Top of Funnel (TOFU)
Top of funnel is the awareness stage. anyone who could potentially become a customer but doesn't know your brand yet.
Top of funnel (TOFU) is the broadest layer of any sales funnel: the universe of people who match your ICP and don't yet know who you are. On LinkedIn, TOFU activity is mostly content distribution. posts, podcasts, comments, mentions. designed to surface the brand to ICP members for the first time.
TOFU success is measured in reach, impressions, and new-follower count, not in immediate revenue. The mistake most B2B teams make is judging TOFU on bottom-of-funnel metrics: "this post got 50,000 impressions and zero pipeline." That's TOFU working as designed. pipeline shows up later, after the prospect has seen 5–10 touches.
The practical implication: budget content energy with the funnel stage in mind. Posts at TOFU should have wider hooks (broader curiosity, less ICP-specific). Posts deeper in the funnel can be tighter. Treat them as different products.
Related terms
- Bottom of Funnel (BOFU)Bottom of funnel is the decision stage. prospects who already know your brand and are evaluating whether to buy.
- B2B Lead GenerationB2B lead generation is the process of identifying and capturing potential business customers. typically other companies or their decision-makers.
- LinkedIn AlgorithmThe LinkedIn algorithm is the ranking system that decides which posts appear in each user's feed and how widely a post is distributed.
See top of funnel (tofu) in practice
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