Full funnel media planning means spreading your budget across all three stages of the buying journey, top of funnel (awareness), middle of funnel (consideration) and bottom of funnel (conversion), and giving each stage its own channels, creative and KPIs. The aim is to build future demand and capture today’s demand at the same time, instead of spending everything on the last click.
This guide defines TOFU, MOFU and BOFU in media terms, maps channels to each stage, explains the brand versus performance research you will hear quoted, and gives you three ways to split a budget, with a fully worked $40,000 example and a formula for capping bottom-funnel spend.
Key takeaways
- TOFU builds reach and memory among people not yet shopping. MOFU gives interested people reasons to choose you. BOFU converts people who are ready to buy.
- Binet and Field’s IPA research found an average optimum of about 60:40 brand to activation for consumer brands. For B2B, their work with the LinkedIn B2B Institute points to roughly 50/50.
- The right ratio varies by category, brand size, price and life stage. Treat 60:40 as a starting hypothesis, not a rule.
- Bottom-funnel spend has a ceiling set by how many people are ready to buy. Calculate it, fill it, and put the rest higher up.
- A funnel only works when stages feed each other: TOFU viewers become MOFU audiences, MOFU visitors become BOFU retargeting pools.
What is full funnel media planning?
Full funnel media planning is building one media plan that covers awareness, consideration and conversion together, with a budget, channel mix, creative and KPI set for each stage. It replaces separate brand and performance plans with one connected plan, so the people you reach at the top become the audiences you convert at the bottom.
Most businesses drift towards the bottom of the funnel because it reports fast results. Search and retargeting show sales within days. Video reach campaigns show little in last-click reports. But bottom-funnel channels mostly harvest demand that already exists. If nothing refills the top, the pool of ready buyers shrinks and cost per acquisition rises. A full funnel plan is the fix. If you are new to planning, start with our step-by-step guide on how to create a digital media plan, then use this post to shape the budget split.
What are TOFU, MOFU and BOFU?
TOFU (top of funnel) is awareness: reaching people who are not yet looking to buy. MOFU (middle of funnel) is consideration: people comparing options and learning. BOFU (bottom of funnel) is conversion: people ready to buy, sign up or enquire now. Each stage needs a different audience size, message, channel and success metric.
| Stage | Buyer mindset | Media goal | Audience size | Example KPIs |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| TOFU: awareness | “I don’t know you yet” | Reach new people, build memory | Largest: whole category | Reach, CPM, video completion, brand lift |
| MOFU: consideration | “I’m comparing options” | Educate, create preference | Medium: in-market and engaged | Engaged visits, cost per landing page view, time on site |
| BOFU: conversion | “I’m ready, convince me” | Convert, remove friction | Smallest: high intent | CPA, conversion rate, ROAS |
KPIs for each stage are covered in more depth in our post on media planning KPIs. For now, the key point is that judging TOFU on CPA is like judging a seed on how much fruit it produced this week.
Which channels work best at each funnel stage?
Use broad, low-cost-per-reach channels for TOFU (YouTube, CTV, TV, OOH, Meta and Instagram reach campaigns), content and targeted engagement channels for MOFU (Demand Gen, Meta traffic and engagement, creators, generic search), and intent or audience-based channels for BOFU (brand and product search, Shopping, retargeting, Performance Max, lead forms).
Channels are not locked to one stage. YouTube can build awareness or drive sales depending on the campaign objective and targeting. The table shows the typical role in a plan.
| Channel | Typical stage | Why | Buying objective (example) |
|---|---|---|---|
| TV, CTV, OOH | TOFU | Mass reach, high attention, low cost per reach at scale | Reach, GRP or impression targets |
| YouTube reach and video | TOFU, MOFU | Sight, sound and motion at low CPM | Video reach, views |
| Meta and Instagram | All three | Reach, engagement, traffic and sales objectives in one platform | Awareness, Engagement, Traffic, Sales |
| Creators and influencers | TOFU, MOFU | Trust and demonstration | Reach, views, clicks |
| Google Demand Gen | MOFU | Visual ads across YouTube, Discover and Gmail | Clicks, conversions |
| Generic search | MOFU, BOFU | Captures category research | Clicks, leads |
| Brand search, Shopping | BOFU | Highest intent, lowest CPA | Conversions, ROAS |
| Retargeting (Meta, Google, programmatic) | BOFU | Re-engages people who already visited | Conversions |
Meta Ads Manager groups its campaigns under six objectives: Awareness, Traffic, Engagement, Leads, App promotion and Sales. That maps neatly onto the funnel: Awareness for TOFU, Traffic and Engagement for MOFU, Leads and Sales for BOFU.
What does Binet and Field’s 60:40 research say?
Les Binet and Peter Field analysed IPA effectiveness case studies and found that, on average, the most effective consumer campaigns spent about 60% on long-term brand building and 40% on short-term sales activation. Their later B2B work suggests closer to 50/50. They stress the optimum varies with category, brand size, pricing and other context.
According to the summary of the research on the IPA website, the optimum ratio in The Long and The Short of It was 60:40, and in the later Effectiveness in Context report it was 62:38. For B2B, the LinkedIn B2B Institute summary of the B2B findings recommends balancing brand building and activation with a 50/50 split.
Campaign’s 2018 report on Effectiveness in Context quotes the authors saying the optimum balance “varies by context”, and lists factors such as sector, purchase method, pricing, innovation, category life stage and brand size.
Brand vs activation is not the same as TOFU vs BOFU
Brand building means broad reach and memorable, emotional creative that works over months. Activation means targeted, rational messages that drive a response now. Most TOFU spend is brand building and most BOFU spend is activation, but MOFU sits in both camps. A YouTube ad that builds memory for a broad audience is brand; a Demand Gen ad pushing a product comparison to in-market shoppers is closer to activation. Classify each line of the plan by what it is meant to do, then check the total balance.
How should you split budget across TOFU, MOFU and BOFU?
Use three steps. First, set a brand versus activation balance from research and your context, such as 60:40. Second, calculate how much BOFU spend your demand can absorb before costs rise. Third, split the remainder between TOFU and MOFU based on how well known you are. Then test and move money quarterly using incrementality results.
Framework 1: Start from the brand and activation balance
Pick a starting ratio, then translate it into stages. A common translation of 60:40 is roughly TOFU 45%, MOFU 25%, BOFU 30%, with MOFU split between brand and activation. This is a planning convention, not a research finding.
Framework 2: Adjust for your situation
| Situation | Lean towards | Starting split to test (TOFU / MOFU / BOFU) |
|---|---|---|
| New brand or new category, low awareness | More TOFU | 50 / 30 / 20 |
| Growing challenger brand | Balanced | 40 / 30 / 30 |
| Established leader defending share | Steady TOFU, efficient BOFU | 40 / 25 / 35 |
| Short promotion or sale window | More BOFU, short burst | 25 / 25 / 50 |
| B2B with long sales cycle | More MOFU nurture | 35 / 35 / 30 |
| Small budget, new direct-to-consumer brand | Capture demand first, then build | 20 / 30 / 50, shifting up as sales grow |
These splits are TechMachaw starting points for testing, not benchmarks. The right answer for your brand comes from your own tests.
Framework 3: Cap the bottom of the funnel
BOFU channels only have so many ready buyers. Past that point, extra money buys the same people more often or bids up the cost of the last few clicks. Estimate the ceiling:
Formula: Retargeting ceiling = Audience pool × Target monthly frequency × CPM ÷ 1,000
Formula: Search ceiling ≈ Monthly searches × Achievable impression share × CTR × Average CPC
Put BOFU money up to the ceiling, then send the rest to MOFU and TOFU, which grow the pools that BOFU converts. Our guide to setting a digital advertising budget covers the other methods for setting the total.
Worked example: splitting $40,000 a month across the funnel
Example: a D2C mattress brand has $40,000 a month. Using a 60:40 brand to activation start, it plans TOFU 45% ($18,000), MOFU 25% ($10,000) and BOFU 30% ($12,000), checks that BOFU fits inside its retargeting and search ceilings, and moves any excess BOFU money up to MOFU.
All numbers below are illustrative.
Step 1: Check the BOFU ceiling
- Site visitors in the last 30 days: 250,000. Target frequency: 8 a month. Retargeting CPM: $1.80.
- Retargeting ceiling = 250,000 × 8 × $1.80 ÷ 1,000 = $3,600.
- Brand and category search: 120,000 searches a month, 80% achievable impression share, 8% CTR, $0.46 CPC. Ceiling ≈ 120,000 × 0.8 × 0.08 × $0.46 = $3,532.80.
- Shopping and Performance Max budget the team is confident can scale: $5,000.
- Total BOFU ceiling ≈ $12,000. The planned $12,000 fits. If the ceiling were $9,000, the extra $3,000 would move to MOFU.
Step 2: Allocate by channel
| Stage | Channel | Budget | Planning metric (example) |
|---|---|---|---|
| TOFU | YouTube video reach | $9,000 | At $0.90 CPM: 10 million impressions |
| TOFU | CTV | $5,000 | At $4 CPM: 1.25 million impressions |
| TOFU | Meta and Instagram awareness | $4,000 | At $0.80 CPM: 5 million impressions |
| MOFU | Meta traffic and engagement | $4,000 | At $0.08 per landing page view: 50,000 views |
| MOFU | Google Demand Gen | $3,000 | At $0.12 CPC: 25,000 clicks |
| MOFU | Creator videos (4 creators) | $3,000 | Fixed fees, tracked with UTMs |
| BOFU | Search (brand and category) | $3,500 | At $0.46 CPC: about 7,600 clicks |
| BOFU | Shopping and Performance Max | $5,000 | Target ROAS set by margin |
| BOFU | Retargeting | $3,500 | Within the $3,600 ceiling |
| Total | $40,000 |
The TOFU line delivers about 16 million impressions. Use our reach and frequency calculator to check what reach and frequency that buys in your target audience, and our guide to CPM, CPC and CPA for the unit maths. The same method works at any budget size: a $50,000 monthly budget at 45 / 25 / 30 becomes $22,500 / $12,500 / $15,000.
Step 3: Review and move money
After a month, compare stage costs to plan. If retargeting frequency passes 12 and CPA rises, the pool is saturated: move money to MOFU. If brand search volume grows after a TOFU burst, the upper funnel is feeding the lower one and has earned its budget.
How do you connect the funnel stages?
Connect stages with audiences and sequencing. Build MOFU audiences from people who watched your TOFU videos or engaged with posts, build BOFU retargeting pools from MOFU site visitors, and exclude recent buyers. Tag every link with consistent UTM parameters so you can see how people move between stages in analytics.
- Video viewers to MOFU: people who watched 50% or more of a TOFU video are a warm, cheap audience for consideration ads.
- Engagers and visitors to BOFU: product page visitors and add-to-cart users get offers, reviews and guarantees.
- Creative sequencing: story first, then proof and comparisons, then the offer.
- Exclusions: remove recent buyers from BOFU and cap frequency at every stage.
- Measurement: consistent UTM parameters across every stage and channel.
Common full funnel planning mistakes
- Judging TOFU on last-click CPA. It will always look expensive. Judge it on reach, attention and brand lift.
- Overspending BOFU past its ceiling. Retargeting frequency climbs and CPA rises without adding sales.
- Same creative at every stage. A discount ad to strangers and a brand film to cart abandoners both waste money.
- Copying 60:40 blindly. A seven-day sale and a new category launch need very different splits.
- Cutting TOFU in a downturn and expecting BOFU to hold. The pool of ready buyers shrinks with a lag.
- No incrementality testing. Without lift tests, you cannot tell which stage actually adds sales.
What this means for marketers and creators
What this means for marketers and creators
- Marketers: label every line of your plan as TOFU, MOFU or BOFU and as brand or activation, calculate your BOFU ceiling before approving budgets, and report each stage on its own KPIs. Agree the split with finance up front so TOFU is not the first line cut. Our glossary entry on reach is a useful reference when setting TOFU goals.
- Creators: you can sell into every stage. Pitch reach-focused content for TOFU, tutorials and reviews for MOFU, and trackable links or codes for BOFU. Showing a brand where your content fits in its funnel makes your rate easier to approve.
Frequently asked questions
What is full funnel marketing in media planning?
Full funnel media planning is building one plan that covers awareness, consideration and conversion together, with separate budgets, channels, creative and KPIs for each stage. It aims to build future demand and capture current demand at the same time, rather than putting all the money into last-click channels such as search and retargeting.
What is the 60/40 rule in marketing?
The 60/40 rule comes from Les Binet and Peter Field’s analysis of IPA effectiveness case studies. They found that, on average, the most effective consumer campaigns spent about 60% on long-term brand building and 40% on short-term sales activation. The authors say the best ratio varies by category, brand size, price and life stage.
How much budget should go to top of funnel?
There is no fixed figure. A sensible range to test is 35 to 50% on top of funnel, more for new brands and launches and less for short sales. First calculate how much bottom-funnel spend your demand can absorb, then split the rest between awareness and consideration based on how well known your brand already is.
Is 60/40 right for B2B?
Binet and Field’s B2B work, published with the LinkedIn B2B Institute, suggests B2B brands balance brand building and sales activation closer to a 50/50 split. Long sales cycles and many decision makers mean consideration and nurture activity matter more, so B2B plans often put a bigger share into the middle of the funnel.
What channels are used for bottom of funnel?
Bottom-of-funnel channels target people ready to act: brand and product search, Shopping ads, Performance Max, retargeting on Meta, Google and programmatic, lead forms and email to warm contacts. They usually show the lowest cost per acquisition, but their scale is limited by how many people are already in market.
How do you measure full funnel campaigns?
Measure each stage on its own KPIs: reach, frequency and brand lift for awareness, engaged visits and cost per landing page view for consideration, and CPA or ROAS for conversion. Then use incrementality tests or marketing mix modelling to see how upper-funnel spend lifts lower-funnel results over time.
Next steps: Take your current plan, label each line by stage, and calculate your BOFU ceiling this week. Then revisit the total with our guide on how to set a digital advertising budget. For more practical media planning guides, join the free TechMachaw newsletter.
