In today's video, follow along and watch over my shoulder as I build a complete lead generation funnel from scratch.
And it's not just any old funnel, it's one that's optimized for high conversions and built to give your new subscribers a satisfying and smooth signup process. First impressions count and with this method, you'll make a shining first impression!
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What Is a Lead Generation Funnel?
Every business needs to generate leads. A well-known lead generation technique is to give away a free report in return of email an address. The process of getting people to find, get interested in and sign up for an email list happens though a lead generation funnel.
You will need to build the following pages to create a lead generation funnel:
Let's see together how to build up these pages with Thrive Architect. Then, we'll go though the process of connecting your lead generation landing page with your email provider, so your lead generation machine can work seamlessly.
Funnel Building: The Tools
In the video, I'm using Thrive Architect to create the landing pages and Active Campaign as an example of how to integrate with an autoresponder system.
The Resources
PDF Guides and Opt-in Offers
To convince visitors to sign up to your email list, you'll need a bribe. This bride is most often a PDF of some sort.
If you're not sure what to include in the PDF, you can follow our free Thrive University course that explains how to create a compelling opt-in bribe in 6 steps.
If making the actual PDF is where you get stuck, take a look at this article on how to create a designer-worthy PDF (even if you have no design sense).
A good image to represent your PDF guide will make the offer more enticing. You can learn how to create one following this article.
And finally if you're looking for something more creative than a simple PDF, check out our article about 13 brilliant opt-in incentive examples you can use in your business.
Connecting Your Email Service
In the video, I show you how to set up the funnel using Active Campaign, but you can use any email provider you like.
We integrate with all major email services and have tutorials on how to connect with API here.
The Landing Page Funnel: Step by Step
1. The Lead Generation Landing Page
Create a new page on your site, give it a title (for internal use) and open Thrive Architect.
Go to page settings in to bottom menu and click on "change landing page template". This allows you to choose from one of the hundreds of landing page templates.
In the tutorial we use the set Elementary.
Once the landing page template is loaded you can customize the details and save the page.
2. The Confirmation Landing Page
Because we're setting up alead generation funnel with a double (or confirmed) opt-in process, you'll need to send new subscribers (right after they clicked the submit button on your opt-in form) to a page asking them to go to their inbox and confirm their subscription; a confirmation page.
Create a second page on your site call it confirmation page, but this time use the Yoast SEO plugin to put the page to NOINDEX and NOFOLLOW. This will avoid search engines indexing the page.
Open Thrive Architect and load the confirmation page from the set.
Customize and save the page.
3. The Download Landing Page
After your subscriber clicked on the "confirm subscription" link in the email, you want to redirect them to a download page.
Create a new page on your site, call it download page and add a random string of numbers to the URL. This will avoid the URL to be "guessable".
This page too, make sure to NOINDEX and NOFOLLOW with the Yoast SEO plugin so that your download page will not show up in search engines.
Edit the page with Thrive Architect and load the download page template.
Customize and save the page.
Now you have all the pages you need in the funnel, time to set everything up.
4. Configure Your Email Provider
You'll need to configure your email provider so that a confirmation email is sent and when clicking on the link in the email your subscribers are redirected to the download page.
This is different for every email provider, but a quick Google search should help you out.
5. Connect Your Lead Generation Landing Page With Your Email Provider
Connect your email service through API. You will only need to do this once for the first opt-in form you set up.
You can find tutorials for all major email providers here.
Go to your Lead Generation landing page and click on the opt-in form. In the sidebar, click on "Connect form with service" follow the set up wizard.
You'll be able to configure the fields you want to show (yes or no first name field) and you will also select the action after opt-in.
This action will be redirect to the URL of your confirmation page.
That's it, your whole funnel is set up and working!
Bonus: Download Your Cheat-Sheet!
​I've created a checklist that you can download and use as a reference guide as you build your own conversion boosting email funnel.
I hope you enjoyed this in-depth tutorial and if you have any question of comments you can leave them below.
Hi Shane,
Great post as always,by the way how do you create these images?that checklist image.
Hi Abdul,
For our images, we use a combination of stock images (Fotolia, Graphicriver etc.) and custom design work made by our designers (using Photoshop).
Hi Shane,
I use thrive content builder on several website, but how to import our custom template create for a website into an other one ? And why not the featuer to save these templates on the cloud ?
Thrive content builder is really amazinf now, great job!
Hello Cedric,
The way you can carry over designs from one site to another is by copying the entire source HTML of the page and pasting it in the source view on the other site.
More options for saving, importing and exporting templates are on the roadmap.
Very nice topic and perfect timing for me today. I am still very much interested in learning what to offer as a lead magnet so If you guys ever come out with that I would be all ears 😉 thank you
Hello Juan,
Yes, that sounds like an interesting topic to cover in a future post or webinar. Thank you for the suggestion!
HI Shane. Let me just say I’m not a ‘techie’ and I’m often unable to quickly figure out some of these tools. Are ‘Content Builder’ and ‘Landing Pages’ the same tool? I own ‘Thrive Content Builder’ but haven’t began using it. Do I have access to both ‘Content Builder’ and ‘Landing Pages’?
Yeah it’s all included in the same plugin
It’s funny because i was just following along your tutorials while I worked on some sample pages and found an old video from you that was not very good compared to how you present yourself now. I guess practice makes perfect.
Love your themes and TCB – limitless possibilities.
Yes, they’re both part of the same plugin. 🙂
Shane, an excellent tutorial! Very helpful, thank you!
Thank you, Randy! Glad you enjoyed this tutorial.
Hi Shane,
Thanks again man….But for me the unlock feature does not work on Chrome. Just wanted to let you know
It worked the fourth time Shane….so I am good 🙂
Okay, good to know. Sorry about the bugginess.
Thanks for putting this tutorial together. It’s nice to see someone doing it correctly and teaching others to do the same.
Thank you very much, Herman!
Yeah, you’re a great trainer, perfect measured pace and pronunciation. I’m an English teacher and you have got what it takes to train. I love your products. Keep innovating to smash the competitors and keep us happy. Much prefer you to the over hyped Americans, haha!!
Thanks Shane, Excellent tutorial! Just a couple of suggestions for Content Builder: It would be good to have a text shadow option for headlines created from the Paragraph / Text element box like you have done for content boxes as it would enable headlines to really stand out.
Also a colour dropper would be handy to pick out an existing colour on the web page in addition to the colour picker. Sometimes it’s frustrating swirling around with the colour picker trying to find the right colour to match up. Just a thought;-)
Hi Stephen,
I love the idea of the color dropper. I have no idea about the technical implications of this but I agree it would be a great tool to have. 🙂
Hi Shane,
I second the color dropper. Would be very helpful!
Keep up the awesome work!
Matt
+1 vote for the colour dropper.
Please don’t reinvent the wheel. Just install ColorZilla in your chrome and you got what you want. Let our ThriveGods focus on more pressing issues 😀
I really appreciate your tutorials Shane … I know you’ve created a great product but I have to work at understanding it all!
Fran
Thank you very much, Fran!
Super great tutorial Shane…love it. Do you recommend saving the customized funnel pages as templates for the future? That way you’ve got your structure and the custom branding.
Also, I noticed you upload the opt in gift to your wordpress site…do you think that is preferable to using something like dropbox (that’s what I currently do and I’m slowly and surely following the things you’re teaching).
Thank you!
About saving the templates: yes, that’s what the saving feature is for. 🙂 Personally, I often start from scratch for every new funnel, because I love testing new things. But I still save and load templates to make the creation of split-test variations faster.
I don’t think the upload location of the PDF matters… at least, I can’t think of any way it would matter. Maybe someone will correct me on this. But there’s no particular reason I upload it to WP, other than convenience.
Shane, excellent post and training! Very timely for me. Through your training, I keep learning more and more on how to better utilize your products. After today’s training, I am more confident to design my landing page funnel from scratch using Thrive Themes and Content builder than going with an external service. So you educate and saving me money. I know the more I use the products the more proficient I will get. Your training and insight are invaluable.
Thank you.
Thank you very much, Kevin!
Thanks for an awesome tutorial, it’s really helpful.
Thank you, Kim!
Shane.
It looks to me like you are trying to put all those other WP plugins and themes out of business. Every time I get an email for the shiny new bell and whistle that is available via WP, YOU seem to already have a solution available (as part of my Thrive membership) for free! LOVE this new video. Takes all the guess work out of what to do. Thanks for adding more value every month.
I would like to request a tutorial that takes us through the TCB elements (I know you keep adding more). In detail with real world examples in the tutorial that use said elements. Such as the difference between a Content Box vs Content Container and using the design elements when to use the right tool for your desired look.
Thanks again!
Last 2 requests… 1) My AR gives me the opportunity to let the client choose the correct AR based on their menu choice in a drop down menu. I’d love to see this incorporated into the Thrive Opt-In. I know I can just copy the HTLM form and use that now, but I’d like something that would keep the same look on the page.
2. Being able to move (or float) the menus of elements when working on that element would be GREAT! Sometimes the menu of choices gets in the way of the content I am trying to edit. (Quick, but inefficient hack for anyone who is having the same problem – Zoom in or out of your browser to be able to edit content that the menu is blocking – this is my solution until they give us floating menus.
Keep up the great work!
Thank you for your comment, Harvey!
And thanks for your suggestion, as well. I think a single video with all the elements would simply be too long (there are so many of them!). But I agree that we could do a better job of providing tutorials for each of the elements.
Your first request has just been fulfilled today. The lead generation element in TCB now supports drop down menus and check boxes.
The second request is something we’re working on in the scope of a redesign of the UI. It won’t happen very soon, but it will happen. 🙂
Hi Shane, excellent step-by-step presentation, very informative as usual. What I’d like to understand is if TCB can place a small opt-in form inside a WordPress theme sidebar, rather than starting the opt-in process from a landing page, if you see what I mean…anyone visiting my blog will have the option of opting-in directly from the sidebar.
It’s not possible to use TCB to create anything outside of the content area, I’m afraid. But we’ll have something that lets you do what you have in mind, early next year.
You can do it with ThriveLeads plugin.
Thank you! Great content. Lots of extra bonus info. High value:)
Thank you very much!
What a valuable tutorial! I think I MIGHT have figured out how to create my first sales funnel, but this surely saves me hours of trial and error. Thanks again for a superb training session, Shane.
Thank you, Tip! Glad you found this tutorial useful. 🙂
Really great video. What is missing is how do we implement it? I go to various websites and get the opt-in pop-ups, but don’t know how that is done.
Hello Alfred,
You can create a pop-up using the Thrive Lightbox feature. Here are some relevant links for you:
– Thrive Lightbox Feature
– How to Create a 2-Step Opt-in Form
– How to Create an “Exit Intent” Lightbox
Hallo Shane, endlich mal jemand, der step by step alles gut erklärt. DANKE !
Best greetings from Bavaria, Steve ( Page is in development, i follow your good instruktions and you give me a line..)
Dankeschön! 🙂
Sooo Very helpful. Many explain this but leave so much out. My Thrive Themes subscription comes with the best how to use WordPress course I have seen Thank you.
Thank you very much, Rob!
Hi Shane,
Any tips on using the double opt-in confirmation step in a sequence with InfusionSoft.
InfusionSoft doesn’t have lists, instead it groups people and sets of actions via tags. I can get the form submission to add the ‘bonus-thing-XYZ’ tag and know who has been sent what down the track.
Where I get stuck is the double opt in.
If a person is confirmed already in my account, InfusionSoft doesn’t send out the opt-in confirmation email the second or subsequent times. And just sends people to the next step directly.
Do I skip this step on all sequences? Or keep it in and have it only fire if people are signing up for stuff from me for the first time and modify the ‘go to your inbox and click the link’ video/instructions to explain this quirk?
Suggestions, ideas or work arounds welcome.
PS. Thanks for being so committed to speed, conversions and style #Love
Hello Fiona,
Personally, I think the double-opt-in step in Infusionsoft is terrible and it doesn’t let me customize the subscriber experience the way I want. Because of that, I use a “self-made” confirmation process in Infusionsoft where the confirmation link adds a new tag and the tag starts the next sequence. This means that even existing subscribers have to go through the same process again, which admittedly isn’t great either. What you could do is add a condition to your campaign, where existing contacts will get the email with a link to the download page immediately. But then the opt-in process doesn’t quite add up anymore, because they’ll still see your confirmation page with the message about having to confirm the address.
What I can say is that so far, no one has complained about having to go through the confirmation process more than once.
Hi & thanks fora very valuable tutorial on making a list building funnel! I tried Aweber earlier but struggled to use it so I changed to the free version of mailchimp. T therefor did not succeed in following that part of your instructions. So – are there another tutorial on this or would you recommend me to go back to Aweber? I see that mailchimp also offer a pro-version that is half the price og aweber. Well – I want this to be as simple a poosible – and would like your advice – whats the easiest for me working from thrive themes :)?
Hello Kristin,
You can do the same thing in MailChimp, it’s just a bit less intuitive. Here’s a video that shows you how to do it.
Hello Shane. Great video and information on how to use this. I shared it via Twitter but the document remains locked. Can you send across to my email (which is in you db since I own Thrive).
Thanks
Email sent!
Thanks a lot !!
You’re welcome!
Just watched this video … WOW … wish I’d seen it much earlier!! Incredible value Shane and much appreciated is the clear and detailed advice on improving what is already a great product.
Can you tell me: will the double opt-in process work with sendinblue? If so, do you know how to implement this?
Thanks again for the great advice you offer. As a new member and one who has ‘tried out’ many self titled mentors, I can honestly recommend you and Thrive Themes as head and shoulders above most.
Hi Ron,
Thank you very much for your comment!
I’ve not used SendinBlue myself, but I assume this process will work with them as well, yes. It’s a standard practice for email marketing.
Thank you ! Can you please introduce a cheaper option than AWEBER?
I’ll see what I can do.
Try Campaign Monitor. It’s only $9/mo.
mail chimp its free
Can you tell me where I can find information on setting up a 2 step opt in process for opting in?
The instructions for the 2-step optin using TCB are here: http://thrivethemes.com/tkb_item/tcb-2-step-opt-in/
OMG, I am using sendreach autoresponder and they don’t even have an option to redirect them to the download link after they click the confirmation link. Pfffff don’t buy sendreach guys…it is rubbish
Ouch, that’s not cool. Infusionsoft has a similar problem, but there are workarounds for it.
Wonderful tutorial. I would like to skip the email opt-in step, and instead have a user fill out my opt-in form, and if it validates upon clicking the submit button it will auto redirect to my download page. I don’t always setup my newsletter platform (mailchimp) to double opt-in, so it’s nice if I can simply redirect the user after they fill out the form in my lightbox.
Is that possible? Thanks!
Yes, that’s possible as well, although I’m not sure if it works with our current integration and MailChimp.
We are working on API integrations, which give you more freedom in choosing what happens after the opt-in.
Hi, Shane! Where can I learn how to do this (redirect the user to a Thank You page after they Opt in with the lightbox) with ActiveCampaign?
Hello Lisa,
When you connect your form to ActiveCampaign, you can set the thank you page URL right inside Thrive Leads. You can find tutorials here and here.
The share button feature for the cheat sheet isn’t working guys. Used with Chrome so not sure if it is a browser-specific issue.
Sorry about this issue, Alexander. I’ve sent you an email with the download link.
Hi thanks for the video.Can you please describe the last part of video(integrating pages together) for Mailchimp? I can’t find them on Mailchimp.
Hello Alireza,
Either this video or this video should help answer your question. 🙂
Great tutorial.
The content reveal in this article, is it the Content Builder one?
If not what did you use?
If it is any tutorials on how to set up?
Hello Keith,
Do you mean the content lock? If so, you’ll have to wait a bit longer before we release a plugin like that to Thrive customers. 🙂
Thanks shane I want to add If anybody has Apple there are some applications for free E-cover too. . Just search EBOOK COVER
Since you asked…
I love the indepth tutorials, but can you please break them up into shorter and more targeted videos. Perhaps a series. I dont always have an hour or two to watch videos at one time. I would love for the videos to be labeled with exactly whats in them.
Thanks for your input, Sarah!
I shared the link but couldn’t see where to get the download? Excellent tutorial and easy to follow.
Hi Joan,
I’ll send you the PDF via email.
Great training video Shane! Every video I watch I learn how to use something on ThriveThemes that makes building my sites easier! Thanks
Thank you for your comment, Tracie!
Hi Shane
Awesome tutorial and can’t wait to implement it for our landing pages. I would love to see some more content on Active Campaign integration too. Could you also let me know if you intend to have integrations in Active Campaign beyond lists? Thanks again
We’re working on further improvements to the ActiveCampaign integration, yes.
Hi Shane – I may have missed something blindingly obvious…in Aweber when you create the custom list settings for the free download (adding your own subject line and message) how do you make sure only this email goes to the people who have requested the download, not others who have signed up another way. Can you create multiple email responses all feeding into the same list? Please help!
As far as I know, you cannot. So, you have to create separate email lists for the different offers on your site.
Great video, but how do you get them to the first opt-in page? I’m used to working with Hubspot (in the past), and you need a call-to-action on the front page or at the end of a blog post that sends readers to the opt-in page. This funnel doesn’t show that. Where does the opt-in page go so that people will see it?
This would be the same here Gail.
You can put links on your website, have a button linking to this page, share the page on social media etc.
Hi shane,
Great video.However as I understand there are 3 pieces to the puzzle of a successful sales funnel ( Landing Page +Email Autoresponder+Payment Processor). will you consider doing a webinar clearing all the nuts and bolt of the process. It may look like Thrive themes +Aweber + ClickBank or GumRoad etc.
Looking Forward to hear your opinion.
Shane this video tutorial is awesome…here’s my main question…does this have to serve as a separate landing page that you are providing the link to or can you use it as a pop up when people come to your sight randomly and it pop ups after they click on site or scroll a little down the page etc…I am not clear on that part and that is what I am looking to do with my thrive content builder/landing pages. Thanks in advance for your help 🙂
Fantastic, thank you. New to WP. I’ve just bought content builder. Have WP theme installed (clunky). Was recommended to buy content builder and can see how to create landing pages as just demonstrated. Question:- do I need thrive theme rather than WP theme, and can I upgrade to membership if that’s the case?! Feel like that would have been the better recommendation from the get go…but have yet to work with content builder in my (new) WP site.
Hi Michelle,
You do not need our themes for this to work. But if you like them, of course we’ll happily welcome you as a member!
This was really helpful. I recently bought Thrive Leads and Thrive Content Builder. I was already planning to use the landing pages to redo my opt-in funnel, but while watching your video, I realized that I am making several unnecessary mistakes. I’m planning to work on this today, so this was great timing as well.
Thank you for your comment, Chris! Glad to know you found this video useful!
Thanks Shane, very clear – knocks the socks of Click Funnels at a fraction of the price (and gives users more control). But please could you give a guide to choosing an auto-responder, an essential partner for the landing page: the choice is bewildering and a lot of the comparisons online are tainted by affiliation deals. Can you help people choose between AgileCRM, Aweber, Constant Contact, ConvertKit, GetResponse, iContact, Listwire, MailChimp, TrafficWave or Infusionsoft? – Are there some you wouldn’t touch, and others which are better for different purposes? – It would be great to know which are best with Thrive.
Thank you for your comment, Titus!
I’ve answered the question about autoresponders in a different video that you can find here. Hope it will help!
Hi Shane! I love your tutorials! How do you do the circle video on top of your presentations? Would love to know thank you! Carole
Hello Carole,
This is a custom effect created by our video editor.
Hi Shane,
Nice tutorial.
Can you please show us how we can do it be Mailchimp? I am having no such features at mailchimp.
Kindly create a tutorial on it if you guys can
Thanks
~ Shakir Hassan