From Funnels to Flywheels: Evolving Performance Marketing for the Experience-First Consumer
Date: 13th August 2025, 10:00 AM
Location: Mumbai
Performance marketing is changing with consumers’ journeys being more varied and based on experiences. In an article published by Medianews4u, Senthil Kumar Hariram, Founder and Managing Director at FTA Global, outlines why brands must move beyond traditional funnel-based approaches towards more adaptive, flywheel-driven models.
According to this article, linear funnels, which have been traditionally created around the sequential stages of acquisition and conversion, are less useful as the consumer's journey continues to develop over time because people are engaging with brands through many different types of interactions/ touch points. The consumer's journey has become more dynamic, non-linear and shaped by the context of their current situation at the moment they are experiencing it throughout all stages of the user's journey.
Senthil illustrates that through the flywheel model, the consumer is the central focus. Through every interaction, the experience allows for consumers to remain engaged and retained long term, thus brands need to rethink how they build out their marketing systems that are currently built with a focus on consistency, personalization and seamless, cross channel experience for consumers.
The role of AI and LLMs' ecosystems will continue to evolve consumers' journeys. Since the way consumers discover and make purchase decisions is now primarily influenced by intelligent systems, brands need to ensure that their content, structure and messaging are aligned with user intent, contextually relevant, and appropriate across multiple platforms and channels.
Integrated relationships amongst technology, data and creativity are an additional important part. Performance marketing has been limited to primarily optimising campaigns; however, it has evolved into a system-oriented discipline where all the interconnected parts are continuously learning, adapting and improving results.
This perspective affirms that the future of performance marketing will be based on developing an experience-focused strategy to drive repeat purchase behaviours from customers instead of measuring only individual transactions. Brands able to transition to this model will have a significant advantage in developing stronger customer relationships and building sustainable growth.
Read the full article here: Link
