Every B2B marketer knows the funnel concept is broken. Yet that same model your team is being measured on right now was invented in 1898, and it's surviving because nobody at the top has been given permission to use anything else.
Carolyn and Amber react to a recent article in Adweek from Professor Mark Ritson, where he calls the funnel the "cockroach of marketing concepts", a 128-year-old model that has outlived every attempt to replace it.
They break down why every critique fails to land, and why the real problem isn't the funnel. It's the classrooms teaching it, the boards demanding it, and the marketers who can't challenge it without risking their careers.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Why a model from 1898 still anchors how B2B companies measure marketing in 2026
- The gap between what the funnel was designed to do (a market snapshot) and what it's used for (SQL-to-opp conversion, MQL targets)
- Why every "funnel is dead" critique fails to kill it, and who actually keeps it alive
- The Amazon "full funnel campaigns" moment, and what it says when even the best companies are still using the language
- Why a snapshot in time tells you nothing about where to move budget, why CAC is up, or what to do when pipeline misses
If you've tried to kill the funnel inside your own org and watched it survive every conversation, this is the episode. The cockroach isn't the funnel. It's the system that keeps demanding it.
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