Customer Journey Mapping: What Is It & How Does It Work?

by The MNTN Team

8 Min Read

On average, it takes interactions at eight touchpoints to convert a prospective customer. Closing the deal may take even more, but the bottom line is that the customer journey can get a bit muddy. And that’s why you need a customer journey map.

Mapping out the customer journey can help visualize the path someone takes from their initial awareness to the point that they make a purchase. It even shows what happens after that sale, so that you can nurture loyalty and encourage repeat purchases.

Here’s a detailed look at how you can step into your customer’s shoes with journey mapping.

What Is a Customer Journey Map?

A customer journey map is a visual representation of every step a customer takes when interacting with your brand — from discovering your product, to converting. A complete map shows what happens afterward, as well, such as providing customer support or following up with a thank you email.

The goal of the map is to identify key moments and understand how customers feel during such critical interactions. It will also reveal points of friction that could be costing you deals and hurting your bottom line. Once you pinpoint where friction exists, you can remove it.

Customer Journey vs. Buyer Journey

Customer journeys and buyer journeys are similar but not the same. The latter focuses on the pre-purchase phase and ends when someone makes a purchase. The core facets of the buyer’s journey include brand awareness, consideration, and decision.

The customer journey is broader, and includes an individual discovering your brand, using the products or services they’ve purchased, and seeking support. A customer journey map also identifies how you can cultivate loyalty and turn satisfied customers into brand advocates.

Benefits of Customer Journey Mapping

Investing time and resources into customer journey mapping will provide you with the following five game-changing benefits:

1. Improved Customer Understanding

Knowing your customers is crucial in today’s competitive advertising environment. They’re already inundated with information and product options, so if you want to stand out, you’ll need to speak to their pain points and needs.

Customer journey mapping provides insights into your audience’s motivations and frustrations. That kind of knowledge can help you empathize with your customers and make better marketing decisions.

2. Enhanced Customer Experiences

When you understand the weight of each interaction point, you can fine-tune the entire customer experience. That might mean reducing friction in your checkout process or making onboarding smoother for new users.

3. Increased Customer Retention

Just as you can identify points of friction that might drive your prospective customers to your competitors, mapping the customer journey allows you to locate and double down on the moments and offerings that keep people coming back. Happy customers are loyal customers, after all.

4. Streamlined Marketing and Sales Strategies

When asked what would help them make more ads, marketers cited reliable audience targeting and transparent reporting as key factors. Customer journey mapping provides valuable insights into the customer journey and takes the guesswork out of campaign planning.

5. Identification of Pain Points and Opportunities

Perhaps the greatest value of customer journey mapping is its ability to uncover gaps and pain points. These insights will help you turn problems into opportunities for improvement.

How Does Customer Journey Mapping Work?

Customer journey mapping involves the use of both quantitative and qualitative data to visualize the path from brand discovery to post-purchase interactions. In particular, your map should incorporate the following:

Analytics data
Customer feedback
Input from marketing and sales teams

Furthermore, your map should identify how and where people become aware of your brand and every touchpoint thereafter. Keep in mind, though, that customer journeys aren’t linear. Consumers can discover your brand on any number of channels and then further explore your offerings using the wide range of online resources you’ve created.

Your customer journey map will help you identify trends among your audience segments so you can create better, more efficient journeys. For instance, you may discover that Connected TV (CTV) and Instagram are the most effective options for raising awareness among your audience. In that case, you could allocate additional resources to those channels in your next campaign.

Components of a Customer Journey Map

A complete customer journey map consists of the following elements:

Customer Personas

Start with the “who.” Personas are fictional representations of your ideal customer that include demographic data, pain points, and behavioral traits.

Touchpoints

Touchpoints represent every interaction a customer has with your brand. Some common touchpoints include social media pages, your website, emails, and CTV ads. Post-purchase interactions like customer support inquiries are also important touchpoints.

Stages of the Journey

Break down the customer journey into these key stages:

Awareness
Consideration
Purchase
Onboarding
Support
Loyalty

You can always add or remove stages to fit your company’s unique sales and marketing process.

Emotions and Pain Points

List the ways you want consumers to feel at each stage of their journey. You might want them to be excited or curious, or perhaps frustrated about their pain point and eager to learn how you can solve their problems.

Gathering consumer feedback helps you accurately identify how customers feel at each stage and how you can shape their emotional state. For instance, annoyance is natural for consumers when thinking about their pain points, but you don’t want them to feel irritated when checking out or seeking support.

Goals and Expectations

Identify your goals and the customer’s expectations at each stage. Consumers who are at the top of the funnel may want answers, a list of product features, or pricing information, whereas individuals at the bottom of the funnel may want a simpler checkout process. Your goal is to align the experiences you provide with these consumer expectations.

Channels and Devices

The final component of a customer journey map is a list of the devices and channels your customers typically use to interact with your brand. The list should be geared more toward consumer preferences so you can identify which devices and mediums your audience prefers.

How to Create a Customer Journey Map

You can build your journey map in just a few simple steps:

Define one or two core personas to focus on
List the stages of the journey
Identify customer goals
List all touchpoints
Note emotions and pain points
Map channels and devices
Create a clear, easy-to-follow graphic

Once your map is finished, share it with your team, then collaborate to make it better and identify any information you may have missed.

Customer Journey Management & Analysis

With your complete customer journey map in hand, it’s time to use it to manage and optimize your audience’s experiences. Here are some metrics you should be tracking to better understand the customer journey:

Conversion rates at each stage
Drop-off points
Time between stages
Customer satisfaction

These are just a few data points to get you started. Identify any additional metrics that are relevant to your brand, then use that data to paint a complete picture of the consumer journey and determine ways to improve it.

Customer Journey Optimization Tips

Customer journey maps aren’t static; in fact, they should be living documents that evolve as consumer preferences and marketing strategies change.

Here are a few best practices to consistently make the most of your map:

Use real customer data
Involve sales, marketing, support, and product teams
Regularly review and update your map
Use what you learn to improve content
Test new ad strategies to see what works best

Your initial map will add value to your sales and marketing strategies, but it shouldn’t stop there; keep improving and retooling your map as you work toward your growth goals. Continuous improvement is key.

Customer Journey Mapping Tools

There are plenty of worthwhile tools out there that can help you build effective, interactive journey maps. A few options to consider are as follows:

Hotjar
Google Analytics 4
Miro
UXPressia

These represent a small glimpse of what’s out there. Compare different options and find tools that are the best fit for your team. Don’t limit yourself to analytics tools focused on websites and social media platforms, either — there are powerful solutions available for gathering data and generating insights about other channels as well, including CTV ads.

Why You Need Performance TV

Want to turn your customer journey map into a performance roadmap? MNTN Performance TV gives you the tools to connect every stage of the funnel with measurable impact.

Verified Visits™: Attribute CTV ad views to actual site visits and outcomes — no guesswork required.
Automated Optimization: Let machine learning guide your budget toward the best-performing touchpoints in real time.
MNTN Matched: Reach audiences based on behavior, intent, and demographics — wherever they are on the path to purchase.
Reporting Suite: Access live insights into ad performance, engagement, and conversion across the full journey.
Integrations and APIs: Sync your customer data platforms, CRMs, and analytics tools for seamless mapping and targeting.

Make journey-based marketing actionable with our self-serve software — get started today.

Customer Journey Map: Final Thoughts

Mapping out the customer journey is what connects the dots between interactions and identifies points of friction that are keeping you from reaching your sales goals. Proper journey mapping is essential to building better experiences and eliminating growth barriers.