What is a customer journey?

Customer journey

A customer journey is the complete path someone takes with your brand, from first discovering you exist to becoming a loyal advocate. It includes every interaction along the way: the ad they clicked, the emails they opened, the support ticket they submitted, and the review they left afterward.

Unlike the buyer's journey, which ends at purchase, the customer journey continues well beyond that first transaction. It captures what happens when someone uses your product, reaches out for help, and decides whether to come back.

The five stages of a customer journey

Most customer journeys follow a similar pattern, though the specifics vary by business and buyer.

1. Awareness — The person realizes they have a problem and discovers your brand as a potential solution. They might find you through search, social media, or a friend's recommendation.
2. Consideration — They're comparing options. They read reviews, watch demos, and weigh your offering against competitors.
3. Purchase — They decide to buy. This stage includes everything from adding to cart to completing checkout.
4. Retention — After the sale, they use your product and interact with your support team. Their experience here determines whether they stick around.
5. Advocacy — Happy customers tell others. They leave reviews, refer friends, and become your most effective marketing channel.

Why the customer journey matters for email marketing

Understanding the journey helps you send the right message at the right time.

Someone who just discovered your brand needs different content than a repeat buyer. A first-time visitor might want educational content about their problem, while a customer who purchased last week might appreciate tips for getting more value from their purchase.

When you map messages to journey stages, your email marketing automation stops feeling like noise and starts feeling like help.

Customer journey vs. buyer's journey

The buyer's journey covers three stages: awareness, consideration, and decision. It ends when someone makes a purchase.

The customer journey picks up where the buyer's journey leaves off and keeps going. It includes onboarding, ongoing engagement, support interactions, renewals, and referrals.

For businesses focused on retention and lifetime value, the customer journey is the more useful framework. Acquiring a customer costs far more than keeping one, so the post-purchase stages deserve just as much attention as the pre-purchase ones.

How to map your customer journey

A customer journey map visualizes the path your customers take and highlights opportunities to improve their experience.

Start by identifying your key customer segments. Different audiences may take different paths, and a first-time buyer and a returning customer don't need the same touchpoints.

Next, list every interaction point:

• Website visits and page views
• Email opens and clicks
• Social media engagement
• Sales conversations
• Support tickets
• Post-purchase follow-ups

For each touchpoint, note what the customer is trying to accomplish, what questions they have, and what friction they might encounter.

Finally, look for gaps. Where do people drop off? Where do they get stuck? Those are your opportunities.

Using automation to guide the journey

Once you've mapped the journey, automation helps you deliver the right experience at scale.

In ActiveCampaign, you can build automations triggered by specific behaviors. When someone abandons their cart, send a reminder. When a new customer makes their first purchase, start an onboarding sequence. When engagement drops, trigger a re-engagement campaign.

The goal is to make each customer feel like you're paying attention, without requiring you to manually send every message.

Common customer journey mistakes

Focusing only on acquisition. The journey doesn't end at purchase. Neglecting retention and advocacy leaves money on the table.

Creating segments you never use. A detailed journey map is useless if you don't act on it. Start simple and add complexity only when you have content tailored to each stage.

Assuming one journey fits all. Different customer types take different paths. A B2B buyer researching enterprise software has a longer consideration phase than someone buying a $20 product on impulse.

Treating the map as static. Customer behavior changes. Revisit your journey map regularly and update it based on what your data shows.

FAQs

What's the difference between customer journey and customer experience?
The customer journey is the path someone takes; customer experience is how they feel along that path. Journey mapping helps you identify where to improve the experience.

How many touchpoints should a customer journey include?
It depends on your business. A simple e-commerce purchase might have five touchpoints, while a B2B software sale could have dozens. Map what's real for your customers, not what looks impressive on paper.

Can I automate the entire customer journey?
You can automate many touchpoints, but some moments benefit from human interaction. Use automation for scale and consistency, and save personal outreach for high-stakes moments like closing deals or resolving complex support issues.

Ready to build journeys that turn first-time buyers into loyal customers? Start your free ActiveCampaign trial and see how automation makes it possible.