Funnel Hacking
Don't invent your funnel — reverse-engineer the ones already spending money.
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Time to result
- ~weeks to results
- Steps
- 5
- Confidence
- 90%
Funnel hacking is Brunson's practice of systematically studying competitors' live funnels before building his own. He treats recurring ads as evidence of profitability, then clicks through, opts in, and buys to screenshot every page of the process. Before building any funnel he reviews 50 to 100 comparable funnels and pulls their best practices into every page. He describes it as 'searching for buried treasure' and then applying it back to his business.
Origin
Brunson's obsessive-compulsive personality led him to screenshot thousands of funnels for fun; he realized his habit of dissecting other people's pages was a repeatable research method he could systematize and teach.
Core principles
- 01If a company keeps spending on the same ad, it's probably working — copy what's proven.
- 02Buy through competitors' funnels and screenshot every page to see the full process.
- 03Study 50–100 funnels in your category before building your own.
- 04Bring the best practices of many into every page of yours rather than starting blank.
How to run it
- 1
Hunt for proven ads
Scroll social media specifically to find ads that stop you, especially ones you see over and over — repetition signals the advertiser is profitable.
Pro tip Screenshot the ad the moment it stops you.
- 2
Click through and capture every page
Follow the ad to the landing page, opt in, and screenshot each subsequent page to see the entire sequence.
- 3
Buy the product to see the full funnel
Purchase where necessary so you can observe upsells, order bumps, and the complete post-purchase flow.
- 4
Study 50–100 before building
Review dozens of funnels of the exact type you're about to build (book, webinar, etc.) and note recurring best practices.
- 5
Model the best into your own
Assemble your funnel from the strongest elements you found rather than inventing each page.
Watch out Don't just throw something up and hope — model deliberately from proven pages.
In the wild
Before building any new webinar funnel, Brunson goes through and studies 50 to 100 existing webinar funnels, pulling the best practices from each into every page of his own so the finished funnel represents 'the best art in the world.'
→ His funnels ship packed with proven best practices on every page instead of untested guesses.
Common mistakes
Building from a blank page
Creating a funnel from imagination ignores the free market intelligence sitting in competitors' live, money-spending funnels.
Is it for you?
Best for
Anyone building a new funnel type (book, webinar, trial) who wants to compress the learning curve.
Not ideal for
Truly novel offers where no comparable funnels exist to study.
From the transcript
“I will go through and look at 50 to 100 webinar funnels before I build my next webinar funnel every time”
“if the company is spending a lot of money on ads and you keep seeing it over and over... they probably are doing something right”
From the episode
Russell Brunson: How to Build a Million-Dollar Sales Funnel
Russell Brunson