The Digital Marketing Funnel Is Dead
Jordan McFadyen
Marketing Strategy & Purposeful AI Leadership | 'Marketing Mindset' Podcast Host | Founder @DoneByNine
The modern customer journey is like taking my six-year-old into a toy store - chaotic, unpredictable, and easily distracted by the next shiny object. One minute they're focused on the dinosaur they came for, the next they're three aisles over looking at the Lego. And just when you think they've made a decision, something else catches their eye, and the journey begins again.
This is exactly how your customers navigate their purchase decisions in this modern AI era. Except instead of toy store aisles, they're bouncing between search engines, social media platforms, review sites, competitor websites, and AI-powered recommendations like ChatGPT and Claude - all while being bombarded with personalised ads and content at every turn.
Over the past few months, we've been going deep on the podcast on how this ever-changing customer discovery landscape is changing and how AI is reshaping marketing. From exploring the rise of zero-click search results to investigating how AI tools are fundamentally changing how customers find and choose businesses, one thing has become crystal clear: the traditional customer journey is more complex than ever.
Earlier this week, I was listening to Steven Bartlett's "Diary of a CEO" podcast, and there popped in a concept from Google's 2020 research that resurfaced in my mind - the 'messy middle' of customer decision-making.
This concept, though not new, has taken on renewed significance in our AI-driven world and perfectly complements my recent explorations into how customer discovery is evolving in 2025.
In this article, I'll break down why this concept is more relevant than ever, especially as AI continues to reshape how customers discover and interact with businesses.
Today you'll learn:
Whether you're struggling to make sense of AI's impact on your marketing or looking to better understand your customer's journey, this deep dive into the 'messy middle' will help you navigate these changing times.
Let's Start Here
This isn't a new concept. In fact, Google first released their research looking at the changing customer journey back in July 2020 - where they explained how people decide what to buy lies in the 'messy middle' of the purchase journey. Even more so as we enter an even more prevalent digital marketing place.
While AI is a big player in why this is so important today, it was also put together back when 'digital transformation' was the buzzword of the COVID era. Throughout that period, people were fast changing the way they discovered and researched products and services.
This was all driven by a massive shift towards the influence of social media, user-generated content, and the rise of e-commerce platforms - and essentially the rise in confidence and learning that everyday consumers were having with their trust in buying and doing business online.
And what started as a look in the psychological journey for customers and how they discovered your business soon started to catapult further with the rise of AI.
I've spoken about this a lot recently, as I truly believe that AI will continue to change how customers discover and do business with brands - and that's why this concept continues to make more and more sense to me.
So let's break down the Messy Middle concept and how this could be the missing piece with your marketing strategy currently.
What Exactly is the Messy Middle?
Let's make this as simple as possible so that you get a good understanding of the concept.
You're in a supermarket. You're staring at dozens of products. You're scanning labels and branding and different package designs. You may pick up your phone and quickly check a brand online. You compare prices. You review a message from a friend that tells you their recommendation. You might even leave without buying the product right away, but you may return later that week to finally pick your product.
This is the messy middle. That space between someone's first thought about a purchase and the moment they buy. The point is that it's not always a straight path.
People loop back and forth; they explore options, read reviews, compare prices, and ultimately get distracted.
As consumers, we're drowning in information, content, and choices every day.
The internet and the explosion of AI has made everything very easily accessible. Every option, price review, and every expert opinion on a product.
So decision-making overload is common.
Breaking Down the Diagram
So that's the real-world example, but let's break this down in more detail and explain how the diagram looks.
The process starts with a trigger, which is that initial spark of interest or a need, or a problem that the consumer is facing.
This could come from an advertisement, a recommendation, or simply a realisation that the consumer has a problem that they need fixing. Instead of moving in a straight line toward a purchase, the consumer enters a phase of what was called exploration, where they seek out information, discover new brands, and consider their options. They might browse online stores, watch product reviews, or ask for recommendations. This phase is open-ended, with consumers often encountering new possibilities that send them back to the beginning of their research.
Starting to see why this is messy? And can you already spot your own behaviors in discovery in this?
As they gather information, they move into the evaluation phase, where they begin comparing their options more critically. This is the stage where consumers weigh the pros and cons, check reviews, compare prices, and assess whether a product or service meets their needs. However, rather than progressing directly to a purchase, many consumers loop back into exploration, discovering new alternatives before returning to evaluation. This cycle can repeat multiple times.
So here's the trick: if businesses can successfully guide the consumer through this loop with clear information, trust signals, and persuasive messaging, they eventually move toward making a purchase. Throughout this process, we also need to remind ourselves that some consumers may abandon their journey altogether while others may need additional nudges. Think of personalised recommendations or time-sensitive offers to push them toward a decision.
So let's say you get the purchase. The concept doesn't end there.
The experience stage plays a crucial role in shaping future behavior. Think great customer service and product satisfaction can reinforce trust and loyalty in your business and brand.
This means that rather than starting from scratch next time, the consumer may bypass the exploration and evaluation loops, going straight to the purchase stage with a brand they already trust. Or they can help close the evaluation loop faster for new consumers.
How Are Consumers Navigating the 'Messy Middle'?
Ok - so we have an understanding of the concept.
I'm sure you can see that the Messy Middle is exactly that—messy. With endless options, reviews, and information, it's easy for consumers to feel overwhelmed by choice paralysis. And people don't like uncertainty.
Instead of rationally evaluating every single option, our brains look for shortcuts to help us decide faster. These shortcuts, known as heuristics, are the mental biases we use to filter out the noise and move forward with confidence.
Google's research into the Messy Middle identified six key biases that play a major role in consumer decision-making:
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Understanding these behavioral biases is crucial because they show us why traditional marketing funnels might be failing to capture the reality of modern consumer behavior. These six biases aren't tricks—they're natural ways our brains process decisions more easily. And as AI-driven marketing becomes more prevalent, businesses can leverage these biases ethically to guide customers through the Messy Middle without overwhelming them.
It's definitely not necessary to apply all six at once—testing and optimising based on your audience, industry, and product type is key. Especially as we see that messy middle shrink, thanks to the rise of AI and more personalised marketing.
Is the Traditional Marketing Funnel Dead?
It might not be dead - but it's definitely outdated in my view.
The typical marketing funnel is very high-level and very linear. And the point of the messy middle concept is that this customer behavior has changed.
We are explorers and we have more tools for discovery at our fingertips, so the concept of having someone follow a straightforward path towards conversion is getting less and less likely.
The research is clear that consumers are jumping around, moving back and forth between platforms - getting influenced from AI-driven recommendations, social proof, content - all presented at different stages of the journey.
It's also hard to pinpoint a fixed entry and exit point for consumers - from when they first discover your business to when they leave, to when they come back, and then when they convert.
Plus, we're clearly seeing that AI is accelerating decision-making. The old traditional funnel assumes that the consumer is driving the journey - but today we're seeing more and more that the tech giants are guiding that process instead. Think about the algorithms used by Google for search, Amazon for e-commerce, and TikTok for social media as examples.
You're getting more and more personalised content on these platforms as they become more and more clever - which means that discovery can really be driven by those platforms.
How to Apply the 'Messy Middle' Insights to Your Marketing Strategy
So using this data, report, and understanding of the concept - how should we as marketers apply, or test the concept with our marketing strategy? Here's our step-by-step guide to implementing the learnings:
Step 1: Understand Your Customer's Messy Middle Journey
You first need to work out your own customers' potential messy middle. How are your customers exploring products or services and evaluating your business before they purchase?
Use analytics and social data (Google Analytics, CRM data, heatmaps) to track customer behavior and look for patterns: Where do they get stuck? Where do they drop off? Where are they finding you? Sometimes the best way to start with this is to simply conduct surveys to understand decision-making hurdles.
You need to understand how your customers like to communicate, what content they enjoy viewing, and how they purchase or discover your product and service.
Step 2: Make Your Brand Unmissable in the Exploration Phase
Once you have an understanding of your customer's messy middle, you then need to understand and test ways of ensuring that you're visible where your customers are searching and discovering products like yours.
This may be focusing on your content marketing strategy, and the type of content that resonates with your audience (i.e., informative, trust-building content, user-generated content).
Explore using paid search and social media ads to reach and capture early interest in your product or service, so that consumers understand that you exist and the main problem that you solve. Use influencer and user-generated content to get your real customers and influencers to engage and showcase your brand.
Step 3: Speed Up the Evaluation Phase
The key at this stage is to reduce friction in the evaluation phase to avoid customers looping back into exploration.
So you need to be reviewing how consumers make that final purchase from you and help them to reduce their decision-making burden experience by consumers when they are evaluating your product and service. Research shows that customers tend to favor brands that provide quick, clear, and trustworthy signals when they're evaluating.
Then leverage social proof & authority bias to reinforce trust in a customer's final decision.
When consumers visit your website or contact you via your content or social media, the user experience should make the evaluation process as simple as possible, with appropriate detail and functionality.
Then consider using tactics such as retargeting messaging to engage with evaluative consumers who are in danger of exiting back into explore mode.
Step 4: Test and Apply the Six Key Behavioral Biases
Consider thinking about your content or your current advertising, messaging, and copy that's on your website, or social media currently. Is there an opportunity for you to use one of the biases that we discussed earlier in your messaging?
Social proof, scarcity, and authority bias. Start to test and adapt these biases to your content and your overall marketing strategy and look at how you can apply them to your strategy.
Step 5: Test, Measure & Optimise for Continuous Improvement
As with all your marketing - test and optimise.
You won't get this right the first time, and that's ok. The important thing is to continue to test, refine, and adapt the steps above. Here's some ideas on worthy tests you should consider:
Remove any barriers to decision-making, like a slow website, confusing messages, or a poor user experience. Run controlled experiments, and test some of the behavioral biases in your message. Test them in ad campaigns, your content, or website messaging. Consider trialing retargeting and remarketing campaigns, as the data shows that customers leave before purchasing but can be nudged back into action.
Marketing in the Messy Middle isn't about a single big change, instead, it's about continuously testing, measuring, and refining strategies based on real-world data.
The Future of Customer Discovery is Anything But Linear
The traditional marketing funnel was built for a world where customer journeys were predictable and linear. But in 2025, that world no longer exists. The explosion of AI tools, combined with increasingly sophisticated digital platforms, has transformed how customers discover and evaluate businesses.
The messy middle isn't just a concept - it's the reality of how your customers are finding and choosing businesses today. And while AI is making this middle even messier, it's also providing us with new opportunities to connect with customers at critical moments in their journey.
Stay curious about how your customers are discovering your business. Keep testing, measuring, and adapting your approach.
And most importantly, remember that in the messy middle, the path to purchase isn't about controlling your customer's journey - it's about being there at every twist and turn along the way.
The future of marketing isn't a funnel - it's a web of interconnected moments, many which will soon be powered by AI, shaped by changing consumer behavior, and won by businesses who understand how to navigate this new reality.
That's why at Done By Nine, we're committed to helping businesses navigate this shifting landscape. The traditional marketing funnel might be dying, but the opportunities to connect with and convert customers have never been greater - if you know where and how to show up.