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3 things you must do before you advertise on top of funnel keywords.
Published April 2021. Last updated July 2026.
Top of funnel keywords are keywords that show that the searcher is researching but not yet ready to buy. (They’re called top of funnel keywords because they refer to a sales funnel. Prospects enter the top of the funnel and eventually come out the bottom as sales.)
These research stage keywords are often cheaper per click than keywords that show that the searcher is ready to buy now.
But, before you advertise on these keywords you need to have three things in place or you’re wasting your money:
Top of funnel landing pages.
Someone researching is looking for a landing page with information on it. You need to give it to them (and to Google or your QS is going to be rubbish).
A lead capture process.
There is no point paying for someone to visit your site and then letting them disappear forever. You need a way to keep in contact with them. The usual approach is to offer some kind of incentive in exchange for their email address.
You’ll see an example of how this works on this page. You arrived here looking for information, I’ve given you some. If you find it useful and like my writing style you might fill in the form below. When you do that your email address is added to my list at ConvertKit - the email service I use.
A lead nurturing process.
You need a process for making sure that your prospect thinks of you when they’re ready to buy. Probably the cheapest and easiest is by email. I say easiest but it’s not that easy, mainly because you don’t really know anything about this person. They’ve indicated a passing, possibly fleeting, interest in what your business does, but apart from that they’re strangers.
I’m not the right guy to give you advice on email marketing. Peter Carruthers is. He's assembled what's possibly the best course on email marketing for smaller businesses.
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