Modern Customer Journeys: From Funnels to Pinball Machines

I like the marketing funnel. It’s a great analogy, and has served me well for years. I STILL think it works reasonably well as a way to describe how businesses experience the various points at which they engage/interact with users before they become customers. But, we cannot bury our heads in the sand and deny that it’s no longer a reasonable way to describe real customer journeys.

Today, people using the web and the real world to discover and solve problems don’t cleanly move as groups from a few channels at the top of the funnel to a few different channels in the middle to your website, a phone call, or storefront at the bottom. Nope. They look like… well, pinball machines.

The person might start their journey in a WhatsApp group conversation, a Substack newsletter, a browse of Instagram’s Discover page, a scroll through their personalized Google News feed, LinkedIn feed, Reddit feed, YouTube homepage, or a dozen others. Then they move to searching Google, asking ChatGPT, pinging friends, scouring Reddit, DM’ing experts they follow on LinkedIn or Threads. And even at the bottom of the funnel, they’re bouncing back to these same places prior to the final conversion event to double‑check what your website or salesperson is telling them (sometimes in real time on their phone in the store checkout aisle).

That’s not a process funnel visualization captures well.

It’s one that pinball machines nail perfectly. If you want to extend the analogy, imagine the size of those flippers at the bottom getting bigger the more effort you put into your product, brand, and messaging on various channels (or shrinking as you ignore them).

This week’s 5‑Minute Whiteboard goes deeper on how modern customer journeys work using an example from the world of consumer banking choices. I think you’ll see your own behavior, and that of your peers, friends, kids, that dude on the subway you watched buy a giant golden rhino head for his living room — all of ’em — in this process.

Transcript

I know you all are familiar with a marketing funnel, and it’s not entirely wrong. That’s not what I’m saying. But I do think the analogy doesn’t hold up like it used to. It used to be that at this top awareness stage, maybe people were searching, they were browsing, then they got to the interest stage and they were doing deeper research and visiting your website and asking questions. Then the consideration they’re comparing against competitors and then they have their evaluation and purchase process.

And today I think it works more like this. I think it’s a pinball machine. I think basically what happens is that people, first they’re like, “Hey, I’m thinking about this thing. I’m gonna ask a friend and then I’ll skim some blog posts and read some news and Google it and check out a white paper.”

Maybe I’ll get a demo that, you know, if it’s enterprise whatever, that I’ll check out my Instagram and LinkedIn and YouTube and Threads and Reddit. And I’ll ask ChatGPT or other AI tools. And maybe I’ll subscribe to a newsletter or check out the newsletters I do subscribe to. Maybe the newsletter was the thing that tipped me off in the first place.

And so this whole concept of a funnel is just busted. Let me show you what I mean.

Let’s say I’m looking for a new bank. Right? I’m, I’m moving to Philadelphia. Maybe I already live there.

So I’m checking out banks. I’m like, “Okay, I subscribed to this asset column on Substack and they’ve got a bunch of recommendations around things I should look for: FDIC insured, APY, tools, mobile check deposit, fraud protection.” Alright, it’s a little basic but it gets me there.

Since I did the “sleep out” personally in Philadelphia recently at Citizens Bank Park (where the Philadelphia Phillies play), I’m gonna check them out. I go and check Citizens Bank interest rate.

There’s another bounce. I’m like, “Okay, their private client money market has 3 % and 3.5 %.” I don’t know whether that’s good or not, so I ask around on Reddit and see what somebody else said. There are some recommendations.

Someone suggested Bankrate. I go to Bankrate and bounce around to see what they offer. Wow—four percent. That sounds way higher. Maybe I should be checking those guys out. So then I’m gonna ask my buddy Will.

I’m like, “Yo, Will—any Philly banks you recommend?” (I’m not actually sending that message.)

Then I think, “I should check if they actually have a branch in the neighborhood I’m moving to.” I look up the zip code 19122. The ratings are super low. The reviews talk about long lines and broken debit machines. That doesn’t tell me much about the APY, which is what I care about.

So I go and check out Citizens Money Market accounts on their website, and I’m bouncing and bouncing and bouncing. The process is wild.

Understanding this concept—that human beings do not behave in the clean funnel sense you want and that you can’t just choose a couple of channels—is crucial. You need to be in the places that your audience pays attention.

This is what SparkToro focuses on. I look for “Philadelphia‑area, high‑rate bank deposit seekers.” I ask, “Who are they and which platforms are they on?” Funny enough, Substack shows up.

That makes sense because my journey started with Substack. It nudged me there.

The whole process reminds me of a meme originally shared by Adam Singer: “We need an econometrics model to evaluate which inputs contributed to which sales.” But you can’t measure this stuff. You’ll never be able to properly measure the value of, say, Citizens Bank having its branding on the Philadelphia Phillies stadium—the thing that inspired me to look them up. You have to reach the right people in the right places with the right message.

If your bank is trying to compete on location, friendliness, short lines, and working debit machines, you should worry about those Google Maps reviews. If you’re targeting high‑interest seekers, you should be present on Substack, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, and other high‑affinity places.

Make sure you’re present in the personal‑finance subreddit (a high‑affinity community) and push the same message over and over: not short lines and debit machines, but high‑yield savings accounts and high‑yield money‑market accounts. Delivering the right message in the right place for the right audience is the new way to do the old funnel methodology. This pinball‑style system is how marketers need to catch up.