Rethinking the modern customer journey

Published: 6/2/2025

Marketers have relied on the sales funnel for decades to guide customer acquisition. The concept has roots in the 19th century, when advertising saw a massive boom as a result of increased retailers, department stores and manufacturers creating and selling products to consumers. In the U.S., advertising spending skyrocketed from about $200 million in 1880 to nearly $3 billion in 1920.

Since then, experts have debated the best philosophies and methods to improve marketing and advertising effectiveness. Sales funnel marketing, although considered outdated by some, is still applied today in many modern marketing strategies. The structure is straightforward. Prospects enter the awareness stage, move through consideration and ultimately convert. This structure often follows the formulaic pattern, “Attention, Interest, Desire, Action (AIDA).”

Today’s modern customer journey is dominated by omnichannel experiences, with consumers engaging across multiple channels, revisiting touchpoints and interacting with brands unpredictably. People can conduct more research than ever before they purchase a product, whether scrolling through online reviews or watching YouTube product demos.

While the funnel still holds relevancy, the modern customer journey must also reflect today's consumers' non-linear, dynamic behavior. CMOs, marketing directors and sales managers must adopt an approach that aligns with their key business objectives, whether that is the sales funnel or a lifecycle model, or a strategic combination of the two.

The advantages of sales funnels

Sales funnel marketing provides a structured approach to guiding customers from awareness to conversion while maintaining engagement at every stage. This model ensures marketing efforts align with consumer intent, driving measurable results and sustained brand visibility.

Key benefits of a funnel approach to marketing include:

• Broader reach: The top of the funnel is designed to generate awareness, which can capture new leads from a wider audience.
• Improved conversion rates: A well-executed full funnel strategy nurtures leads through each phase, reducing drop-offs.
• Better budget allocation: In a well-developed sales funnel, resources are distributed efficiently across awareness, consideration and conversion efforts, maximizing ROI.
• Alignment of marketing and sales: Full funnel strategies ensure that marketing generates sales-ready leads, improving overall efficiency.

How to implement a full funnel model

Executing a full funnel strategy requires a comprehensive approach. Allocating resources to each funnel stage ensures a robust system that successfully captures leads while simultaneously building brand loyalty versus a system that overly favors conversions. Here’s how CMOs can structure a high-performance full funnel strategy within their organization:

• Use AI predictive modeling to inform budget allocation: AI-powered insights can assess customer intent at different funnel stages, allowing organizations to distribute resources dynamically.
• Build audience-based segmentation for precision targeting: Instead of relying on broad demographic-based targeting, leverage behavioral and intent data to segment customers dynamically.
• Refine omnichannel marketing: Consumers engage with brands across multiple platforms, often unpredictably. Ensuring a cohesive experience across paid, owned and earned media requires an integrated view of customer touchpoints. AI-driven attribution models help marketers understand which interactions drive actual impact.
• Implement continuous experimentation and optimization: Funnel strategies should be adaptive, not static. AI-powered tools offered by vendors like Alembic Technologies can help forecast trends and anticipate shifts in consumer behavior for increased strategy alignment.

The funnel system threatens to fall apart when companies fail to measure their campaign’s effectiveness and thus rely on routine decision-making rather than data-driven insights. Alembic’s Marketing Intelligence Platform can help solve this persisting pain point by providing real-time, AI-driven insights that track performance across the entire funnel.

The advantages of lifecycle models

Lifecycle models can offer a more accurate and flexible framework than the traditional funnel. Rather than concluding at conversion, lifecycle models extend through retention, expansion and advocacy, ultimately fostering deeper customer relationships and maximizing long-term revenue. Instead of a linear path, they reflect today’s modern consumer, who often interact with brands at multiple touchpoints.

Key benefits of lifecycle models include:

• Continuous engagement: Instead of focusing solely on acquisition, brands nurture relationships at every stage, which can lead to increased brand loyalty and customer retention.
• Higher customer lifetime value (CLV): Rather than acquiring new customers, lifecycle models foster loyalty and repeat purchases. Retaining existing customers is more cost-effective than acquiring new ones.
• Stronger attribution modeling: Lifecycle models account for interactions across channels, reflecting the complex customer journey many modern brands now experience. 
• Increased authenticity: Many marketing professionals argue that because lifecycle marketing focuses on the customer journey rather than the sale alone, the content feels more personalized to the consumer and their preferences.

How to implement a lifecycle model

Transitioning from a funnel to a lifecycle model requires a strategic shift. Unlike funnel-based approaches that emphasize linear progression, lifecycle marketing treats engagement as an ongoing, dynamic process. Organizations must prioritize retention, expansion, advocacy, and acquisition to maximize customer lifetime value (CLV) and drive sustainable revenue growth.

Here’s how CMOs can implement a lifecycle model that aligns with long-term business objectives:

• Adopt a data-first mindset: Use AI-powered marketing data analysis tools like those offered by Alembic to track customer interactions across multiple touchpoints. Teams can then determine which campaigns are driving sales.
• Segment customers dynamically: Instead of relying on predefined personas, brands must segment customers based on behavioral signals, purchase intent and engagement history. AI and predictive analytics can surface real-time indicators of high value prospects or churn risk, allowing marketers to act at the right moment.
• Develop content that evolves with the customer journey: While traditional funnel strategies focus on messaging that drives conversion, lifecycle marketing requires content that fosters ongoing engagement to maintain customer interest and retention.
• Seamless omnichannel strategy: Today’s customers expect consistent experiences across various platforms, whether through email, social media, websites or in-store interactions. Marketing leaders must ensure that digital and traditional channels cohesively support retention and engagement goals.

Do lifecycle models outperform the funnel?

While some argue that sales funnels are outdated and no longer accurately capture today’s modern consumer, the answer more likely depends on a company’s business objectives. While lifecycle models offer a comprehensive view of long-term engagement, sales funnels remain highly effective for businesses focused on lead generation and transactional efficiency.

Sales funnels work well for businesses focused on immediate conversions, such as e-commerce and lead generation models, where optimizing each stage increases acquisition efficiency. However, this approach can prioritize short-term wins over long-term retention.

Lifecycle models extend beyond conversion, emphasizing retention, upselling and advocacy. This is ideal for service-based businesses, luxury brands or major Fortune 500 companies that rely on repeat customers, brand credibility and nurturing long-term relationships. Rather than treating marketing as a linear path, lifecycle strategies nurture ongoing engagement to maximize customer lifetime value.

For many businesses, a hybrid approach may work best. CMOs can leverage funnel efficiency for acquisition while applying lifecycle marketing to sustain growth. Alembic’s AI-driven insights can help businesses unify both models, ensuring organization-wide data-driven decisions that optimize both short-term conversions and long-term retention.

Enhance your marketing and sales strategy with Alembic

Whichever model your business prioritizes, aligning marketing and sales efforts with real-time customer insights is essential. AI-powered marketing intelligence ensures that every stage of the customer journey, whether within a structured funnel or a dynamic lifecycle model, is optimized for maximum impact.

Ready to optimize your marketing strategy? Book a demo to see how Alembic’s AI-driven insights can enhance your organization’s lifecycle marketing.