What is e-commerce customer journey mapping?
Customer journey mapping is the process of creating a visual representation of the path a customer takes when interacting with your brand. This includes every stage, from awareness and consideration to purchase and retention. In ecommerce, this journey often takes place entirely online, across a variety of digital touchpoints including ads, social media, product pages, checkout flows, and email communication. Mapping this journey helps brands understand customer needs, pain points, emotions, and behaviours at each step to allow them to notice gaps or friction points in the buying process that may be preventing conversions.
The importance of customer journey mapping
The ecommerce customer journey is rarely linear. Shoppers may enter your site through a Google ad, leave, return through a remarketing email, browse products, and finally make a purchase days later. Without a map to track these interactions, it’s nearly impossible to optimise this experience. This is where mapping comes in. Customer journey mapping helps ecommerce businesses in several key ways:
- It improves targeting by identifying what channels and messages resonate most
- It reduces cart abandonment by pinpointing where users drop off
- It enhances user experience by streamlining the buying process
- It supports customer retention by revealing post-purchase opportunities
- By using a customer-first lens, journey mapping allows brands to align their ecommerce strategy more closely with actual buyer behaviour
Steps to create an effective ecommerce customer journey map
Creating a useful journey map involves more than just sketching out a few steps. It requires data, understanding, and research into of your customer personas. Here are some simple steps to follow to create a successful customer journey map:
- Define your customer personas: Start by creating detailed buyer personas based on demographics, behaviours, and buying motivations. This can be done through ecommerce data (such as Google Analytics, CRM insights, and social media metrics) to segment your audience
- Identify key stages of the journey: Typical ecommerce journeys include the following stages: awareness, consideration, decision, purchase, and post-purchase. Identify what actions and touchpoints are involved in each stage. For example, awareness may begin with a Google search or an Instagram ad
- Map customer goals and pain points: At each stage, ask: What is the customer trying to achieve? What could be causing frustration? For example, at the consideration stage, unclear product descriptions or a lack of reviews might be obstacles to purchase
- Gather data from multiple sources: Use tools like heatmaps, session recordings, user surveys, and cart abandonment reports to understand how users behave on your site and what barriers they face. This data ensures your journey map reflects real experiences, not assumptions.
- Visualise the journey: Create a visual map that includes stages, touchpoints, emotions, and potential friction points. There are many templates and digital tools available, such as Lucidchart, Miro, or Figma, to help you create an intuitive flow.
- Identify opportunities for optimisation: Look at the map and ask where improvements can be made. Are there too many steps between browsing and checkout? Are users abandoning the process at a particular page? Use the map to make informed decisions on changes to design, content, or strategy.
- Using journey mapping to improve ecommerce performance: Once you’ve created a customer journey map, the real value lies in how you use it.
How to apply maps to your e-commerce strategies
- Refine content and messaging: tailor product descriptions, email sequences, and landing page content to address specific concerns or goals identified in the journey
- Streamline the checkout process: if users are dropping off during checkout, consider adding guest checkout, simplifying forms, or offering more payment options
- Enhance personalisation: use behavioural data to deliver relevant product recommendations or content at each stage of the journey
- Strengthen customer support: identify when users typically seek help and ensure support is easily accessible, whether through chatbots, FAQS, or live chat
- Improve post-purchase engagement: follow up with personalised thank-you emails, review requests, or loyalty programmes to retain customers and encourage repeat purchases
