How to Build a Customer Journey Map

That works...

If no one’s gonna say it, I will: Most customer journey maps are useless.

They look great on a slide deck.

Maybe there’s a nice funnel shape, some icons, and a few emojis to show how the customer is “feeling.” But ask someone in sales or CS how often they look at it, and the look on their face will tell you everything you need to know.

A real customer journey map should do one thing: connect customer behavior to business results. It’s not about aesthetics, it’s about operational clarity.

We recently built a journey map that works—not because it’s clever, but because it’s usable. It starts from the customer’s perspective and ties every touchpoint back to outcomes the business cares about.

Here’s how to build one that delivers business impact, with a template to help get you started:

1. Start with the buyer’s perspective

Too many journey maps start with, “What do we want the customer to do here?”

Instead, ask: Where is the customer in their decision-making process? What are they trying to understand, solve, or evaluate now?

Start with “Journey Step” → then “Goal.” For example:

• Journey Step: Researching how to automate internal tools

• Customer Goal: Understand which platforms require the least dev lift

When you start with what the customer is trying to accomplish, the touchpoints, content, and next steps become obvious instead of forced. You're building around real intent, not internal wishful thinking.

2. Map both emotional and practical needs

People don't make decisions based solely on logic. They buy (and bounce) based on their emotions — confusion, skepticism, and intrigue. You shouldn't just document practical needs, such as "see a pricing page." Capture emotional states like:

• "Worried this won't work with our existing stack."

• "Skeptical about ROI claims after being burned before"

• "Overwhelmed by too many feature options"

This matters. If someone is worried about risk, don't bombard them with a features comparison chart. Instead, give them a customer testimonial or a security one-pager.

3. Align with HubSpot lifecycle stages

To make the map usable across teams, tie each phase to a HubSpot lifecycle stage:

• Subscriber (downloads a gated asset)

• Lead (visits the pricing page or opens an email)

• MQL (fills out a demo form)

• SQL (sales-qualified via BANT or outreach)

• Opportunity (proposal sent)

• Customer (contract signed)

Or, use more modern lifecycle stages that reflect how buyers move:

• Unidentified (anonymous website visitors)

• Aware (identified through intent signals or content)

• Engaged (meaningful interaction across multiple touchpoints)

• Nurture (not ready but qualified for future engagement)

• Sales Accepted (actively being worked on by sales)

• Customer (closed won and onboarding)

When you align with lifecycle stages that match real customer progress, you align messaging, lead scoring, and automation with actual buying behavior, not just internal milestones.

4. Document specific actions at each stage

Avoid vague milestones, such as “engaged” or “aware.”

Instead, be specific:

• “Completed Lead Gen Form.”

• “Expressed interest via cold call.”

• “Stopped responding to outreach."

These observable behaviors give clear signals for routing leads, surfacing intent, and reporting progress.

5. Assign process ownership. This is where most journey maps fall apart because nobody owns anything. Make it clear who's responsible at each stage:

• Marketing: Owns subscriber → MQL

• Sales: Owns SQL → Opportunity

• Customer Success: Owns Customer → Advocate

Even within marketing, you might split ownership between demand gen, content, and ops. Write names and titles, not departments. If everyone owns it, no one owns it.

6. Identify the tools powering each moment. Your tech stack should be included in your journey map. The "Technology & Tools" row shows which systems power each customer interaction.

For example:

• Awareness: SEO tools (Ahrefs), ad platforms (LinkedIn, Google), social schedulers (Buffer)

• Consideration: Webinar platforms (Zoom, On24), landing pages (HubSpot CMS)

• Decision: Quote tools (PandaDoc), CRM workflows (HubSpot), e-signature (DocuSign)

This prevents the classic problem of marketing promising something that sales can't deliver, or where handoffs break because systems don't talk to each other.

7. Define metrics that mean something. You can't optimize what you can't measure. And "awareness" or "engagement" are not real metrics. Translate each stage into clear, trackable behaviors:

• Lead → MQL: % who submit a form after consuming 3+ assets

• SQL → Opportunity: % who schedule a second call within 7 days

• Customer: Time-to-value, expansion revenue, churn risk

These metrics should reside in your CRM and be tied to automation logic, rather than being stored in a spreadsheet.

Making it happen. The framework is straightforward. The execution is where most teams stumble.

Start by bringing together marketing, sales, customer success, and product. Use a whiteboard or Miro. Map the current state first, then the ideal. The gap between those two is where you'll find your best opportunities.

Focus on where customers are getting stuck or where leads are missing. Prioritize fixes based on revenue impact, not ease of implementation.

The point isn't to create another pretty diagram. It's to build a system that shows you what customers are doing, what they need, and who's responsible for moving them forward. When that happens, you stop guessing about pipeline health and start controlling it.