitors, content engagers (someone who watched a product demo video)
BOFU: Instant Form starters who didn't complete, existing leads not yet closed

A B2B funnel genuinely spans a longer window than Bright Leaf Coffee's — weeks or months, not days — and "conversion" itself is multi-staged: a lead, then a qualified opportunity, then a closed deal, each stage worth its own message rather than treating every non-customer as equally distant from converting.

Next: A/B testing with Meta's own Experiments tool — validating which specific creative, audience, or offer actually performs better, with real data.