See-Think-Do-Care
Segment and measure by intent stages rather than demographics.
Demographics tell you who someone is. Intent tells you what they're ready to do. See-Think-Do-Care is Avinash Kaushik's framework for segmenting audiences by where they are in the decision journey—not by age, income, or location. See = awareness. Think = consideration. Do = purchase. Care = loyalty. Match your content and measurement to intent, and you stop wasting budget on the wrong audiences at the wrong time.
See
People who have a problem your product could solve but aren't actively shopping. They're browsing, learning, exploring. They don't know you yet. Goal: build awareness and provide value.
Content: Educational blog posts, videos, thought leadership. Channels: YouTube, social media, display ads.
Think
People comparing options. They know they want something—they're deciding what to buy and from whom. They're researching, reading reviews, evaluating. Goal: show why you're the right choice.
Content: Comparison guides, case studies, testimonials, product demos. Channels: Search ads, retargeting, email nurture.
Do
People ready to buy. They've decided—now they need the easiest path to purchase. Remove friction. Make conversion effortless. Goal: close the sale.
Content: Product pages, pricing, checkout flow, limited-time offers. Channels: Branded search, shopping ads, cart abandonment emails.
Care
People who already bought. Keep them happy, turn them into advocates, encourage repeat purchase. Retention is cheaper than acquisition. Goal: maximize lifetime value.
Content: Onboarding, support, upsell/cross-sell, community, referral programs. Channels: Email, in-app messaging, customer success.
The power of See-Think-Do-Care is matching message to intent. Pushing "Do" content (buy now!) to "See" audiences (just browsing) wastes money and annoys people. Build awareness when they're curious. Persuade when they're comparing. Convert when they're ready. Retain when they've bought. Respect where they are.
Avinash Kaushik, Google's Digital Marketing Evangelist and author of "Web Analytics 2.0," introduced See-Think-Do-Care in 2013 as a framework for audience segmentation and content strategy in digital marketing.
Kaushik's insight: marketers were obsessed with demographics (age, gender, location) but ignoring intent (what people are ready to do). Two 35-year-old women might be at completely different stages—one just learning about a category, one ready to buy. Demographics couldn't tell you that. Intent could.
The framework became influential in performance marketing and Google Analytics communities. It shifted how marketers thought about audience targeting—from "who they are" to "what they want right now."
2013 Digital Marketing: Google Analytics was maturing. Marketers had data but struggled to turn it into strategy. They knew page views, bounce rates, conversions—but not how to align content and budget to customer intent. The industry needed a framework that connected metrics to action.
The Demographic Trap: Traditional marketing relied on personas built from demographics. But demographics don't predict behavior. A 25-year-old and a 55-year-old might both be in "Think" stage for the same product. Age didn't matter—intent did. Kaushik gave marketers a better segmentation model.
Content Marketing Era: 2013 was peak content marketing. Brands were publishing blogs, videos, guides—but often without strategy. See-Think-Do-Care provided a framework: map content to intent stages. Educational content for See. Comparison content for Think. Conversion content for Do. Retention content for Care.
Why It Endures: See-Think-Do-Care works because it's grounded in how people actually make decisions. The stages are universal—whether you're selling software, shoes, or services. Intent-based segmentation remains more predictive than demographics. The framework survived because it made digital marketing more strategic and less wasteful.