Mastering Sales Funnels, Part 7: Ensure Your Funnel Works - Perfectly

One of the biggest mistakes I see new online marketers make? They don’t test their sales funnel before launching it.

They build it, hit publish, and assume it’s all working perfectly — only to find out later (usually from a kind but confused customer) that something’s broken. By then, it's too late to recover those lost sales, and worse, the trust may be gone too.

Here’s the truth: if your funnel isn’t working properly — if emails don’t go out, upsells don’t load, or links are broken — you’re not just missing out on a sale. You’re missing out on all the potential revenue that could’ve come from that customer as they moved through your funnel.

And let’s not forget — most upsells and downsells are only shown once, immediately after a purchase. So if the funnel breaks during that flow? You’ve probably lost that opportunity for good. There’s no second chance to offer those one-time deals.

Even worse, if this happens often enough, it can hurt your reputation. People might start to see you as sloppy, unprofessional, or unreliable — and that can make it harder to land JV deals, grow your audience, or get repeat business.

Bottom line? Test everything.

Before you launch a product or promote a funnel, go through the entire process yourself — as if you were a brand-new customer. Start at the squeeze page. Enter your info. Make sure you receive the lead magnet or freebie and that the autoresponder sequence kicks in like it should.

Then, purchase your main product. Confirm you get access to it, receive the right download link or confirmation email, and that you’re redirected to your first upsell page.

Most major platforms (like ClickBank, JVZoo, and WarriorPlus) offer a way to test purchases for $0 or $0.01. Use that. Run through every upsell, every downsell. Click “yes” and “no” to make sure the flow continues the way you’ve set it up, no matter what path the customer takes.

The goal is to make sure every buyer sees exactly what they’re supposed to see — in the right order, with the right delivery emails landing in their inbox. If something doesn’t show up, or a step is skipped, you’ve got a leak in your funnel that needs fixing before you go live.

It’s also a smart move to have another set of eyes — maybe a colleague, mentor, or another experienced marketer — go through it too. They might catch something you overlooked.

Because here’s the deal: if your funnel falters at any point while a customer is going through it, you’ve likely lost that profit forever. You can’t get it back.

So test it. Then test it again. Your bottom line will thank you — and so will your customers.

Check out Landing Page Persuasion in my store for tips and tricks to craft the most compelling headlines and CTAs.