The three stages
A marketing funnel describes the path from never having heard of a brand to buying from it. The top of the funnel (TOFU) is awareness: reaching people who may need the product. The middle (MOFU) is consideration: people comparing options, watching reviews and reading about features. The bottom (BOFU) is the decision: people ready to buy who need a reason to choose you today. Each stage loses people, which is why the shape is a funnel.
Real buyers do not move in a neat line; they skip stages and loop back. The model is still useful because it forces you to ask what a specific viewer needs to hear at that moment.
Matching creator formats to each stage
Top of funnel content has to stop strangers: strong hooks, relatable problems, trends and POV videos. Middle of funnel content proves the product works: demonstrations, comparisons, tutorials and honest reviews. Bottom of funnel content removes the last doubt: testimonials, guarantees, offers and urgency.
A single creator shoot can feed all three if the brief asks for it. Plan a hook-led opener, a demonstration section and two endings, then cut versions for each stage instead of commissioning separate videos.
Measuring each stage
Judge each stage on its own job. Top of funnel on reach, hook rate and cost per thousand; middle on engaged views, clicks and add-to-carts; bottom on purchases and cost per purchase. Holding an awareness video to a purchase target will kill content that was feeding the rest of the funnel.
Watch the hand-offs too. If the top stage fills but the middle stays thin, the problem is usually what people find after the click, not the ad that brought them.
How it's used
We have plenty of TOFU hooks but no MOFU content, nobody explains how the product works.
Cut the demo section as a bottom-of-funnel ad for cart abandoners and keep the trend opener for cold audiences.