A few years ago, Alaska Airlines was doing what most brands do: pouring money into top-of-funnel ads to boost awareness, and chasing conversions at the bottom. It wasn’t broken, but it wasn’t exactly lighting up the runway either.
Then came the shift. With the help of data consultancy Adswerve and Google’s open-source Meridian platform, Alaska Airlines discovered something big. Really big. Like, ‘$100 million in potential advertising revenue’ big. All thanks to a smarter, sharper mid-funnel strategy.
That middle slice of the customer journey, the part between “I’ve heard of you” and “I’m ready to buy”, became their secret weapon.
Rethinking the gap between awareness and conversion
Marketers have long been obsessed with the extremes. Awareness? Throw in some splashy TV or display ads. Conversions? Hit them with retargeting, paid search, and promo codes. But the in-between, where customers are curious, interested, maybe even leaning in, often gets overlooked.
Alaska Airlines flipped the script.
With Meridian, they built a fuller picture of how real people moved through the decision-making process. Not just which ad they clicked, but what actually nudged them forward, a podcast mention, a customer review, or even a radio ad during their morning commute. The mid-funnel strategy shifted their focus from being seen to being considered.
And that shift started turning passive interest into measurable action.
Going deeper than dashboards
Meridian isn’t your typical plug-and-play analytics tool. It pulls from a rich mix of signals, from seasonality to customer sentiment, to reveal patterns you won’t see in a basic dashboard.
One insight? When people searched broadly for flights (not just for Alaska), the team could use that baseline demand to separate natural interest from true ad impact. In other words, they stopped guessing and started knowing what was really working.
With that clarity, they tweaked their media mix, spending smarter, not more. Just by reallocating the budget, Alaska projected a 3% increase in return on ad spend. That’s a pretty clear vote of confidence for the mid-funnel approach.
Uniting brand and performance in one direction
Here’s where it gets even more interesting: Alaska didn’t just change its targeting. It changed how its teams work.
Brand and performance marketing strategy usually operate like estranged siblings, close in theory, disconnected in practice. But Meridian’s insights forced a reunion. Both teams began working off the same data. Messaging aligned. Spending evened out. Campaigns became cohesive stories instead of disconnected stabs at attention or sales.
The mid-funnel strategy became the bridge, connecting brand storytelling with business outcomes.
And it worked.
Why this matters for your business
You don’t need a Google-backed platform or a Fortune 500 budget to take something from this.
The real takeaway here is the mindset.
If you’re still only investing in the very top or bottom of the funnel, you’re probably leaving money on the table. Today’s consumers are skeptical, distracted, and more research-driven than ever. They don’t buy after one click. They buy because you stayed visible, added value, and built trust consistently, across moments that matter.
That’s what a mid-funnel strategy helps you do: guide the customer from “maybe” to “yeah, I’m in.”
Ask yourself:
- Are your brand and performance teams collaborating?
- Do you understand what your customer’s actual decision path looks like?
- Are you measuring the whole journey or just the final click?
If you’re not asking these questions, you might be missing your biggest growth lever.
The middle is the new edge
Alaska Airlines hasn’t pocketed that $100 million yet, but they’ve drawn the map. Their story isn’t one of overnight success. It’s one of smart evolution. They embraced tools that provided deeper insight and used those insights to act decisively.
As the marketing landscape gets noisier and privacy rules get tighter, it’s strategies like this that will separate the brands that thrive from the ones that fade.
Because the real action, and your next revenue breakthrough, probably isn’t hiding in more impressions or last-click conversions.
It’s in the middle.
Where curiosity lives.
Where intent starts to take shape.
Where trust is earned.
That’s the power of a mid-funnel strategy.
FAQs
- What’s the point of focusing on the mid-funnel?
It’s where people go from “maybe” to “let me look into this”, and that’s where serious intent lives. - How do I know if my ads are actually working?
Go beyond clicks. You need to understand how your brand fits into the full customer journey, not just the last step. - Is it worth connecting brand and performance teams?
Absolutely. When those teams work together, the message sticks, and it sells.