Understanding the Customer Journey should be among digital marketers’ top priorities today. The Customer Journey is a critical part of any brand experience and starts with the first exposure, long before a product or service is rendered.

Channel and device fragmentation

The task of understanding the customer journey and choosing the optimum moment to engage a prospect is becoming more complex. Today’s customers are on an increasingly non-linear fragmented journey, replacing the traditionally more rigid sales funnel. Consumers, prospects and clients are now in charge of what, where, when and how they consume content.

The average customer interacts with a brand multiple times before buying. Customers are exposed to a multitude of touchpoints of which search, display, social media, videos, traditional advertising and conversations are just a few. A prospect could interact with a display ad, subscribe to an email, like your Facebook page, follow you on Instagram, search for your brand or products and services on Google, seek out information on your website.

Prospects and customers expect your brand independently of device or channel. Reaching out and adapting content across platforms is critical.

Moments and Messages

Your brand’s content and messages should be adapted to your Customer Journey. Delivering the right content to the right prospect at the right time on the right device across the right channels in the right context remains as critical as ever. Brands must optimize Messages and touch points for moments that matter. Think of “moments” as milestones where a given customer state of mind progresses through the Consumer Journey.

The Programmatic journey

Marketing Technology and Programmatic Advertising have become powerful tools in this more complex paradigm of user segmentation. Predictive models can increasingly figure out which types of content interaction will be most effective.

Understanding intent, rooting back to consumer psychology and purchasing behavior, is critical in developing effective and integrated digital marketing programs addressing each of the Consumer Journey stages. Programmatic campaigns can help at each stage of the marketing funnel by building awareness, creating interest, driving consideration and finally leading to conversions.

Brand Awareness

Nobody is going to consider your brand if they are not first aware of your business existence. Brand Awareness campaigns target consumers most likely interested in your brand, based on demographics and Interests, often aggregated from browsing behaviour.

Upper funnel Prospecting campaigns, targeting wider audiences, are good at building brand awareness and brand recognition. Brand Awareness campaigns are optimized to reach the maximum number of people at the lowest Cost-Per-Reach and is measured on Brand Recall or Brand Lift.

Interest and Consideration

Interest and consideration campaigns encourage people to explore your products or services. Programmatic Advertising buys Audiences, not Placements. Put people at the heart of your online marketing strategy, not placements.

Consideration campaigns use targeting tactics such as Affinity and In-Market to target prospects expressing interest in your brand or intent to purchase. Affinity looks at an individual’s browsing habits to identify interests. In-market targets consumers actively researching services or products similar to yours.

Content Marketing has also emerged as a critical way to educate, drive interest and make your brand part of prospects consideration set. Content marketing includes Articles, infographics, Videos, White papers and more. In that context, companies should increasingly think of themselves as Media Companies.

Engagement

The goal of these campaigns is to engage, such as getting the right people to your Website, not necessarily sell right away. Social Media has emerged as an effective tactic to engage prospects showing Interest.

Engagement campaigns are measured on a Cost-Per-Engagement (CPE) or Cost-Per-Click (CPC) level. You can also build a list of site visitors you can later reconnect with and convert.

Conversion and Acquisition

Conversion and acquisition campaigns generally aim at driving sales online, in-app, in person or in-store. Reach people while they’re actively browsing, researching, or comparing the products and services you sell. Target intent and drive Conversions by encouraging customers to take action.

Brand search, purchasing Intent queries, and Retargeting tactics generally serve Conversion campaigns well. Retarget Website visitors and CRM email addresses to serve dynamic personalised ads to consumers who have interacted with your brand and specific products.

Acquisition and Conversion campaigns are generally measured on a Cost-Per-Action (CPA) or Return-Over-Advertising-Spend (ROAS).

Google, Facebook, Snapchat and other ad networks have developed programmatic campaign tactics, up and down the funnel, optimized precisely for each of these consumer journey KPI’s: Brand Awareness, Interest & Consideration, Engagement, Conversion & Acquisition, and Advocacy & Retention.

Why not focusing all your energy on the lower funnel, then? The more prospects at the conversion and acquisition stage, the lower the cost-per-acquisition. The optimal budget allocation between Prospecting and Converting is hiding in your analytics data and attribution models.