23.02.2026
The myth of the perfect funnel: why your customer journey isn’t linear
Posted by
Marketers love order. We create funnels, charts, and conversion paths that promise to make sense of how people make decisions.
But here’s the truth: your customer doesn’t move from awareness → consideration → purchase in a straight line. The real journey looks more like a maze, full of curiosity, hesitation, comparisons, distractions, and emotions.
The problem with linear thinking
For years, marketing funnels have been drawn as neat pyramids: you pour traffic at the top, nurture leads in the middle, and watch conversions flow out the bottom. That model worked when buying decisions were simple and information was scarce.
Today, customers - especially in Europe’s digital markets - have limitless access to data, multiple touchpoints, and shorter attention spans. According to research from Think with Google, the average consumer interacts with over 20 touchpoints before making a purchase - reading reviews, checking competitors, scrolling social media, watching videos, and then… doing it all over again days later.
In B2B contexts, this process is even more complex, involving multiple stakeholders and months or even years of consideration, as confirmed by McKinsey’s updated Customer Decision Journey model.
From funnels to loops: the new reality
Instead of a funnel, imagine your customer journey as a loop or network. People enter at different points. They might leave, return, and engage again before committing. Along the way, they experience micro-moments that shape perception and trust.
At diARK, we see this pattern constantly when building digital strategies for European brands. Visitors rarely convert the first time - instead, they explore, reflect, watch, and return after seeing consistent signals of value and professionalism.
Consistency, relevance, and emotion - not volume - drive conversions.
What this means for brands
1. Design for exploration, not just conversion
Your website shouldn’t just push visitors to “buy” - it should help them understand and trust your brand. UX and content need to support both curiosity and decision-making.
2. Nurture across channels
The journey doesn’t end when someone leaves your site. Retargeting, email, and organic content help you reappear at the right moment with the right message.
3. Humanise the experience
People buy when they feel understood. Storytelling, social proof, and transparency build emotional safety, the missing link between awareness and action.
4. Measure behavior, not just clicks
Traditional analytics miss the emotional dimension. Tools like heatmaps, user recordings, or customer interviews reveal why people hesitate, not just where.
The journey through the mind
A modern marketing strategy recognises that customers are not just data points; they’re humans navigating uncertainty.
They get distracted, compare options, fall in love with a brand, lose interest, and rediscover it months later. That’s not inefficiency, it’s just reality.
If your funnel doesn’t reflect that complexity, it’s not your audience that’s broken, it’s your model.
Sources:
• Think with Google – “Decoding Decisions: Making Sense of the Messy Middle” (2020)
• McKinsey & Company – “The New Consumer Decision Journey” (2023)
• Harvard Business Review – “Branding in the Age of Social Media”
