Tripwire Funnels: Your Complete Guide With Examples (2024)

A tripwire funnel is a sales funnel that uses a low-priced initial offer designed to get more leads to become buyers at an earlier stage in the buyer journey.

By using a tripwire funnel to get customers into your sales funnel quicker, you can then upsell them to more expensive premium products or services and increase revenue faster.

Sounds simple right? And it is…but there are some subtle tricks to the tripwire sales funnel you need to be aware of to make this work for you. Read on to find out how (and why) to get this funnel setup in your business.

A tripwire funnel works by making an irresistible offer to your leads and prospects to get them to buy.

It can be difficult to sell a higher priced offer to a cold prospect on their first visit. A tripwire funnel is a powerful way to get them off the fence, turn them into a customer and improve the conversion rate of your offer.

Aside from the obvious benefit of making sales revenue, turning a lead into a customer means you can market your additional products and services to them - with the goal of increasing the lifetime value of your customer.

A tripwire funnel will provide the following benefits:

• Helps offset advertising costs
• Allows you to grow a loyal customer base faster
• Increases average order value (Increases customer spend)

Let’s unpack each of these in a little more detail;

1) It allows you to offset advertising costs.

With a tripwire funnel, using a low-ticket initial offer means your conversions at the early stage in the funnel will typically be much higher.

This means you can drive paid traffic (using channels like Facebook Ads) to your funnel and help cover your ad costs with the first sale in your funnel.

2) Allows you to grow a loyal customer base faster

By offering an initial low priced (tripwire) offer to your market, you can appeal to a wider audience and get your product into the hands of more customers.

This gives you the opportunity to overdeliver to these customers with your first product and build a stronger relationship that grows the trust of your audience.

3) Increases average order value and customer lifetime value

As with most sales funnels, the focus is on optimizing the value of every customer that enters your funnel.

A tripwire funnel gives you multiple opportunities to increase the amount that a customer spends with you.

Firstly, it gives you the opportunity to get that first sale quicker (through the tripwire offer).

It then gives you the potential to sell your core offer (through a one-click upsell) after the sale of the tripwire. You can also add order bumps to this offer to further increase value.

One final way you can increase value is by adding a downsell from your core offer - so you present an alternative (lower-priced) option for buyers that are not ready to commit to the pricing of your core offer.

The strategy on how to set all this up is covered in the next section...

There are a few ways you can setup your tripwire funnel. For the purposes of this article, we’ll cover the most commonly used variations of this funnel.

Feel free to adapt these to your own requirements as you build your sales funnel.

The two main tripwire funnel variations we’ll be looking at:

This was the original format for the tripwire funnel - and makes the tripwire offer straight to your prospect at the very start of your funnel.

This format is still in use today and works well - particularly if you have a low priced tripwire such as a free+shipping offer, a $1 trial or very low priced tripwire offer.

Here’s the flow of this funnel:

1. Tripwire Offer Sales Page (with exit popup)
2. Checkout Page
3. Core Offer Sales Page (One click upsell)
4. Order Confirmation or Offer wall page

Here’s an detailed look at these steps:

The Tripwire offer sales page

On the first step of this funnel you present your “tripwire” offer. This needs to be an irresistible offer - usually a heavily discounted version of one of your existing products, or an offer created specifically for this funnel.

This sales page can include a video or video sales letter, although for the lower value items usually offered as a tripwire, this isn’t necessarily required.

Recommended pricing:

Although this is a sales page, there are a few clever ways you can also add lead capture to this page in case your buyer skips your offer:

2-Step Checkout Form: Using a checkout which includes the name and email fields on the first step gives you the opportunity to capture these details up front. You can then setup an abandoned cart sequence if your prospects do not complete the checkout within a certain time.

Exit popup optin form: Use an exit pop (a popup that triggers when the user cursor leaves the browser window) is another great way to capture leads exiting your funnel. Offering a lead magnet or other freebie incentive to get these prospects on your list gives you another opportunity to market to these leads who didn’t purchase.

Checkout page

Your checkout page can be a separate step in your funnel, or can also be included on your sales page if your funnel builder (LINK) platform supports this. This can help aid conversions as your visitor can start the checkout right on the same page.

Your checkout page should ideally include a guarantee that makes your offer risk free for your buyer (e.g. 30 day no questions asked guarantee). You should also use social proof close to your checkout if you have it available such as a customer testimonial.

Core Offer Sales Page

Directly after the purchase of your tripwire offer, you’ll use a sales page to offer your “core” product.

You can use a video sales letter on this page if you can create one - this should definitely be something you test if you can.

Typically this would be a mid to high ticket offer - anywhere from $99 to $499. This could be your flagship online course, mentorship program or higher ticket software product (perhaps on a yearly plan).

If your checkout or funnel builder supports it, this page should be a one-click upsell. This means your buyer does not have to re-enter their credit card information, lowering the barrier to purchase (think about Amazon and their one-click checkout).

Order Confirmation or Offer Wall (after purchase)

The order confirmation page is where you’ll confirm the purchases made by your customer - and let them know how they’ll get access to their products. You should also tell them what happens next - such as which emails to expect from you.

You may also consider creating an “offer wall” on this page - this is a way of utilizing the extra page real estate as you know that people landing on this page are proven buyers. An offer wall is simply a section of your page with additional offers to entice your buyer to spend more with you.

Usually these would be special offers - either a discount coupon with links to your most popular products (especially if you’re an ecom store) - or perhaps a limited time pricing deal for one of your other flagship products.

Although it seems strange to make more offers here - psychologically your buyer has already proven themselves to trust you so making additional offers here will almost always result in a revenue increase.

Remember: If you don’t make an offer, you’re 100% guaranteed not to make a sale. So it doesn’t hurt to add an offer here if you have one available and test this strategy.

Optimizing Revenue in Your Tripwire Funnel

Not every customer that enters your funnel will be ready to take your core flagship offer. To optimize revenue from these customers, you can add a downsell offer.

This downsell offer is shown to customers who decline your core offer - usually linked via a “no thanks button” on your core offer sales page.

A downsell offer can be a simplified version of your core offer with a lower price point. This might be a version without some of your bonuses or added extras.

You can also try offering a payment plan on your downsell page for customers that cannot afford the full price of your core offer up front.

The 2-step tripwire funnel works in much the same way as the standard tripwire funnel, with one exception: the introduction of an initial opt-in page step.

By adding the opt-in page, this means your visitor must become a subscriber before they see your “tripwire” offer.

A 2-step tripwire funnel can help increase your conversion rate by ensuring that only qualified leads are sent through to the next step of your sales funnel.

This can help you focus your efforts on leads that are more likely to convert, and improve your overall conversion rate. Additionally, a 2-step funnel can help you weed out unqualified leads and save you time and money in the process.

Here are the main stages in a 2-step tripwire funnel:

1. Opt in Landing Page (Lead Magnet Offer)
2. Tripwire Offer Sales Page
3. Checkout Page
4. Core Offer Sales Page (One Click Upsell)
5. Order Confirmation or Offer wall page

As you can see the rest of this funnel after the initial opt-in lead magnet landing page step is the same as the tripwire funnel above. It can also be optimized with additional upsells and downsells in the same way.

Why add an Opt in Landing Page?

The initial Opt-in landing page step gives you the opportunity to turn your visitor into a lead as soon as they land in your funnel.

You do this by offering them something of value - a lead magnet - in exchange for their email address.

Your lead magnet should be high value and be closely related to the topic or focus of your tripwire & core offer which are presented after the opt-in.

Recommended lead magnets for tripwire funnel

When creating your lead magnet, you should ensure it represents amazing value for your prospect. You want your prospect to get value from your lead magnet as this will encourage them to trust your business and make them more likely to buy from you.

A great lead magnet should also be quick and easy to consume - so your prospect gets value faster.

Some lead magnets that have worked well for us include:

As with most funnel strategies - it’s always best to test to see what works best for your business and offer.

The truth is that the effectiveness of adding an opt-in page to your tripwire funnel depends on a few key factors:

- Your Traffic: How qualified is your traffic? Are they already familiar with you or your products already? Have they been referred from a trusted source? Cold traffic can sometimes be tricky to convert into an immediate sale - so offering something “free” initially can help build trust.

- Your Tripwire Offer: If you have a higher priced initial tripwire offer, you might want to test having an opt-in step first. You can capture the visitors details and follow-up with them if they don’t buy your tripwire offer.

You should also consider the time and resources your business has to create a high value lead magnet or content asset. If you don’t have something that you can use you will need to take time to create this which could mean a delay in getting your funnel up and running.

If you don’t have a lead magnet - you may wish to start with the 1-step tripwire funnel and then test the 2-step once you have a lead magnet you can offer.

The Level 7 Masterclass sales page is presented directly after the opt-in, and the page is well optimized to drive prospects through to convert before receiving their free download.

At the top of the page you can see a clear message that the resource will be delivered to your inbox in a few minutes - this is important to ensure the visitor does not get distracted by the resource right away.

The page is also further optimized by the use of a deadline timer or evergreen timer - pushing further scarcity for this offer to drive further sales.

This “Ultimate Guide” tripwire offer is perfect as it covers a topic that is likely to be useful for anyone interested in Tarot Reading - Tarot Card meanings. This gives the tripwire wide appeal - and with it’s low $7 pricing, it’s likely to convert well to cold-traffic on the front end.

Biddy Tarot also use a number of optimizations to further increase the potential value of every visitor that enters this funnel including an expanded bundle offer for $47 (down from $95) in the pricing section, and a countdown timer on the sales page to push urgency and scarcity.

The initial lead magnet offer, a PDF guide to building your own home gym, is an excellent lead into the home gym training & meal plan offer. The most effective 2-step tripwire offers use a lead magnet and offer which are closely aligned and complementary to each other.

It’s fair to assume that prospects that have an interest in building their own home gym are likely to also be well qualified a great audience for an offer on how to train in their home gym they are building.

In this tripwire funnel, the tripwire offer is discounted from the usual $97 price to $49 - which further incentivises the sale for a prospect.

Sabri Subi’s Digital marketing agency King Kong uses a 2-step tripwire funnel to effectively drive leads from Facebook ads into their consulting and coaching offers.

Their initial lead magnet, “11 Steps to make facebook ads profitable” is a quick to consume PDF guide that promises to help small business owners and entrepreneurs make their facebook ads profitable.

After registering for the PDF lead magnet, you are immediately presented with a Video sales letter (VSL) which explains the unique strategies that King Kong agency has used to help grow various companies’ traffic and revenue.

Visitors are then presented with the opportunity to claim a free 30 minute strategy session.

The King Kong funnel takes visitors through a segmentation survey (application) to qualify leads further, and leads are segmented between product and service sellers - with specific offers for different offer types.

For most suitable leads, a further consultation for the King Kong Agency services is offered, whilst leads not found to be well matched for this are offered the option of training courses (to maximise revenue per lead).

Health and wellness company Exceed Nutrition use an interesting variation on the 2-step tripwire funnel to ensure their prospects get the best-fit tripwire offer presented to them.

Their funnel starts with a recipe pack lead magnet combined with meal planner and shopping list. This fits the criteria of a perfect lead magnet as it’s quick to consume and highly useful for their target audience (assuming traffic to this offer has been targeted at prospects with an interest in vegan or plant based diets).

Tripwire funnels present one of the best ways for you to turn prospects from free and paid traffic into customers in the shortest time possible.

Offering a low-cost, irresistible offer to customers at the beginning of the sales process allows you to quickly built trust and establish a relationship with potential buyers.

If you’re not yet using funnels in your business, or considering setting up your acquisition funnel, the tripwire funnel presents a great option that will fit with most businesses selling products and services online.

If you’re already using funnels within your business, take a look at how you might be able to use assets from those funnels to create your own tripwire funnel. In particular, do you have products you can use as lead magnets on the front end of a 2-step tripwire funnel, or a product or offer you can use as a tripwire offer to start generating buyers at the top of your funnel?

In our business, we’ve found that using tripwire funnels is one of the best ways to experiment with paid advertising, as it gives you the opportunity to instantly recoup at least some of your costs, giving you a potentially unlimited ad budget to test with.