Why we stopped pitching funnels and started pitching channels

The funnel is a clean drawing. Awareness at the top, a purchase at the bottom, tidy arrows in between. It presents beautifully. Then a campaign launches and people arrive sideways, from a comment, from a friend’s screenshot, from a search two weeks later, and they leave through a door the drawing does not have.

Channels are harder to draw and easier to run. Each one has a format, a cost, a rhythm, and an honest answer to whether it is working.

We would rather pitch the thing that survives contact with a real launch.