The SaaS customer journey outlines the steps customers take from first hearing about a product to becoming loyal users and advocates. It’s made up of stages like awareness, consideration, adoption, renewal, expansion, and advocacy. Each stage involves specific tactics such as content marketing during awareness or free trials in onboarding to engage users effectively. Mapping this journey helps companies understand customer behavior better, identify friction points, and personalize communication to reduce churn. By aligning internal teams around these stages and continuously tracking key metrics like renewal rates or NPS scores, businesses can improve experiences that boost retention and long-term growth over time.

Table of Contents

1. What Is the SaaS Customer Journey
2. Stages and Touchpoints in the SaaS Journey
3. Awareness Stage: How Customers Discover Your Product
4. Consideration and Onboarding: Turning Interest Into Use
5. Adoption Stage: Helping Customers Realize Value
6. Renewal Stage: Securing Recurring Revenue
7. Expansion Stage: Growing Customer Accounts
8. Advocacy Stage: Turning Users Into Promoters
9. Detailed SaaS Journey Stages by Encharge
10. Steps to Create and Optimize a SaaS Customer Journey Map
11. Different Types of SaaS Customer Journey Maps
12. Essential Metrics to Track at Every Stage
13. Practical Tactics for Each SaaS Journey Stage
14. Frequently Asked Questions

What Is the SaaS Customer Journey

The SaaS customer journey is the full path a user follows from first learning about a software-as-a-service product to becoming a paying customer and, ideally, a loyal long-term user. This journey is made up of several stages that show how the customer moves forward, along with touchpoints where they interact with the company or product. These touchpoints might be digital, like visiting a website or receiving an email, or human, such as demo sessions or support calls. The journey isn’t always a straight line; customers often go back and forth between stages based on their needs and experiences. Common stages include Awareness, Consideration, Adoption, Renewal, Expansion, and Advocacy. Understanding this journey helps companies identify where customers might struggle or lose interest, allowing them to tailor communications, product features, and support accordingly. Mapping the journey also helps predict customer behavior and align marketing, sales, and customer success teams around key moments. Ultimately, this approach aims to improve the overall user experience, reduce churn, boost retention, and grow revenue through repeat business and referrals.

Stages and Touchpoints in the SaaS Journey

The SaaS journey consists of clear stages where customers interact with the product and company in different ways. It starts with the Awareness stage, when potential users recognize a problem and either actively search for solutions or come across the product passively through ads, social media, or word-of-mouth. Here, key touchpoints include websites, blog posts, and social channels that introduce the product’s value. Next is the Consideration stage, where customers research options, often using demos, free trials, or webinars to compare alternatives. Touchpoints expand to product interfaces, onboarding emails, and live support, aiming to educate and build confidence. During Adoption, customers begin using the product regularly, seeking guidance through in-app tips, customer support, and community forums to maximize value. Renewal is a critical moment when users decide whether to continue their subscription. Communication through reminder emails, surveys, and personalized offers plays a big role here to reduce churn. Expansion follows, where satisfied customers upgrade plans or add features, triggered by targeted upsell emails, sales outreach, and case studies that highlight additional benefits. Finally, Advocacy emerges when users become promoters, sharing testimonials, participating in referral programs, and engaging on social media or forums. Each stage requires tailored engagement strategies and specific touchpoints to encourage progression. Monitoring metrics like conversion rates, renewal percentages, and customer feedback at these touchpoints helps identify friction and optimize the experience over time. Together, these stages and interactions create a comprehensive map of the SaaS customer journey, guiding companies to better serve and grow their user base.

Awareness Stage: How Customers Discover Your Product

At the Awareness stage, potential customers identify a need or problem that prompts them to look for solutions. This discovery happens either actively, such as when someone searches online for answers, or passively, like encountering ads or hearing recommendations from trusted sources. Content marketing plays a key role here by providing valuable information through blogs, videos, and infographics that educate and attract attention. A strong social media presence helps brands reach both broad and specific audiences, while paid advertising on platforms like Google Ads or social networks directs targeted traffic to dedicated landing pages. SEO strategies boost organic visibility in search results, increasing the chance of discovery without direct advertising. Additionally, word-of-mouth and referrals remain powerful, as people often trust suggestions from peers or industry experts. Participating in events, hosting webinars, or engaging in industry forums can also introduce the product to new audiences. To measure effectiveness at this stage, companies track metrics like website visits, click-through rates, and content engagement. Maintaining consistent messaging and running brand awareness campaigns over time helps build recognition and keeps the product top of mind as customers begin their journey.

Consideration and Onboarding: Turning Interest Into Use

During the consideration stage, potential customers actively compare your product’s features, pricing, and benefits against competitors. Offering free trials and demos plays a key role here, allowing prospects to test the product hands-on and build confidence in its value. To ease this transition from interest to actual use, guided product tours and structured onboarding checklists help users navigate the initial setup and familiarize themselves with core functions. Supportive tactics like webinars and live Q&A sessions provide real-time education, addressing questions that arise early on. Additionally, nurturing leads through targeted email sequences keeps communication consistent, offering useful tips and timely reminders. Comprehensive knowledge bases and video tutorials further lower barriers by enabling self-paced learning. When immediate assistance is needed, live chat and responsive customer support ensure users don’t get stuck. The ultimate goal of onboarding is to activate users quickly by helping them achieve their first meaningful success with the product, which strongly influences their decision to convert to paying customers. Tracking conversion rates from trial to paid subscription offers insight into how effective your onboarding process is. Personalizing the onboarding experience, such as tailoring content based on user behavior or segment, improves engagement and reduces early churn, setting the stage for long-term satisfaction and retention.

Adoption Stage: Helping Customers Realize Value

The adoption stage centers on deepening how customers use the product and increasing their satisfaction. Effective in-app guides and tooltips help users navigate features without frustration, allowing them to explore capabilities efficiently. Personalized recommendations based on actual usage highlight relevant functionalities, encouraging users to get more from the product. Regular feature updates and webinars keep customers informed and engaged, demonstrating ongoing value and improvements. User communities and forums offer spaces for peer support, knowledge sharing, and troubleshooting, which can enhance the overall experience. Customer support remains vital during this stage, resolving issues promptly to maintain satisfaction. Monitoring product usage through analytics enables proactive outreach to users who may be at risk of disengagement, allowing timely interventions. Success in adoption is measured by active usage rates and the extent of feature adoption, reflecting how well customers integrate the product into their workflows. Encouraging feedback during this phase uncovers areas for product enhancement and signals responsiveness. Building consistent habits around product use reduces churn by making the product an indispensable part of the customer’s routine.

Renewal Stage: Securing Recurring Revenue

The renewal stage is critical for SaaS companies as it marks the point when customers decide whether to continue their subscription for another term. To encourage renewals, timely reminder emails and renewal offers play an important role by prompting customers before their subscription expires. Personalized communication that reflects individual usage patterns and the value delivered so far helps increase the chances of customers choosing to stay. Collecting feedback through customer satisfaction surveys allows companies to address any concerns early and improve the experience before renewal decisions are made. Loyalty programs can reward long-term customers, reinforcing their commitment and encouraging retention. For customers who show signs of disengagement or potential churn, targeted churn prevention campaigns offering special deals or additional support can help retain them. In-app notifications serve as an effective touchpoint to remind users about upcoming renewals or highlight the benefits of continuing their subscription. Customer success managers often engage directly with key accounts to negotiate renewals, making the communication timely and relevant, which is critical to avoiding customer loss. Analyzing renewal rates and understanding reasons behind churn also provides valuable insights to refine retention strategies. Together, these tactics create a proactive approach to securing recurring revenue and maintaining a loyal customer base.

Expansion Stage: Growing Customer Accounts

The expansion stage focuses on growing existing customer accounts by encouraging upgrades to higher-tier plans or adding new features and services. Successful expansion relies on understanding customer needs and usage patterns to deliver personalized upsell offers that feel relevant rather than pushy. Behavioral analytics play a key role in identifying which customers are likely to benefit from an upgrade or cross-sell, allowing targeted emails and sales outreach to promote product enhancements tailored to their evolving goals. Customer success teams support this process by aligning product capabilities with the customer’s changing objectives, ensuring that the expansion delivers real value. Educational content such as case studies and webinars helps illustrate the benefits of upgrading, while limited-time offers create a sense of urgency to act. Tracking upgrade conversion rates provides insight into the effectiveness of these tactics, and clear communication of ROI and value helps justify the customer’s decision to expand. Ultimately, expansion not only boosts customer lifetime value but also deepens the business relationship, setting the stage for long-term growth.

Advocacy Stage: Turning Users Into Promoters

The advocacy stage is when satisfied customers actively recommend a SaaS product to others, becoming valuable promoters. One effective way to encourage this is through referral programs that reward users for sharing the product with their networks. Encouraging customers to leave reviews and testimonials also builds social proof, which helps attract new users. Social media engagement plays a key role by allowing advocates to share their positive experiences publicly, further amplifying reach. Creating community forums and user groups fosters a sense of belonging, helping to deepen loyalty and keep advocates engaged. User-generated content like case studies or success stories adds authenticity and credibility to marketing efforts. Measuring advocacy impact through Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys provides insight into customers’ willingness to recommend, while tracking referral rates and social engagement shows how well advocacy tactics are working. Recognizing and rewarding advocates on an ongoing basis helps maintain their motivation, and some advocates may even serve as brand ambassadors in broader marketing campaigns, strengthening the brand’s presence organically.

Detailed SaaS Journey Stages by Encharge

Encharge breaks down the SaaS customer journey into six nuanced stages, each with specific goals and tactics to improve customer lifetime value. The Initial Out-of-Market Stage targets potential users before they actively search for solutions. Here, broad awareness campaigns using organic and paid channels spark curiosity through content like blogs and infographics. Metrics such as website views and click-through rates help monitor engagement. Next, the Trigger and Evaluation Stage focuses on educating prospects who are researching and comparing options. Lead magnets like comparison charts, case studies, and testimonials clarify product benefits and set it apart from competitors. In the Acquisition Stage, the goal is to convert interest into trial signups and onboard users smoothly. Free trials, welcome emails, and clear FAQs work together to increase conversions. This stage closely tracks signup rates and onboarding completion. Adoption and Experience follow, where trial users are guided to become paying customers. Tactics include in-app guidance, support channels, video tutorials, and community forums that help users realize value and reduce churn. Metrics like email open rates and support ticket volumes provide insight into user engagement. The Renewal and Expansion Stage aims to retain customers and identify upsell opportunities. Behavior analytics and customer success stories inform targeted renewal reminders and personalized upgrade offers. Renewal rates and daily active users are key metrics here. Lastly, the Advocacy Stage encourages satisfied customers to promote the product. Referral programs, user-generated content, and testimonials foster loyalty and organic growth. Net promoter score (NPS) and referral rates measure advocacy strength. Encharge highlights the importance of seamless transitions between these stages to minimize drop-offs and uses timely interventions to boost engagement. By combining these detailed stages with tailored tactics, SaaS companies can better align efforts, improve customer experience, and drive sustainable growth.

Steps to Create and Optimize a SaaS Customer Journey Map

Start by defining clear goals for your journey map, such as reducing churn or improving onboarding success. Knowing what you want to achieve helps focus your efforts and measure progress. Next, develop detailed customer personas by gathering data on demographics, behaviors, and pain points. These personas represent distinct user groups and guide how you understand their needs and motivations. Identify every customer touchpoint across channels and stages, including digital interactions like emails, app usage, and website visits, as well as human contacts such as support calls or sales conversations. Organize these touchpoints visually under their respective journey stages to create a clear and easy-to-follow map. Incorporate customer emotions and pain points by collecting direct feedback through surveys and interviews, which reveals the real experiences behind the interactions. Determine the channels and contexts where customers engage, for example, whether they mostly use mobile devices or desktops, or prefer app notifications over emails. Analyze data from these touchpoints to spot roadblocks and friction points causing drop-offs or dissatisfaction, such as confusing onboarding steps or long response times. Based on these insights, create prioritized improvement plans that target the most impactful issues first, ensuring resources focus on changes that will make the biggest difference. Continuously monitor key metrics like churn rates, product adoption, and subscription renewals to track how well improvements are working. Finally, regularly update your journey map to reflect new customer behaviors, product changes, and market trends, keeping it a relevant tool for ongoing optimization. For example, if you notice a spike in churn after a recent feature update, revisit the journey map to identify where customers struggle and adjust your support or communication tactics accordingly.

Different Types of SaaS Customer Journey Maps

SaaS customer journey maps come in various forms, each designed to offer specific insights and focus areas. Current State Maps capture the existing customer experience, pinpointing pain points and friction that users encounter. Future State Maps, on the other hand, illustrate the ideal journey, helping teams visualize improvements and set clear goals for enhancing the experience. Persona-Specific Maps tailor the journey to particular customer groups based on demographics, behaviors, or needs, enabling targeted strategies that resonate more effectively. Stage-Specific Maps zoom in on critical phases such as onboarding or renewal, allowing deeper optimization of these key moments. Channel-Focused Maps concentrate on specific interaction points like a mobile app, email, or customer support, revealing how well each touchpoint performs. Problem-Centric Maps revolve around specific customer problems or tasks, clarifying how users navigate and solve issues with the product. Behavior-Driven Maps segment customers according to their actions or engagement levels, uncovering patterns that can inform activation and retention strategies. Lifecycle Stage Maps integrate multiple smaller journeys into a broader view, supporting long-term customer management. Cross-Functional Maps highlight how various departments, like sales, marketing, and support, influence the journey, fostering alignment on customer outcomes. Lastly, Touchpoint Intensity Maps weigh interactions by their frequency or importance, guiding prioritization of improvements and resource allocation. Each map type serves a distinct purpose, and combining them can provide a comprehensive understanding of the customer experience in SaaS environments.

Essential Metrics to Track at Every Stage

Tracking the right metrics throughout the SaaS customer journey is key to understanding performance and improving customer experience. Early on, the conversion rate from trial signup to paid subscription reveals how effective your onboarding and activation processes are. If users struggle to see immediate value, this rate tends to drop. Once customers start using the product, the feature adoption rate measures how many engage actively with core functionalities, which signals product value realization and helps identify underused features.

Retention is crucial, so monitoring churn rate shows what percentage of customers leave, highlighting areas that need attention to improve satisfaction. Alongside churn, the renewal rate indicates how many customers continue after their initial subscription term, reflecting loyalty and contentment with the service. Customer lifetime value (CLV) provides a broader financial perspective by estimating the total revenue a customer will generate, helping to balance acquisition costs with long-term gains.

Customer sentiment is equally important. Net promoter score (NPS) gauges how likely customers are to recommend your product, giving insight into advocacy potential and overall happiness. For immediate feedback, the customer satisfaction score (CSAT) measures satisfaction after specific interactions like onboarding or support tickets. Support-related metrics, such as ticket volume and resolution time, expose common pain points and show how efficiently your team addresses them.

Engagement metrics, like daily or monthly active users, inform you about ongoing product usage and stickiness, which often correlates with retention and expansion potential. Finally, referral rate tracks how many new users come through existing customers, measuring the success of advocacy and referral programs. Together, these metrics provide a comprehensive view of customer health and guide targeted improvements at each stage of the SaaS experience journey.

Practical Tactics for Each SaaS Journey Stage

At the Awareness stage, focus on content marketing such as blogs and videos to educate potential users and build interest. Boost brand visibility by leveraging social media channels and running targeted paid ads on platforms like Google and Facebook, reaching prospects who are actively searching for solutions. Encourage word-of-mouth by offering referral incentives and sharing customer testimonials. Partnering with influencers can also help extend your reach to relevant audiences.

During Consideration, Acquisition, and Onboarding, lower barriers with free trials and demos that let users experience your product firsthand. Support their early steps with guided product tours and onboarding checklists to simplify setup. Host webinars and live Q&A sessions to clarify doubts and showcase value. Complement these efforts with onboarding email sequences that deliver helpful tips and resources, and provide live chat or support options to quickly address any issues as users familiarize themselves with the product.

In the Adoption phase, use in-app guides and personalized tips to encourage deeper feature usage and help customers unlock more value. Keep users informed of feature updates and best practices through newsletters and webinars. Build user communities and forums to foster peer support and engagement, while offering responsive customer support to resolve challenges. Monitoring usage data can identify inactive users who may need additional encouragement or assistance.

For Renewal, send timely reminder emails highlighting upcoming subscription renewals along with clear explanations of the product’s ongoing value. Collect feedback via customer satisfaction surveys to understand concerns and address them proactively. Use loyalty programs or personalized renewal discounts to incentivize continued use. Running churn prevention campaigns targeted at at-risk customers and scheduling customer success check-ins helps reinforce engagement and reduce cancellations.

At the Expansion stage, analyze usage data to identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities, then present personalized offers that align with customer needs. Share case studies and success stories to illustrate the benefits of upgrading or adding features. Use targeted emails and direct sales outreach to communicate relevant product enhancements, and encourage upgrades with limited-time promotions. Behavior analytics can help time these conversations when customers are most receptive.

Finally, in the Advocacy stage, develop referral programs with rewards to motivate sharing and recommendations. Encourage customers to leave reviews and testimonials on public platforms to build credibility. Promote social sharing of success stories and user-generated content to increase brand awareness. Support community forums or user groups to strengthen brand loyalty, and use Net Promoter Score (NPS) surveys to identify promoters who can be engaged for advocacy activities.

• Use content marketing like blogs and videos to educate and attract potential users.
• Leverage social media channels to increase brand visibility and engage with audiences.
• Run targeted paid ads on platforms like Google and social media to reach intent-driven prospects.
• Encourage word-of-mouth through referral incentives and testimonials.
• Consider influencer partnerships to broaden reach.
• Offer free trials and demos to lower barriers and allow hands-on evaluation.
• Provide guided product tours and onboarding checklists to help users get started easily.
• Host webinars and live Q&A sessions to address questions and demonstrate value.
• Send onboarding email sequences with tips, resources, and reminders.
• Use live chat or support to resolve issues quickly during early use.
• Deploy in-app guides and personalized tips to deepen feature usage.
• Communicate feature updates and best practices through webinars and newsletters.
• Foster user communities and forums to encourage peer support and engagement.
• Provide responsive customer support to assist with challenges.
• Monitor usage data to identify and help inactive users.
• Send timely reminder emails about upcoming renewals with clear value propositions.
• Run customer satisfaction surveys to collect feedback and address concerns.
• Implement loyalty programs or offer personalized renewal discounts.
• Launch churn prevention campaigns targeting at-risk customers.
• Have customer success check-ins to reinforce value and usage.
• Identify upsell and cross-sell opportunities with personalized offers based on usage data.
• Share case studies and success stories demonstrating benefits of upgrades.
• Use targeted emails and sales outreach to present relevant product enhancements.
• Offer limited-time promotions to encourage plan upgrades.
• Leverage behavior analytics to time expansion conversations effectively.
• Develop referral programs with rewards to motivate sharing.
• Encourage customers to leave reviews and testimonials on public platforms.
• Promote social sharing of success stories and user-generated content.
• Create and support community forums or user groups to build brand loyalty.
• Use NPS surveys to identify promoters and engage them for advocacy activities.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. What are the key stages in the SaaS experience journey?

The main stages include awareness, consideration, onboarding, retention, and advocacy. Each stage focuses on different user needs and interactions with the software.

2. How can SaaS companies improve user onboarding to reduce churn?

Effective onboarding includes clear guidance, easy setup, personalized support, and showing users quick wins that demonstrate the software’s value early on.

3. Why is understanding user feedback important throughout the SaaS journey?

User feedback helps identify pain points, improve features, and tailor communication, which leads to higher satisfaction and better overall experience.

4. What tactics help maintain customer engagement after the initial purchase?

Regular updates, proactive support, relevant content, and personalized interactions keep users active and invested in the product over time.

5. How does the SaaS experience journey affect customer lifetime value?

A well-managed journey increases satisfaction, reduces churn, encourages upsells, and turns customers into advocates, all of which boost lifetime value.

TL;DR The SaaS customer journey outlines the process from initial discovery to becoming a loyal advocate, broken into stages like awareness, consideration, adoption, renewal, expansion, and advocacy. Mapping this journey helps companies understand customer behavior, improve experience, reduce churn, and increase revenue. Effective tactics vary by stage, including content marketing for awareness, free trials and onboarding support for consideration, in-app guidance for adoption, and referral programs for advocacy. Tracking key metrics and regularly updating journey maps ensure continuous optimization and sustainable growth.