Funnel to flywheel: is flywheel marketing the new trend?

Updated on October 19, 2026: reviewed and updated the data.

Funnel to flywheel: is flywheel marketing the new trend?

If you have never come across flywheel marketing before, here is the short version: the flywheel model was put forward as a direct argument against the sales funnel.

In the funnel model, the customer becomes an afterthought once the marketing and sales action is over. Flywheel marketing does the opposite and puts the customer at the center, with the aim of keeping customers satisfied so that they recommend you to others and end up helping the company sell.

In this article we try to answer why the flywheel marketing model is worth more than the old marketing funnel, and how you can use it to create an excellent customer experience as your business grows and brings in more revenue.

The advantages of using the flywheel model in marketing

If you work in marketing, you probably already have a clear picture of how marketing and sales funnels work. Beyond being a mechanism for turning prospects into paying customers, the funnel does not carry much meaning. Whatever happens after the purchase usually gets very little attention. That gap is exactly where the flywheel model shows its potential.

One of the biggest and most noticeable advantages of the flywheel model is that it keeps working on the customer journey even after someone has become a customer. You nurture customers from the very first moment they buy, through the stage where they become experts (people with real knowledge of your product and/or service), and all the way to the point where they become advocates for your brand.

The flywheel image above shows how the customer sits at the center, or hub, of the wheel. Each focus area around that hub shows a way to move the customer closer to becoming an advocate for the business.

The model also makes it easier to pinpoint what is causing problems in marketing, sales and service. You can see which activities are spinning your flywheel faster and adding momentum, and which ones are slowing you down and creating snags or friction along the way.

Finally, the model spells out in some detail how customer satisfaction affects whether a marketing strategy succeeds. Put simply, satisfied customers bring the business more new customers.

Read on for a set of practical tips for working with the flywheel model, so your business can put it to good use and give customers a great experience.

5 ways to use flywheel marketing for a better customer experience

If you believe your business has to transform, then dealing with the challenges that come with that change is probably somewhere on your list of concerns. The good news is that you may already have most of what you need to build your own flywheel and pull ahead of competitors. Look back at the channels you already use, work out which parts of them fit each stage of the flywheel, and start from there.

The sections below go through the main steps you need to take to get the most out of the flywheel model and improve the customer experience.

Step 1: Learn the different flywheel stages

Naturally, the first thing you need is a set of flywheel stages. The model comes in a few different variations. HubSpot’s flywheel, for example, is a three-stage wheel made up of Attract, Engage and Delight.

The Appcues version of the flywheel puts the spotlight on the customer journey and on the focus areas that keep customers engaged. If you take that model as your example, you get four basic stages to build into your own flywheel.

Stage 1: Activate

In this stage, your goal is to help people who are not yet users (the Evaluators) become new users (the Beginners).

This is the stage where you convince prospects of the value of your product or service. One of the best strategies here is to launch a high-converting website that demonstrates your expertise, walks through real use cases for the product, and offers useful tips and extra value. Other options include free trials or high-value plans that stay free forever.

Stage 2: Adopt

In the Adopt stage, you are looking for ways to get new users to come back, by offering a focused solution whenever a specific need or task comes up.

This is also the stage where you have to concentrate on turning Beginners into Regulars: people who already understand the product(s) or service(s) well and are now looking for more of the value the business can offer them.

Find new and interesting ways to engage new customers and get them coming back more often, while also triggering that moment when they realize your product is exactly what they need. There are a few ways to do this:

• Create tutorials and detailed, step-by-step product walkthroughs
• Highlight features that are new or that users tend to overlook

Stage 3: Adore

The Adore stage is about turning Regulars into Champions: people who genuinely love your product or service and want to keep using it for the long term.

This stage works because of a finding that comes up again and again: keeping the customers you already have is much easier than winning new ones. Here are some examples of how to get customers to love your product:

• Share posts featuring useful resources and customer success stories.
• Use surveys and feedback forms to ask which features or benefits customers would like to see next.
• Invite customers to upgrade to a premium plan so they get bigger benefits.

Stage 4: Advocate

In this final stage, your Advocates help the business attract new customers. They raise awareness and bring people from their own networks of friends and contacts into the Evaluator stage.

This stage usually relies on testimonials, customer reviews and user-generated content (UGC), meaning content that customers create themselves. You can also look at ways to encourage customers to promote your product(s), such as launching affiliate programs or reward systems.

Step 2: Set the right metrics for each flywheel stage

Now that you know which areas you should be focusing on, set a few specific metrics and targets for each stage of the flywheel.

Sticking with the same example model from above, the metrics for each of your stages should include the following:

• Activate: Prospects who use the product; new trial sign-ups or first-time sales each month
• Adopt: How many customers are getting real value (compared with the total number of new customers), and how many customers complete the onboarding process
• Adore: Retention rate, average revenue per user (ARPU), customer lifetime value (LTV)
• Advocate: New prospects referred by existing customers, and sign-ups for an affiliate program.

Step 3: Pinpoint and address the areas that affect your flywheel

Once you have defined your KPIs, pay close attention to the places that have an effect on your flywheel. Look for anything that could slow down how quickly you attract new prospects, how well you keep loyal customers, and how well you stop existing customers from leaving the brand.

Below are some of the issues you may want to address, organized by each stage of the model:

Activate

• Improve your retargeting campaigns aimed at prospects
• Website security (prospects may not be persuaded to buy anything if your website is not secure)
• Team alignment (everyone in marketing, sales and customer service needs to be on the same page about promotions, features, new announcements and so on, to keep friction to a minimum)

Adopt

• Consistent, effective copywriting across your web pages, your blog and your knowledge base
• Keep your demos and onboarding materials up to date at all times
• Make upgrading easy (for example, moving from a Premium plan to a Pro plan)

Adore

• Improve your personalized content
• Make support easy to get (through live chat or a dedicated account manager)
• Make renewals and payments easy
• Deliver product benefits based on what your surveys and feedback forms tell you

Advocate

• Make it easy to share the product, or content that promotes it (for example, by encouraging user-generated content or reviews from existing customers, or by using social sharing)
• Recruit, onboard and manage your affiliates and product ambassadors

Step 4: Run CRO tests and experiments

Conversion rate optimization (CRO), the practice of raising the share of visitors who take the action you want, will always be an ongoing process for a business. Several key factors go into this work, so you will be reviewing, testing and adjusting continuously as you go.

Make it a habit, and a non-negotiable part of how the business runs, to set up different CRO tests on a regular schedule. Look at which campaigns work best at encouraging sales, at nurturing existing customers, or even at getting customers to refer the business to others or leave a testimonial.

You will always want to refer back to the stages of your flywheel, keeping your focus on the KPIs and on the possible friction points you assessed earlier. Experimenting with different processes and campaigns can improve the results you get at each stage.

Here are some examples of CRO tests you could run at each stage:

• Activate: Test different copy and landing page designs to get more purchases or sign-ups
• Adopt: Test using a few overlooked features as the main selling point for an upsell, where you offer a customer a higher-tier version of what they already use
• Adore: Test quick-response formats against detailed forms for the surveys on your pages.
• Advocate: Test different types of rewards for referred sales, for example a tiered reward structure

Step 5: Track and evaluate the results

Just as with a traditional marketing and sales funnel, you need to keep tracking and evaluating your flywheel model on an ongoing basis. Review your strategies at regular intervals, check them against the metrics you set at the start of your campaign(s), and make changes whenever they are needed.

Another advantage of the flywheel model over the marketing and sales funnel is that the flywheel keeps the business wheel turning (attracting customers, nurturing them and encouraging referrals), which adds momentum and lifts conversions at a steady rate.

In the end it all comes down to momentum, so a quick check can tell you whether you are on track to hit those goals and whether you are growing faster than you did before. Make sure your customers are satisfied, keep track of customer referrals, test your upsells and cross-sells, and look for any gaps that could hurt the business.

Key takeaways on flywheel marketing

The flywheel may well be the most important model a modern business can adopt, because it puts the customer at the center of every business activity that moves the company forward. It can take some time and it does require change, but the process is well worth the effort if it means you get to enjoy steady growth driven by your consumers and by the advocates who stand behind you.

Adapted by Adtek from an original VWO article (2020), updated on October 19, 2026.