Latest / Customer Journey with Fexingo: Touchpoints, Mapping, and Multi-Channel Marketing / How Journey Maps Miss the Silent Return to Web Search
Transcript
- Lucas: There's a moment in every customer journey that almost no one maps, and I think we've all done it ourselves. You're on a product page, you're reading the features, and then you open a new tab and type the company's name into Google. Luna: Oh, I do that all the time. I've done it in the last week, actually. It's like I don't trust the page I'm on. Lucas: Exactly. And that moment, that escape to search, is a touchpoint. It's a moment of intent, sometimes a moment of doubt. And yet when we draw journey maps, we tend to draw a straight line from ad to landing page to signup. We skip the part where the customer leaves to verify you, or to check if there's something better. Luna: So we're basically ignoring a moment where they're actively evaluating us. That seems like a huge blind spot. Lucas: It is. And it's one that's become more important as search behavior has shifted. Think about how a typical buyer moves through a B2B software evaluation in 2026. They might see your LinkedIn ad, click through to your pricing page, and then immediately open a new tab and search for your company name plus 'review' or 'alternative.' Luna: So they're checking your reputation, or they're checking out your competitors. And we don't see that in our analytics, do we? Lucas: Not in the traditional sense. Our analytics tool will show the pageview on the pricing page, and then maybe a bounce. But it won't show the search query that happened in between. Unless you're looking at search console data, or you have session replay with search tracking, you're blind to it. Lucas: And that's a problem because that search is a signal. If someone searches for your brand after visiting your site, it could be positive—they're looking for reviews to validate their decision. But if they search for your brand plus 'alternative' or 'vs' something, that's a red flag. You're losing them at the moment of highest intent. Luna: And we're not even measuring it. So how would we even know? What's the first step to uncovering this touchpoint? Lucas: The first step is to look at your Google Search Console data. Specifically, look at the queries that include your brand name, and then look at the pages that appear in the results. If you see a lot of branded queries that include words like 'alternative,' 'vs,' 'review,' or 'complaint,' that's a clue that customers are going to search to evaluate you. Luna: And then you can look at the click-through rate on those results. If they're clicking on your competitor's page instead of yours, that's a problem. Lucas: Right. But it's not just about search console. You can also use session replay tools that track search within the browser. Some tools can capture the tab-switch behavior, showing that a user left your page, typed in a query, and came back. That's gold. You can see the exact moment of hesitation. Lucas: And once you see it, you can start designing for it. For example, if you know people are searching for 'brand alternative' after visiting your pricing page, you can preempt that by including a comparison section on your pricing page itself. Or you can create content that addresses the 'vs' query directly so that when they search, you're the one they find. Luna: So we're not just mapping the moment, we're building content for it. That's interesting. Have you seen this actually work, in practice? Lucas: Yeah, I've seen a couple of examples. One that sticks with me is a mid-market SaaS company that offers project management tools. They noticed from search console that a lot of people were searching for their brand plus the word 'alternative' right after visiting their pricing page. So they created a dedicated landing page that directly compared themselves to their biggest competitor, and they made it easy to find. Lucas: The page didn't hide anything. It laid out feature-by-feature comparisons and even acknowledged where the competitor was stronger. And their conversion rate from that page was significantly higher than from their regular pricing page. Because they were meeting the customer where they were—in the search results—and giving them a reason to come back. Luna: So they turned the touchpoint into an asset. But what about the negative case? What if the search reveals that customers are looking for reviews because they're uncertain about trust? Lucas: That's a different signal, and it's just as important. If you see a lot of branded searches for 'review' or 'is legit,' that's a trust gap. Your marketing might be generating interest, but something is making people hesitate. Maybe it's a lack of social proof on your site, or maybe you're a new entrant and people haven't heard of you. Lucas: And in that case, the fix isn't a comparison page. It's building credibility—testimonials, case studies, third-party reviews, maybe even a trust badge from a known authority. And then you have to make sure that content shows up in search results when someone searches for your brand plus 'review.' Luna: So it's about closing the loop. You find the search query, you understand the intent, and you serve the right content. That's a really practical way to think about journey mapping. Lucas: Honestly, if today's episode was worth a coffee to you, that's the link — buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small way to keep these conversations ad-free and coming to you each day. Luna: Yeah, we appreciate that more than we can say. It really does make a difference. Lucas: Now, the key is to actually add this search moment to your journey map. It's a step that most maps never include. And it's not just about the search itself. It's about the fact that the customer left your page at all. That's a behavioral signal—something on that page didn't fully answer their question. Luna: So the real touchpoint isn't just the search. It's the moment of departure. That's what you're mapping. Lucas: Exactly. And that changes how you think about your content. Instead of just optimizing for conversions on the page, you're optimizing for the moment before the search. You're asking: what question might they have that we haven't answered? And you're making sure that the answer is either on the page, or in the search results. Lucas: There's also a defensive element. If you're not capturing that search moment, your competitors might be. They could be running ads on your branded terms, so when someone searches for your name, your competitor's ad is the first thing they see. That's a direct attack on your journey, and you'd never know it if you're not looking. Luna: So we should be monitoring our branded search terms regularly, not just for our own analytics, but to see if competitors are targeting them. Lucas: Yes. And that's a simple thing you can do: set up a Google Search Console filter for branded queries, check it once a week, and note any spikes or new terms. You can also use a tool like SEMrush or Ahrefs to see which competitors are bidding on your brand name. But the search console is free and it's a starting point. Luna: What about the customer's mindset? When they search for your brand, are they in a different mindset than when they're browsing your site? Lucas: Definitely. On your site, they're in a passive browsing mode. They're reading what you tell them. When they search, they're in an active evaluation mode. They're looking for third-party validation, for comparisons, for red flags. So the content you serve in that search results page needs to speak to that evaluative mindset. It's not the same as your homepage. Lucas: And that's why mapping this touchpoint matters. Because if you don't consciously design for it, you're leaving a critical moment to chance. And in a busy market, that can be the difference between a signup and a lost customer. Luna: So what's the one thing a marketer should do tomorrow, after listening to this? Lucas: Open your search console, go to performance, and filter for queries that include your brand name. Just look at the last ninety days. Look for terms like 'alternative,' 'review,' 'vs,' or 'pricing.' If you see anything that surprises you, that's your starting point. Then, map that moment onto your journey. Luna: That's a concrete step. I'm going to do that for our own site this week. Lucas: It sounds mundane, but it's the kind of thing that can unlock a whole new perspective on your customer's path. And once you see it, you can't unsee it. You'll start noticing all those little moments where your customers leave to think—and that's where the real journey happens.