5 Core Stages Of A Customer Buying Journey 2026

Buyers in this stage are researching and comparing potential solutions more actively. The buyer’s journey is the process of a potential customer going from identifying a need to completing a purchase. It refers to the buyer’s mindset when identifying their problem, comparing possible solutions, and making a purchasing decision. “As buying groups expand and decision cycles grow, B2B marketers must develop dynamic, role-specific insights that capture how buyers evaluate risk, seek information, and define success for their business purchase.

The buyer’s journey is the path customers take from recognizing a problem (awareness) to researching options (consideration) to making a purchase (decision). Think of it as your shortcut to clarity — no jargon, no guesswork, just a practical way to connect with your audience and guide them to “yes.” The buyer’s journey is your customer’s path from awareness (realizing they have a problem) → consideration (researching and comparing solutions) → decision (choosing the winner). A self described devotee of WordPress, Chipo is obsessed with helping people find the best tools and tactics to build the website they deserve. If they’re in the decision stage, they might need product demos or free trials. It’s important to identify these roadblocks so you can address them and help your target audience move past them to the next stage.

He begins looking for the type of tools that are available. For example, the topic “how to drive traffic to your website” is likely a topic Billy is searching for at this stage. So we’ll look through the list and pick out those keywords that are relevant. To find more keywords, add informational modifiers (e.g., tips, learn, resource, guide, examples, ideas) in the Include box. He learns about the various traffic acquisition methods and decides that SEO could be the solution to his problem. So he searches for ways to get more traffic to his site.

To get a clearer picture of how the buyer’s journey looks in today’s landscape, I’ve explored recent research and studies. If you’re unfamiliar with the concept of the buyer’s journey, I recommend starting with this quick read. Stick around until the end, where I’ll walk you through a step-by-step guide on how to define your buyer’s journey using HubSpot’s customer journey analytics tool. For each stage, Squarespace has targeted content, addressing possible objections and helping the freelancer move from awareness of their need to a confident decision and ultimately a purchase.

What is the customer doing during the consideration stage?

Thus, it’s a good idea to look through keyword ideas that don’t contain any modifiers and consider whether they’re worth targeting. Scan your internal site search data, talk to your customer support and sales teams, and so on. If so, take a look at your Google Search Console data for the things people are searching for that relate to your brand. To do this, simply enter the brand name into Keywords Explorer and eyeball the list. We’ll look through the list and pick out the topics that are relevant. If there are free versions, he’ll test the different tools out.

Validation: Confirming the chosen solution meets the requirements.

A project management tool might create a “Asana vs. Monday.com” comparison page and pair it with a five-minute ROI calculator that shows time saved per week. For example, a payroll software company might publish “Five signs your spreadsheet payroll process is costing you money” with a downloadable audit checklist. Effective content includes how-to blog posts, diagnostic checklists, short explainer videos and problem-focused social posts. Track metrics like organic search traffic, email sign-ups and content engagement. We have financial relationships with some companies we cover, earning commissions when readers purchase from our partners or share information about their needs.

Benefits of B2B Buyer Journey Mapping

To make your brand stand out from the competition, you may want to determine the criteria that buyers use to evaluate potential offerings. They’ll go over all the advantages and drawbacks of different offerings to determine the best one that can fulfill their needs. Take note that they’ll also be looking at the competition’s offers to weigh their options.

It’s helpful to include demographic information like age, gender, job title, etc., so you’re developing a holistic view of each type of customer. There are a few different tools you can use for tracking your performance. Here, they’re gathering initial information and starting to understand their needs. Provide relevant content or information at each stage, nurturing the customer relationship and building visibility and trust for your product or service. Think about the last time you bought something new and all of the research and steps you took before actually buying it.

Data specialists can use specialized platforms to pull data out of your data warehouses and translate it into meaningful metrics that other teams across your company can use. Your data analysts should be familiar with the buyer’s journey so they can make better use of the customer data in a company’s data warehouse and identify unique needs at each stage. In the consideration stage, the potential customer is researching potential solutions to their problem.

• Its single greatest objective, however, is to deliver prospects the information they need, when they need it, and provide clarity around next steps.
• To map the consideration stage of the buying journey, think about the different approaches your buyer might consider as they try to figure out how to solve their problem.
• Used to keep count of how many times a user has commented on a specific post.
• At the same time, growing privacy regulations and tools like email blockers or cookie restrictions mean less visibility for you, the vendor.
• It’s the full experience someone has with your brand once they become a paying customer, including onboarding, product use, support interactions, renewals, and referrals.

I think I say this every time I write a blog, but if you haven’t already created your buyer personas, stop what you’re doing and create them now. This will ensure that no matter where someone is in their specific journey, when they find your brand, they’ll find all the information they need to make an informed buying decision. They’ll jump around, skip stages, and sometimes go backwards rather than forward.

Now that you know where your existing content fits into the buyer’s journey, identify any gaps. Which content is focused on specific solutions? You likely already have some content on your website, like blogs, ebooks, guides, consultations and more. But by identifying these possible points of friction that might prevent a buyer from becoming a customer, you’ll be able to create content that truly helps and sells. Whew – you’ve mapped out the awareness, consideration and decision stages of the buyer’s journey.

Used to display various data regarding a comment, if it is in approval stage. The journey to running a profitable business starts with deeply understanding your potential customer’s thought process as they go from “I need a solution…” to “This will solve my problems! You don’t need to be an expert salesperson or have a whole dedicated sales team to generate more sales for your online business — especially if you’re running things on your own. Look for gaps in the journey where prospects might be dropping off or opportunities where you could enhance the customer experience. We also recommend identifying key performance indicators (KPIs) for each stage of the journey. The goal is to provide an answer to every question your potential buyer has as they learn more about your offer and how it can solve their problem.

This often starts with the “Trigger” i.e. the start of the path to purchase, and ends at “Relationship Management” or “Renewal”. Buyer journey mapping or customer journey mapping provides a simple and effective process to “walk in the buyer’s shoes” throughout the whole path to purchase, and to identify which touchpoints and interactions are the most critical to success. The buyer who will be processing the payment, however, will more likely be focused on pricing and payment terms and so the likes of contract negotiation and ROI tools are more influential to this audience. For example, the buyer that will be using the product may want to understand how the product compares to competitor offerings and so they may speak to industry peers or read expert reviews. Download what are buying journeys our free editorial calendar template and start planning your content today!