Replace placeholders. Keep the structure. Aim for 60 minutes per diagnostic.
This is the cold-prospect version of the funnel diagnostic — lighter than an insider audit because you only have outside-in visibility. Every yellow-tinted box is guidance, not part of the final document — delete those before sending.
Anything in terracotta italic is a placeholder to replace
Aim for 2-4 observations per stage — quality over quantity
Lean toward more amber dots than red — it positions you as collaborative, not corrective
The hypothesis at the bottom should land in 3 short paragraphs max
Outside-in funnel diagnostic
[Brand Name]'s customer journey, from a stranger's view.
Five stages from first visit to loyal advocate. What I observed from the outside, what I couldn't tell, and where I think the highest-leverage opportunity lives. The amber dots are the conversation.
Brand[Brand Name (domain.com)]
Platform[Shopify / Other]
Community size[IG followers / customer count]
Notable signal[1 distinguishing fact]
Hint: Pull these from their About page or homepage. Numbers like "242,000 pet parents" or "17,500 new joiners/month" are gold — use them if they're public.
Working — confirmed strong
Leaking — visible gap
Need to confirm — can't see from outside
01Visitor
Lands on the site from social, paid ads, or search.
[Strong thing #1].[1-2 sentences with specifics]
[Visible gap #1].[Be specific — what did you observe, why does it matter]
[Question you can't answer from outside]
What to look for: Hero clarity (does it answer "what is this?" in 3 seconds), concern-first vs. category-first navigation, popup quality, ad-to-landing-page mismatch, mobile experience.
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02Subscriber
Joins the email list via popup or footer signup.
[Visible gap].[Sign up to their newsletter from your audit Gmail. Note exactly what arrives, when, and what doesn't.]
[What's in the welcome flow beyond email 1?]
[Are subscribers segmented at signup?]
What to look for: Footer signup quality (generic vs. specific incentive), segmentation question at signup (yes/no), welcome email arrival time, welcome email branding/copy, sequence beyond email 1.
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03First-time buyer
Adds to cart, checks out, places first order.
[Something they're doing right].[Could be a smart cart-abandon flow, bundle builder, AOV booster]
[Cart-abandon vs. browse-abandon flows?]
[First-to-second purchase conversion rate?]
What to look for: Cart-abandon flow (test by abandoning a cart), subscription option clarity at checkout, post-purchase confirmation email quality, bundle/cross-sell logic on product pages.
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04Repeat buyer
Comes back for a second, third, fourth order.
[Post-purchase education flow?]
[Replenishment reminder flow?]
[Are repeat buyers segmented separately?]
What to look for: This stage is mostly amber — you can rarely see what repeat buyers receive without being one. That's fine. Use it to demonstrate that you understand the lifecycle, even if you can't audit it directly.
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05Loyal advocate
Refers friends, joins VIP, posts UGC, comes back monthly.
[Loyalty mechanic that exists].[Rewards program, affiliate program, referral page]
[What's missing].[E.g., no referral program, no top-customer treatment, no advocacy mechanic]
[How are top customers treated differently?]
What to look for: Loyalty/rewards page existence, referral program (separate from affiliate), reviews integration, UGC/community presence, VIP tiers.
Initial hypothesis
[Hypothesis headline — one provocative sentence]
[Paragraph 1: What they've already done well. Acknowledge what's working. Ground them in their own reality.]
[Paragraph 2: What you think is missing — based only on what you can see from outside. Use words like "I think" and "what I can see suggests" — not "you have a problem."]
[Paragraph 3: Your tentative recommendation, framed as hypothesis-to-validate, not solution-to-buy. Connect it to the amber questions: "the answers tell us whether this is right."]
Tone check: Read this aloud. If it sounds like a sales pitch, rewrite it. If it sounds like a thoughtful colleague sharing what they noticed, you're there. The hypothesis earns the call — it doesn't try to close one.
If we spoke for 20 minutes
I'd want to understand the system before suggesting changes to it.
Most of what's wrong on this map is amber — things I genuinely can't see from the outside. Rather than guess, I'd love to walk through the questions together. The answers tell us where the bottleneck actually is, and whether my hypothesis above is right or off-base.
If after that conversation it's clear there's a focused project worth doing, I'll propose one. If not, you'll still walk away with a structured view of the funnel — useful either way.