Marketing Funnels?? Customer Journeys?? Random Walks??
I haven’t had my makeup and hair done for a while. But here I was this past week, in YouTube's official NY Studios, above Chelsea Market, about to be recorded for an interview on what's happening to shopping behavior. It will take them a bit of time to edit and release the video, but I’ve also had a lot of thoughts since then that I wanted to share.
A few weeks ago, Google and BCG released a study called Thinking Beyond the Linear Funnel. Its core premise, which I agree with, is that the advent of so many new channels with so many new capabilities has scrambled any ability for a marketer to cleanly lay out common purchase pathways against which they can buy placement and promote content.
Consumer behavior cuts across Searching, Scrolling, Streaming, and Shopping, all of which are fundamental ways people spend their time. Where my mind goes is that the complexity is even more challenging because the channels, we use are no longer just offering one capability. Search platforms offer shopping, social platforms offer search and shopping, eCommerce platforms offer streamable content, and so on. Anything can happen almost anywhere, and consumers bounce between these experiences every day.
Yes, there is a customer decision journey, but it is different (and probably always has been) for each customer, and it’s becoming even more varied. The idea that customers simply move down a funnel of awareness, consideration, and purchase died a long time ago, but its demise is even more stark now. Awareness of a new brand option can happen just before one buy, especially as you scroll through Amazon. Digital impulse buying can happen the moment you see an influencer discuss a new product you find interesting on Instagram.
My take on this is that we now have countervailing forces—on one hand, incredible variation in consumer behavior, and on the other, the power of AI to make it more manageable. AI is the needed tool at the right time, likely because AI capabilities created all this complexity in the first place. Brands have to seemingly be everywhere. The "shelf-space" requirements constantly expand. But Gen-AI enables us to create variations of a core content concept to fit more channels more easily. Emerging analytic tools, using AI to improve aggregate identity matching, are doing a better job of capturing the flow of what consumers are doing. Modeling tools on top of these can provide ideas for new scenarios on how to spend budgets, and personalization engines on websites can tailor landing experiences depending on where someone came from.
The complexity of the journey can be exposed at a macro level, while triggers can drive interactions at a personal level.
But this is far from a natural act for most marketers. Many believe they have clear metrics on performance rates, envisioning a linear funnel where the choice of channels dictates a customer’s stage in their journey. This makes it easy to track marketing effectiveness. However, that model is becoming harder to maintain as channels now serve multiple purposes and customer journeys become more fluid.
BCG proposes the concept of influence maps, which illustrate how different personas move through their journeys across searching, scrolling, streaming, and shopping. While I see the value in this, it still assumes a limited set of customer archetypes rather than fully embracing the complexity.
Going forward, the challenge will be for marketers to embrace this complexity and leverage tools that illustrate integrated customer behavior flows across touchpoints. They must invest in key landing spots with content appropriate for what consumers tend to do there.
Consumers may arrive at an influencer video through various paths, but that video still holds influence, even if their next steps are scattered across multiple channels. Working with that influencer becomes key. Likewise, a digital coupon site may be part of a nonlinear journey, yet it still plays a crucial role. This is not a simple media buy—it’s an omnichannel dance.
You don’t want to be everywhere, spraying and praying. That’s why newer journey analysis tools, like those from Google (hence their interest in interviewing me), are becoming so important. However, brands do need to cover more territory in a strategic way.
The key questions to ask yourself:
Let’s aim to master the expanding complexity, rather than letting it overwhelm us.
Upcoming Event
You’re Invited!
AI-driven personalization is powerful, but making it work in real-world marketing can be a challenge.
Join me this Wednesday, March 12 at 12 PM ET for a FREE live session where we’ll tackle the biggest personalization pain points and share actionable strategies to make AI work for you.
Only 2 days left to save your spot!
Register here: https://lnkd.in/e3wWN_bJ
Help spread the word! If you know someone who’d benefit from this session, feel free to:
?? Repost this
?? Share the event link
?? Tag a colleague in the comments
Let’s turn challenges into opportunities together.
See you there!
#AIPersonalization #MarketingStrategy #FreeEvent