Measuring Customer Journeys with ACT, A Three Step Framework

You don’t need a bigger megaphone—you need a way to see whether people are actually moving from visitor → lead → buyer. If you’ve been asking, “How do I measure customer journeys?” or “Why are conversion rates down even though traffic is up?”, this is your map.

Enter the ACT Framework: Aware → Consider → Transact.
A lightweight marketing measurement framework that shows which behaviors advance decisions—so you can invest in what works and stop guessing.

Why I Use ACT (and Why Measuring Customer Journeys Matters Now)

Most “proven” systems optimize for platform reach. That grows surface numbers—views, likes, followers, page views—while your customer journey remains unmeasured. What you actually need to know is whether that attention is bringing the right people and moving them from visitor → lead → buyer.

That’s why I use the ACT framework. Instead of counting posts and page views, ACT helps me track decision-advancing behaviors along the journey to my offers by thinking through it like this: Aware → Consider → Transact.

If you’ve seen something like 47k views, +1,100 followers, 350 comments, but 0 qualified calls (or tons of SEO traffic that never clicks to Services), you’ve experienced that same gap. You’ve got attention, not clients and that’s a problem. This framework gives you a way to understand the quality of the attention you’re getting so you can more consistently attract your best-fit clients.

ACT gives you a simple, flexible way to measure customer journeys at two levels:

• Brand journey (your whole ecosystem)
• Offer journeys (I run ACT on my Sprint, Design Lab, and Workshop paths)

With those signals in place for your business, you can see where momentum builds and where it leaks—so your next move is obvious and aligns with your capacity. Keep reading to learn the framework and how you can apply it to your own measurement.

Pre-work: Define the Journey You’re Measuring

Est. Time: ~10-20 minutes

Before you set up a single event, give yourself one short planning block to choose one journey. You can look at your whole brand (site-wide discovery → Services → Discovery Call/purchase) or a single offer. For this post, I’ll use my Design Lab as the example.

1. Start by writing the decision you want answers for.
   • Keep it simple: How are people becoming aware of my Design Lab? Which sources bring the traffic that actually books? Where do people stall before scheduling and do I want that (i.e. application vs. straight booking)?
   • If you’re thinking at the brand level, the questions shift slightly: Am I attracting a social following that becomes leads/clients? Which channels most often turn visitors → opt-in → course purchase? Which pages most often assist a booking?
   • One or two questions is enough.
2. Next, name what “start” and “success” mean—something you can actually observe.
   • For my Design Lab, I define my “start” (Aware) as “spent ≥10 seconds on the Design Lab page.” Success (Transact) is “paid 1:1 call booked,” which I measure with a thank-you page view.
   • Start is generally was on a page or a specific page for at least 10 seconds. Why 10 seconds? Because that’s a decent enough amount of time that it takes for someone to intentionally stick around if they actually intended to land on your page from a link. It’s also the same timeframe that Google uses to flag your “active” users vs. bots.
   • Success could also be a purchase, an application submit, or an email opt-in—pick the one that matches the journey’s goal.
3. Now sketch the path in just a few checkpoints using your favorite digital or pen-and-paper method.
   • No need to diagram a funnel—think wayfinding.
   • For Design Lab, it’s: entry source → Design Lab page → scheduler date/time picked → confirmation.
   • For brand, it might look like: entry source → opted-in to your email list → bought a consulting package.
   • You’re simply noting the places where decisions happen.
4. With that rough path in mind, choose one starter signal for each ACT stage (placeholders for now).
   • Aware might be “first meaningful view on the offer page (≥10s).”
   • Consider could be “opened the scheduler” or “started a form.”
   • Transact is the conversion you named—booked call, purchase, or application submitted.
   • We’ll formalize these later; the goal here is to get a clear first draft you can implement.

Plan to review monthly by default, and weekly during launches or promo windows. That’s it. A single page with purpose: the journey you’re measuring, the question you’re answering, and the first three signals that will show movement.

One-Page Customer Journey ACT Map

Keep this to a single note/Google Doc, etc. so you can glance at before you evaluate what measurement systems you have and identify what you need to support this model. It’s the bridge between “I think I know the journey” and “I can measure it effectively.”

Copy and paste the following and fill it in:

Journey Name: _________________
Scope: Brand | Specific Offer (Which?) _________________
Primary Business Question(s): _________________
Start of Journey (Aware): _________________
Success of Journey (Transact): _________________
Likely Path Steps (3 Total): _________________
Initial ACT Signals (One Each):
– Aware: _________________
– Consider: _________________
– Transact: _________________
Constraints (Time/Tech): _________________
Review Cadence: _________________

Here’s an example filled out for my Design Lab:

• Journey Name: Mini-Ecosystem Design Lab™ Customer Journey
• Scope: Specific Offer – Design Lab
• Primary Business Question(s): What sources are bringing me traffic that books Design Lab sessions? How are people becoming aware of the Design Lab?
• Start of Journey (Aware): >10s spent on the Design Lab offer page
• Success of Journey (Transact): Paid 1:1 call booked (measured via a thank-you page view that follows offer page view, and purchase event fires.)
• Likely Path Steps (3 Total): Marketing source > Lab Offer Page View > Date/Time picked > Confirmation
• Initial ACT Signals (One Each):
  • Aware: >10s on Lab Page
  • Consider: Date/Time Picked
  • Transact: Page view on TY Page after Offer Page + Purchase Event
• Constraints (Time/Tech): None, my scheduler sends an event specifically when this occurs so I didn’t have to set up anything additionally.
• Review Cadence: Quarterly (possibly sooner during heavy promotion cycles.)

Once this brief is filled in, you’re ready to implement ACT for this journey. Keep it visible; let it guide what you track and the small, high-leverage tweaks you make.

Wrapping Up (and an Optional Next Step)

Reminder: you don’t need to track everything. You only need to see whether people are actually moving from Aware → Consider → Transact on the journey that matters right now. ACT gives you just enough signal to make your next move obvious (and sized to your capacity).

If you’d like expert eyes on your setup, book a Mini-Ecosystem Design Lab™ session and I’ll review your ACT with you.

What we’ll do in your Mini-Ecosystem Design Lab™ Session:

• Sanity-check your Journey Brief and tighten the start/success definitions
• Pick (or refine) one A / one C / one T signal you can measure now
• Name clean event labels + the few UTMs you actually need
• Identify one high-leverage next step (the smallest change most likely to move buyers)

You’ll leave with:

• A finalized, one-page Journey Brief
• A short list of events to implement (tool-agnostic)

Bring: your URL(s), where you’re promoting this journey, and (if you have it) access to analytics/email so we can verify signals. It’s screen-share, so you don’t have to add me or provide logins.

👉 Book your Mini-Ecosystem Design Lab™ Session Now

Not ready to book? Copy the One-Screen Journey Brief above, fill it in for one offer, and check your three signals for the next two weeks.

You can also join my Smarter Marketing Newsletter for more on how to be a better steward of your marketing so you can build a business that’s sustainable and lasting.

More in the Series:

• Capacity-Based Marketing: The 4 Seasons of Stewardship™
• Step into Stewardship for Your Business and Life 
• Marketing Without Burnout: How to Build a Strategy That Honors Your Capacity While Still Growing Your Business
• (Coming Soon) The Real Cost of Burnout-Based Marketing
• (Coming Soon) What Marketing Without Burnout Actually Looks Like
• (Coming Soon) The Role of Measurement in Sustainable Growth