Customer Decision Journey
The funnel becomes a loop—evaluation and advocacy reshape consideration.
The traditional purchase funnel assumed customers moved linearly from awareness to consideration to purchase. The Customer Decision Journey challenged that. Customers don't follow a straight path—they loop back, they skip stages, they return after purchase to advocate or re-evaluate. McKinsey mapped the actual journey: consideration → evaluation → purchase → experience → advocacy → back to consideration. It's a cycle, not a funnel.
The loop never ends. Customers who advocate become influencers for others in the consideration stage.
Initial Consideration
Customers form an initial set of brands to consider. Awareness and past experience drive this set. Marketing's job: be in the consideration set from the start.
Active Evaluation
Customers add and subtract brands as they research. They seek information, read reviews, ask friends. The set is dynamic, not static. Brands can enter late or drop out early.
Moment of Purchase
The customer makes a choice. But this isn't the end—it's a pivot point. The experience begins immediately.
Post-Purchase Experience
How the product performs. How the service feels. Whether expectations are met or exceeded. This shapes whether the customer becomes an advocate or detractor.
Advocacy Loop
Satisfied customers advocate—leaving reviews, recommending to friends, buying again. They re-enter the journey at consideration for their next purchase or influence others entering theirs. The loop closes and repeats.
The journey's power is in recognizing that marketing doesn't stop at purchase. Post-purchase experience and advocacy are marketing channels. Happy customers drive consideration for future buyers. The loop means every customer is both an endpoint and a starting point.
In 2009, McKinsey & Company published research challenging the traditional purchase funnel. The article—"The Consumer Decision Journey"—was based on analysis of customer behavior across multiple industries.
McKinsey's finding: customers weren't following a linear path. They were looping—researching, reconsidering, returning. Digital tools (search, reviews, social media) had made the journey non-linear. The old funnel model was obsolete.
The research became influential because it was evidence-based, not theoretical. McKinsey showed that brands investing in post-purchase experience and advocacy saw better returns than those focused only on awareness and acquisition. The journey reframed marketing as a continuous cycle, not a one-time conversion.
2009 Digital Shift: The iPhone had launched in 2007. Social media was maturing. Google was omnipresent. Customers could research products instantly, read reviews from strangers, compare prices across retailers. The internet had made the purchase process transparent and non-linear.
The Funnel's Limitations: The traditional funnel assumed control—marketers pushed customers from awareness to purchase. But customers were now in control. They entered and exited the journey on their own terms. They researched when they wanted, bought when they were ready, and shared their experiences publicly.
The Advocacy Insight: McKinsey's key contribution was showing that satisfied customers weren't just repeat buyers—they were unpaid marketers. Word-of-mouth and reviews influenced consideration more than ads did. Brands that delivered great experiences didn't just retain customers; they recruited new ones.
Why It Endures: The Customer Decision Journey remains foundational because it's true to how people actually buy. The loop model shifted marketing from a transactional mindset (get the sale) to a relational one (earn advocacy). In a world where trust comes from peers, not brands, advocacy is the ultimate marketing channel.