---
id: "prereq-performance-marketing-funnel"
type: "prereq"
source_timestamps: ["§ A Shift in How Value is Created"]
tags: ["marketing-theory"]
related: ["claim-performance-marketing-disruption"]
reason: "To grasp why shifting from human persuasion to agent eligibility is a fundamental disruption to marketing economics."
sources: ["geo"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-geo"
originDay: 3
articleStem: "hbr-ext-15-china-ai-agents-commerce"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/04/research-what-chinas-ai-agents-reveal-about-the-future-of-commerce"
sourceTitle: "Research: What China’s AI Agents Reveal About the Future of Commerce"
---
# Traditional Performance Marketing Funnel

## What you need to know first
Understanding the disruption of [[concept-agentic-commerce-d15]] requires prior knowledge of how **traditional performance marketing** works — specifically its reliance on:
- **human attention scarcity**,
- **traffic acquisition**,
- **click-through rates (CTR)**,
- **conversion optimization**,
- **ROI measurement**.

## Why it's a prerequisite
Without this baseline, the significance of [[claim-performance-marketing-disruption]] — the move from human persuasion to **machine eligibility** on the [[concept-agent-shelf]] — and the budget migration in [[concept-costs-of-eligibility]] cannot be appreciated.


## Related across articles
- [[prereq-marketing-funnel-d13]]
- [[prereq-marketing-funnel-d97]]