If you have a product or service and invest in marketing, you are certainly tired of hearing about the Sales Funnel, right? Along with the funnel, in order to have a well-structured strategy, it is important to understand the customer's life cycle in depth, as it is this life cycle that will direct you to make more assertive decisions.
Do you want to better understand how the customer life cycle works and learn about some essential strategies to manage this flow assertively?
Customer lifecycle in practice
The customer lifecycle is the set of stages a person goes through in their relationship with your company, from first contact to retention or reactivation. It is usually divided into qualification/segmentation, attraction/acquisition, monetization/revenue, retention and reactivation/recovery. By understanding this flow, you can better guide marketing, sales and support, integrate data into a CRM, track the right metrics and KPIs at each stage, and align the sales funnel with the customer’s real buying journey.
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Understand the stages of the customer lifecycle along the buying journey.
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Connect sales funnel, content and marketing actions to each stage.
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Define metrics and KPIs to optimize performance in every phase.
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Use CRM and data to prioritize acquisition, retention and recovery actions.
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What you will see in today’s content
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What the customer lifecycle is and how it relates to the buying journey.
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Differences and complementarities between customer lifecycle and sales funnel.
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Main stages: qualification, attraction/acquisition, revenue, retention and recovery.
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How metrics, KPIs and the AARRR funnel help analyze each phase.
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Marketing, SEO, social media, e-mail and messaging strategies to activate leads.
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Satisfaction, loyalty and faithfulness indicators such as NPS, churn and CLV.
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Practical steps to apply the customer lifecycle to your business reality.
So stay with us!
What is the customer lifecycle?
Have you ever noticed that before making a purchase, there is a way to go? Even if it's quick, like going to the bakery to buy bread, there are a few steps to get to the moment of purchase.
We can quickly identify some of them without much effort. Let's look at the example of bread:
- Identify the need (to eat something);
- Choose what to buy (bread);
- Choose where to buy (bakery/market);
- Travel to the location (or order via delivery);
- Choose the type of product (type of bread);
- Product quantity;
- Possible complements (such as cold cuts or pâtés);
- Payment;
- Return to the home or place of consumption of the product;
- Phase of using the product (eating the bread);
- Approve or reject the taste/consumption experience.
All these steps just to buy a loaf of bread, phew! A lot, right? The funny thing is that a good part of this step by step, sometimes, becomes so common that we don't even remember that we went through it, we end up doing it unconsciously. Is not true? Save this information, we will use it later.
Consciously or unconsciously, each step is part of the consumer's buying journey, or, as we said earlier, the so-called consumer life cycle.
In practice, the consumer life cycle is nothing more than the different stages a customer goes through along their journey with a company.
As a rule, we divide this cycle into a few steps:
- Qualification/Segmentation;
- Attraction/Acquisition;
- Monetization;
- Retention;
- Reactivation/Recovery.
Within each step, it's important to analyze some specific metrics and KPIs to understand what can be improved and optimize the lifecycle consumer on your website)
And if you don't know what metrics and KPIs are, clearly and objective, metrics are a set of data that you pull from a certain place - the raw information so to speak.on the other KPIs, are key performance indicators that your organization's managers define to monitor the performance of the team, the organization, the actions taken, etc.
Also, in case you didn't already know, the AARRR can help you analyze the correct metrics for each stage of the journey, so you can stay focused on what really matters.
In parallel with the consumer life cycle, we have the sales funnel. This funnel is divided into three stages: top, middle and bottom.
- Top (ToFu): where your visitors are discovering they have a need;
- Middle (MoFu): here, he already knows he has a problem and is looking for a solution;
- Bottom (BoFu): where the most qualified leads become customers.
It is important to reinforce that the customer lifecycle and the sales funnel work together but are not exactly the same. Classic marketing funnel models organize the journey into awareness, interest, decision and action, while retention and loyalty usually happen in the post-purchase phase.
That is why someone still in the awareness stage needs educational, problem-focused content, while customers in retention require relationship, support and ongoing value initiatives to reduce churn and drive repeat purchases.
In this way, the production of content and the most diverse forms of marketing must be directed according to the specific stages.
Also, if you have questions about how to use inbound marketing to produce assertive content, take the opportunity to take a look here on the blog, we have several contents to help you in this mission!
Read too:
- Data Analysis: really know your customer and make less mistake
- UX design: fluid and assertive visual experience on the internet
- How the CRO will help your consumer's experience on the web
Why is it important to track the customer lifecycle?
Simple: who better than your own customer to tell them what they need?
When you know your client's needs and desires in depth, it becomes easier to define strategies for these needs. This knowledge helps you work in a more targeted and even predictive way (the use of artificial intelligence can help you with this).
Another advantage of knowing the customer life cycle well is that by identifying gaps and needs, you can unite your marketing team even more with the sales team, in addition to working together to generate more scalability for your business , it also leads to a more efficient capture and conversion process.
Now, if all this is so important, how to work each stage of this journey? Let's check it out!
Qualification/Segmentation
It is the first stage of the funnel (top stage of the funnel). At this stage, your potential customer is still a visitor (he cannot even be considered a lead yet) on your online pages. He is in the phase of learning and discovering that he has a problem to be solved.
In this step, you must produce content and generate strategies that generate the interest of this audience on a certain topic. It's not yet time to show your brand with the sales pitch, it's time to become friends, to bring things that say "you have a problem" in a subtle way.
For this, you can actively use SEO strategies (website and blog), massively use social media bringing "curiosity" content related to the universe of your products, you can even use Google ADS and Meta ADS to expose your brand to a colder audience.
When we talk about the acquisition phase, it is important to analyze how your users arrive at your website and how qualified these visitors are, that is, it is not just understanding if you have leads entering the website, but what actions they are taking .
Often, we fail to analyze this data, which is extremely important in the fundraising strategy, especially when the result is satisfactory. It turns out that when we fail to analyze this data, we fail to understand what we can improve to capture even more leads.
Image: AIDA sales funnel showing the attention, interest, desire and action stages across the customer lifecycle.
Attraction/Acquisition
We're in the middle and it's time to convert. For this, our actions must generate more and more interest from the lead in your products and services, so that they interact with your offers more and more.
Here, we are going to talk about actions. It's not enough to take the lead to your page, you need to evaluate and understand if this lead is actually being activated to the point of taking the actions you expect it to take on your website.
The most used form for this moment of conversion continues to be email marketing. But, currently, we can also include social networks, WhatsApp messages and even Telegram (if your capture strategy is used to forward the lead to internal groups on these networks).
Create content that touches your customer's pain more deeply, offer discount coupons or "member get member" promotions. Think about conversion strategies, here your marketing team and commercial team should literally be best friends.
While the marketing team works actively to keep the public warm, its commercial team works to serve customers who are looking for a more personalized service.
Revenue
Well, there is no company without revenue, right? Knowing the revenue generated through your actions is one of the most important parts of any business. It is this metric that justifies (or not) all actions taken so far.
Here, we have already left the funnel and are focusing on the life cycle, after all, it is not just about selling, but analyzing whether this sale is actually bringing a return to the company. For this, you must analyze several indicators and always keep in mind that the lower the cost per customer acquisition (CAC), the better your revenue result will be.
Here are some KPIs that can be analyzed:
- How the user generates revenue for your company;
- How much did the new customer cost your business;
- Amount of conversion x amount of membership of free models (if your business offers this);
- If you have partnered (with influencers, for example), what was the return on these partnerships in terms of conversion?
In practice, qualification and segmentation help define which audiences are most valuable, acquisition brings them into your ecosystem, monetization increases revenue per customer, retention reduces churn and reactivation wins back inactive accounts.
To manage this end-to-end view, many companies rely on customer relationship management (CRM)
strategies, which connect marketing, sales and service data to monitor the customer lifecycle and prioritize the most impactful actions.
Retention
You already have a customer, but you need to keep them so that they continue to buy your products and services, in addition to becoming a brand advocate and starting to refer you to other people.
In this step, take the opportunity to measure your customer satisfaction. There are several KPIs that you can adopt to collect this data, some of them are:
- NPS;
- Blacklists pointing to your website;
- Mentions on social networks;
- Reviews on recommendation sites and even Google;
- Customer testimonials;
- Number of users who recommend your service;
- Number of leads/customers that were generated from a referral action (such as using discount coupons).
Beyond satisfaction, it is helpful to track financial and loyalty indicators. Metrics like churn rate, average revenue per customer and customer lifetime value (CLV) reveal whether your customer base is truly growing or just replacing lost clients with new ones.
To measure loyalty in a simple way, many companies rely on the Net Promoter Score (NPS), which asks how likely customers are to recommend your brand. This score is a powerful input to prioritize retention actions and fix critical pain points.
Here, we need to focus on nutrition strategies. At this stage, you must invest in "pleasing" and enchanting. For this, nutrition email marketing is used a lot with personalized content, discount coupons - the famous: come back here! You can also offer freebies or new experiences for your customer.
Oh, of course we can't forget: offering customer service is part of the retention process! If he has any post-purchase questions, it is very important to give him the attention he deserves.
Recovery
Once you've gone through all the lifecycle stages, it's important to understand why some leads become customers and others don't.
The recovery phase is what we call remarketing, in which you can analyze the reasons why not everyone has reached the end of the buying cycle and work on time with strategies for that.
Analyze the profile of your customers and your leads, if possible, do a study persona, understand whether the communication was assertive for the audience you are really interested in reaching and then, produce materials that catch their attention.
How to put your hand in the dough?
Now that you know a little more about the consumer life cycle, you must be wondering: and how to put all this into practice?
To implement this strategy within your business, you can study the strategies in depth within each stage and adjust them according to the reality of your business. Here on our blog, you will find various content to help you.
Did you even know that CRO, SEO and UX strategies are essential for all of this to work? Learn a little more about them in this post that we recently posted here on the blog: CRO, SEO AND UX: Learn about these optimization techniques.
Frequently asked questions about customer lifecycle
What is the customer lifecycle?
The customer lifecycle is the set of stages a person goes through in their relationship with a company, from first contact to retention or reactivation. It considers both the buying journey and the use of the product or service, plus the post-purchase experience. Instead of looking only at the conversion moment, the lifecycle analyzes qualification, attraction, revenue generation, retention and remarketing. This makes it easier to understand how the customer discovers a need, chooses where to buy, evaluates the experience and decides whether to keep buying or not.
What are the stages of the customer lifecycle?
The stages of the customer lifecycle usually include qualification/segmentation, attraction/acquisition, monetization/revenue, retention and reactivation/recovery. In qualification, you understand who is worth attracting. In attraction/acquisition, you work content, SEO, social media and ads to bring visitors and qualified leads. In revenue, you analyze whether sales truly generate returns, monitoring indicators such as CAC. In retention, you measure satisfaction, loyalty and repeat purchases through NPS, reviews, mentions and churn. Finally, in recovery, you use remarketing and targeted actions to understand why some leads and customers did not progress and how to bring them back.
What is the difference between customer lifecycle and sales funnel?
Although they complement each other, customer lifecycle and sales funnel are not the same. The sales funnel organizes the journey into stages such as top, middle and bottom, often associated with the AIDA model (attention, interest, desire and action). It focuses mainly on the path from visitor to customer, from discovery to purchase decision. The customer lifecycle is broader and also considers retention, loyalty and recovery, which happen mainly after the sale. While the funnel guides content and approaches for each level of awareness, the lifecycle helps manage the entire relationship over time.
Why is it important to track the customer lifecycle?
Tracking the customer lifecycle is important because the customer’s own behavior reveals what they need at each stage. By deeply understanding needs and desires, you can define more targeted and even predictive strategies, supported by data and artificial intelligence. This allows marketing and sales teams to work together toward shared goals, making acquisition and conversion more efficient and scalable. In addition, tracking the lifecycle helps identify gaps, adjust communication, improve each touchpoint and prioritize actions that increase revenue, retention and referrals.
Which metrics and KPIs matter at each stage of the lifecycle?
At each stage of the lifecycle, some metrics and KPIs become especially relevant. In general, metrics are raw data, while KPIs are key indicators defined by management to track performance. In qualification and acquisition, it is useful to analyze how users arrive at the site, how qualified visitors are, conversion rate, adoption of free models and the return from partnerships, such as with influencers. In revenue, CAC and generated revenue show whether actions are worthwhile. In retention, NPS, mentions, reviews, testimonials, referrals, churn rate, average ticket and customer lifetime value (CLV) are key indicators.
How do CRM and the AARRR funnel help manage the customer lifecycle?
CRM tools and strategies help integrate marketing, sales and support data, allowing you to see the customer lifecycle end-to-end. This makes it easier to prioritize qualification, attraction, retention and reactivation actions. The AARRR funnel supports the choice of the right metrics at each stage, keeping focus on what really matters. By crossing data from channels, campaigns and user behavior, your company can identify bottlenecks, test improvements and connect marketing initiatives with the sales team’s work throughout the journey.
Which strategies should be used to attract and convert leads across the lifecycle?
In qualification and attraction, it is essential to produce educational, curiosity-driven and discovery content, subtly showing that the customer has a problem to solve. SEO on site and blog, social media and Google Ads and Meta Ads help expose your brand to colder audiences. In acquisition and conversion, actions that encourage interaction with offers gain importance, such as e-mail marketing and messages via social networks, WhatsApp and Telegram. Discount coupons, “member get member” promotions and content that deepens the customer’s pain help warm up leads and align marketing with the sales team.
How can I work on customer retention and recovery in practice?
In retention, the focus is to keep customers active, satisfied and willing to buy again, as well as to recommend your brand. You can measure satisfaction with KPIs such as NPS and track mentions, reviews, testimonials and referral volume. At the same time, it is useful to invest in nurturing e-mails with personalized content, discount coupons, gifts and new experiences, while ensuring good post-purchase support. Recovery involves remarketing and analyzing why some leads or customers did not move forward. Studying personas, reviewing communication and producing specific materials helps reconnect with this audience.
How can I start applying the customer lifecycle in my business?
To get started, it is important to understand the concept of customer lifecycle and the stages that make sense for your context. Then, study in more depth the specific strategies for qualification, attraction, revenue, retention and recovery and adapt them to your business model. Analyzing metrics and KPIs at each stage helps you discover what works best. In addition, CRO, SEO and UX techniques support the optimization of the site experience and the journey as a whole. Over time, the use of data and artificial intelligence can make your actions more predictive and efficient.
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