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Advanced Concepts

Customer Journey Mapping

Visualizing every touchpoint and stage a customer goes through from awareness to advocacy.

Definition

Customer journey mapping is the process of documenting all the stages, touchpoints, and experiences a customer has with your company. For email marketing, this means identifying what emails should be sent at each stage, what triggers them, and what outcomes they should drive. A journey map ensures your email strategy covers the complete customer lifecycle.

Why It Matters

Without a journey map, email efforts become fragmented. You might have great onboarding but neglect re-engagement. You might send upgrade emails too early or too late. Journey mapping reveals gaps, overlaps, and opportunities in your email strategy. It aligns email with the actual customer experience.

How It Works

Document the stages of your customer lifecycle: awareness, consideration, signup, onboarding, activation, engagement, expansion, renewal, and advocacy. For each stage, identify what customers need, what triggers transitions, and what emails support the stage. Map existing emails to stages and identify gaps.

Best Practices

  • 1Start with the core path before handling edge cases
  • 2Include both email and non-email touchpoints for context
  • 3Identify the trigger for each email and the goal it serves
  • 4Look for gaps where customers have no email support
  • 5Look for overlaps where too many sequences compete
  • 6Validate your map with actual customer behavior data
  • 7Update the map as your product and strategy evolve

Visual Automation Builder

Map your customer journeys with our visual sequence builder. See how emails connect across the entire lifecycle in one view.

Learn More

Frequently Asked Questions

Start high-level with major stages and key emails. Add detail where you see problems or opportunities. For most SaaS companies, a map with 5-8 stages and the primary emails for each is sufficient to start. Add nuance over time.

Yes. Email exists within a broader experience including your website, product, support, and sales interactions. Understanding these touchpoints helps you design emails that complement rather than duplicate or conflict with other channels.

Review it quarterly or whenever you ship major product changes. The map should reflect reality. If your product adds new features or your strategy changes, the map needs to update accordingly.