Autopilot's top customer journey goals

Libby Margo in Autopilot software on 20th of May 2019
customer journey goals

Customer Journey Goals

High-performing marketers are generally very goal-oriented people. And starting a customer journey without a goal is like going for a hike without directions — it may work out, but there’s a high chance you’ll end up getting lost. Without a goal, how would you determine if your customer journey was a success?

If you’ve been creating customer journeys without setting goals, it’s not too late to start now. Think of a goal as the action or event you’d like your contacts to take if they successfully convert in your journey.

To get you inspired, here are some of our most popular customer journeys along with great examples of goals for each of them.

Lead follow up

Lead follow up journeys are used to follow up with leads after they take a particular action such as downloading a piece of content, filling out a contact form, or subscribing to your blog. These journeys are effective because you’re capitalizing on the moment when your brand is top of mind.

This category can vary quite a bit depending on your business model, sales cycle, and what exactly you’re following up from (e.g., an ebook download versus a demo request). If you work for a B2B company, your goal would be to move the lead down the funnel. Let’s say someone has just downloaded your latest ebook, “The 6 step guide to skyrocketing your trial conversion rates.” You’ll likely follow up with more than just their copy of that ebook. If you also encourage them to subscribe to further communications or download more content, you could set your goal to track subscription numbers for the month or amount of content downloaded per lead.

If you work for a B2C company, however, you may follow up with leads after they submit an inquiry. Take an event agency, for example. They receive requests to be contacted when companies are planning an event and evaluating vendors. The goal for a lead follow up journey here could be to convert 20% of these inquiries into paid customers.


Further examples of lead follow up journey goals:

  • Marketing Qualified Leads (MQLs) created
  • Product demo requested
  • Total purchases or sign-ups

Lifecycle nurture

Lifecycle nurture journeys are designed to educate leads, build relationships with your brand, and accelerate the buying experience. Generally, businesses have one main lead nurture journey but it’s entirely possible to have multiple journeys for various segments or stage of the funnel.

This journey aims to drive users from the top of the funnel, right down to the bottom. If your role is heavily sales-focused, your goal might be to convert most leads in lifecycle nurture to a sales-ready lead (for example, an SQL). If you’re a B2C or SMB with a self-service sales model, lifecycle nurture may be used to nudge leads to become a paying customer. You may also have another intermediary goal, such as covering leads to a free trialist.

Further examples of lifecycle nurture journey goals:

  • Sales-ready leads created
  • Number of free trialists
  • Number of paying customers


Operational journeys are primarily used for internal purposes, including data management and maintenance. These journeys typically involve updating fields, routing leads, or sending internal notifications. Although it may not seem obvious at first, creating goals for operational journeys can be very helpful for staying on top of errors or targeting a particular lead score.

Examples of operational journeys include:

  • Routing leads to the sales team
  • Notifying the team when a new sale or churn comes through
  • Qualifying leads for nurture
  • Calculating a lead score
  • Updating field values once a lead takes a specific action

Take the below journey, for example. It’s an operational journey that routes Intercom leads to the sales team, notifying them to follow up. Appropriate goals for this journey include the number of leads routed to sales or number of leads that made it to a particular Pipedrive deal stage.

Further examples of operational journey goals:

  • Lead score
  • Leads with a particular field value
  • Number of notifications sent


We have listed a variety of goals for each customer journey. However, they are likely to differ based on your business model, marketing goals, or sales cycle.

marketing automation templates

Try Autopilot today Start a free 30 day trial.

Signup for free
comments powered by Disqus