Marketing Funnel Models: AIDA, AISAS, and Measurement Examples

May 7, 2026

Author: Shusaku Yosa

A marketing funnel organizes the path from awareness or interest toward an outcome such as purchase. It helps identify where support or improvement may be needed. Real customers do not all follow one sequence: they revisit comparisons, involve colleagues or use information without buying.

Separate a model of customer thinking from a report of observable behavior. A pageview does not directly prove interest, desire or purchase intent.

Compare the models

Model	Elements	Useful question
AIDA	Attention, Interest, Desire, Action	What must communication help the audience understand?
AISAS	Attention, Interest, Search, Action, Share	How should search and sharing touchpoints be supported?
Measured funnel	Entry, CTA, start, success	Where does an observable process stop progressing?

AISAS is associated with Japan’s Dentsu. Its relationship with SIPS is described in Dentsu’s announcement, in Japanese. AIDA is not exclusively an impulse-purchase model, and AISAS is not a complete explanation of every nonlinear journey.

A customer who buys through a referral without searching or sharing has not failed to follow the model. The model is a planning aid, not a requirement imposed on behavior.

Define a measurable sequence

Consider a fictional resource-request website. Start with 1,000 entry sessions and count sessions reaching each stage in order within the same session. Deduplicate repeated actions at each stage.

Stage	Count	Previous-stage rate	Definition to confirm
Entry	1,000	—	Included pages and acquisition conditions
CTA click	100	10%	Click within the included sessions
Form start	80	80%	Actual start, not merely display
Successful completion	40	50%	Success response and deduplication

Overall completion is 40 divided by 1,000, or 4%. It does not mean 40 distinct people or 40 sales. Choose a consistent unit: users, sessions or event occurrences. If later return visits matter, design that analysis separately.

A drop-off does not identify its cause

Pattern	Hypothesis	Verification
Few CTA clicks	Offer mismatch or poor visibility	Audience, content and placement
Clicks but few starts	Destination mismatch or technical issue	Device-specific arrival and form behavior
Starts but few completions	Effort, errors or unsuitable conditions	Field failures and successful submission
Completions but few useful inquiries	Audience or purpose mismatch	Inquiry content and duplicate handling

Combine analytics with observation, questions and implementation tests. Do not infer a psychological state from a rate alone. Nor should legally or operationally necessary fields be removed solely to raise completion.

Support return paths and group decisions

B2B users and approvers may be different people. Multiple people from one account may read the same asset. Do not force anonymous visits into a single identified buyer journey. Distinguish observable data from information a prospect supplies directly.

Provide routes back from a comparison to introductory material, information for internal evaluation and a clear way to ask about conditions. Retention or repeat purchase needs its own post-purchase stages rather than being assumed from acquisition success.

A funnel-definition worksheet

Record the objective, audience, entry, unit, success rule at each stage, sequence requirement, observation period, exclusions, duplicate handling, missing data, hypothesis, change, owner and review date.

Judge improvements through validated final outcomes and handling effort as well as intermediate rates. Adding more buttons may increase accidental clicks without helping anyone. Use models to ask better questions about customers and measurement to test observable behavior, keeping the distinction clear.

Review your results consistently

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