Mid-Funnel Marketing: Our Take on TikTok's ‘Heart of the Funnel’ Claim

TikTok has planted a flag in the part of the funnel most marketers quietly ignore. In a new piece on its business blog, the platform argues that the mid-funnel, the messy consideration stage between "I have heard of you" and "I have bought from you", is where modern growth is actually won. It calls this space the "heart of the funnel" and leans on an Ipsos x TikTok study to back the case. As a UK agency that spends client money across the whole funnel every day, we read it with interest and a healthy dose of scepticism. Here is what TikTok is claiming, what we think it gets right, and where we would push back.

What TikTok is actually claiming

The argument is built on a simple idea TikTok calls "joyful utility": the notion that its feed blends entertainment with genuine research, so people enjoy considering a purchase rather than grinding through it. From there, the post stacks up a set of stats from its Ipsos study:

• It positions TikTok as the "#1 most influential platform during consideration", claiming 29% higher emotional engagement and 40% stronger brand recall than rivals.
• 93% of daily TikTok users say they would use the platform for pre-purchase research.
• 71% of consumers say purchase decisions now take as long or longer than before, and 74% admit to abandoning baskets in recent months.
• Exposure to sponsored content makes users 22% more likely to consider a brand a top choice, and 68% of daily users who see sponsored ads want to buy immediately.
• Brands on TikTok are perceived as 30% more authentic and innovative, 18% more in-touch and 11% more trustworthy.

The recommendation that follows is the real point: invest in a mid-funnel presence, use TikTok to "pre-sell" warmer audiences before your lower-funnel campaigns, and watch acquisition costs fall as a result.

Where we think TikTok is right

On the big picture, we agree more than we disagree. The mid-funnel genuinely is the most under-served part of most media plans we inherit. Brands pour money into top-of-funnel reach and bottom-of-funnel "capture demand" search and retargeting, then leave a gaping hole in the middle where the actual decision happens. When a new client hands us their account, the consideration stage is almost always the thinnest line in the spreadsheet.

The point about longer, messier decision journeys also matches what we see in the data. Buying journeys have stretched out, people research across more touchpoints, and the tidy linear funnel marketers love to draw has not reflected reality for years. If consideration is taking longer, then the brands that show up usefully during that window, rather than just shouting at the start or chasing the click at the end, have a real edge.

And TikTok as a research engine is not hype. We have watched it become a genuine search and discovery tool, especially for younger audiences who open it before Google. Treating TikTok as a place where people actively look things up, rather than a brand-awareness toy, is the right mental shift.

Where we would push back

Now the scepticism. This is a study commissioned by TikTok, run for TikTok, published on TikTok's own blog, and its conclusion is that you should spend more on TikTok. That does not make the numbers wrong, but it does mean you should read them the way you would read any vendor's marketing: as a directional argument, not as independent proof.

Most of the headline figures are self-reported. "93% would use the platform for research" and "68% want to buy immediately" are survey responses about intent, not measured behaviour. Intent and action are very different things, and the gap between them is exactly where a lot of media budget goes to die. Claims like "40% stronger brand recall" and "#1 most influential platform" also depend heavily on how the study was framed and who was asked, and the post does not give us the methodology to judge that.

There is also a quiet logical leap in the "pre-sell your audience and watch acquisition costs fall" pitch. Warmer audiences do convert more cheaply, but if you simply move spend into TikTok and then measure success on last-click ROAS in your other channels, you will often credit the wrong channel and draw the wrong conclusion. The mid-funnel is precisely the hardest part of the funnel to attribute, which is the real reason it gets starved, not because marketers do not believe in it.

Our verdict, and how we would actually use this

TikTok is right about the problem and self-interested about the solution. The mid-funnel is underfunded, consideration journeys have got longer, and TikTok can be a strong consideration channel. None of that means the answer is "shift budget to TikTok and trust the survey".

If you want to act on this sensibly, we would do three things. First, audit your own funnel before you touch your budget split: work out where your consideration gap actually is, because for some brands it is TikTok and for others it is YouTube, paid search, or email. Second, judge a mid-funnel channel on the right metric. That means incrementality tests, brand-lift studies and blended efficiency, not the last-click ROAS that will always make consideration spend look weak. Third, treat creative as the variable that decides whether any of this works on TikTok, because "joyful utility" is a creative idea long before it is a media-buying one.

Done that way, TikTok's core point becomes genuinely useful: stop neglecting the middle of the funnel. Just make the decision with your own numbers rather than a platform's slide deck.

If you want a second opinion on where your own consideration gap sits, this is exactly the kind of thing our TikTok Ads and wider paid media teams pull apart every day. Get in touch and we will take an honest look at your funnel, no vendor slides required.