The New Customer Journey: From TikTok and Instagram to Google and AI

Table of contents

• From linear funnel to touchpoint system
• What the verifiable data says, and where it stops
• Five touchpoint functions
• What to do at each stage
• The thread that connects everything: a brand that is easy to find by name
• How to measure a journey you cannot see in full
• Common mistakes
• Where to start: a one-hour audit
• Next step

Someone watches a brand’s video on TikTok and does nothing. A week later, they type that brand’s name into Google. They read the reviews, ask an AI assistant whether it is worth it, go back to Instagram to see what the company is really like, and a day later send a message. No analytics dashboard will record that as a single story. The customer journey is no longer a funnel that starts at a search engine; it is a system of touchpoints across social platforms, search engines, and AI assistants, each serving a different function. The useful question for a company is not “where is my customer?” but “what do they find at each point, and does it help them move forward?”

This article does two things. First, it separates what verifiable studies actually support from what circulates as “statistics” with no method behind it. Second, it turns the journey into a system of touchpoints with one concrete action per stage. It does not promise rankings or appearances in AI answers: it describes work that can be planned and reviewed.

From linear funnel to touchpoint system

The classic model (awareness, consideration, purchase) remains useful for organizing a sales conversation, but it describes current behavior poorly. In a February 2025 Think with Google interview, Boston Consulting Group (BCG) presents its framework of influence maps, which, instead of assigning each channel to a stage, describe four behaviors that occur across all stages: streaming, scrolling, searching, and shopping. The core idea is that touchpoints do not line up in a sequence: they repeat, cross, and their relative weight changes by person.

The same interview cites a figure on daily mobile interactions. Read it with its fine print: the claim of more than 130 daily mobile touchpoints comes from a sample of 370 Android users in the U.S., measured between October 24 and November 6, 2024. It illustrates fragmentation; it does not set a universal average.

The practical consequence is not to abandon the funnel but to stop assuming each channel holds a single position. A social platform can be discovery for one person and validation for another. A search engine can be the first contact or the place where someone confirms what they saw elsewhere.

What the verifiable data says, and where it stops

The topic attracts sweeping claims (“Google is dead for Gen Z,” “most searches now start on social”) that almost never cite a method. This table collects what can be cited with a date and method, and what each data point does not allow you to conclude.

Taken together, the evidence is modest but enough to decide on: social platforms are a real source of product discovery and validation, Google remains a central place for consultation (with more direct answers), and AI assistant use is growing fast. What it does not support is any precise figure for “how many people start in each channel.” Any statistic of that kind that does not state sample, date, and method should be read with caution.

On Google specifically, there is also an official clarification that matters to anyone hoping to appear in its AI answers: its documentation says there are no additional requirements or special optimizations to appear in AI Overviews or AI Mode; the page must be indexed and eligible to show with a snippet, and the same SEO best practices apply. That foundation is developed in How to Appear in ChatGPT: What Actually Works and What Is Vendor Hype and in GEO vs. SEO: What Changes When Users Ask Instead of Search.

Five touchpoint functions

Instead of thinking in channels, think in functions: what the customer needs to resolve at each moment, regardless of where they do it.

What to do at each stage

The table turns the functions into a work plan: what question the customer asks, where they are likely to resolve it, what you can do, and how to tell whether it works.

The thread that connects everything: a brand that is easy to find by name

If the journey passes through several points, the only thing that travels with the customer from one to the next is your brand name. What makes that name credible when someone decides to buy is covered in building a brand that earns trust. The foundation of the system is simple and unglamorous:

• A consistent name and description across your website, social profiles, business listing, and any relevant directories.
• A website that clearly explains who you are, what you do, and for whom, with the pages a search engine or assistant needs to understand it. The logic of content architecture for visibility and of topical authority applies as it always has.
• Accessible proof (authorship, experience, case studies, data with method), which is what sustains trust: the territory of E-E-A-T.
• Consistency between what you promise on social and what your website shows. A customer who arrives from a video with a specific promise and finds a generic page leaves.

This is the logic of the visibility system: SEO, content, and brand as parts of one system, not separate strategies.

How to measure a journey you cannot see in full

No dashboard shows the complete journey, and pretending otherwise leads to wrong decisions. Realistic measurement combines partial signals:

1. Ask directly. A “How did you hear about us?” field on the form, and the same question in the first sales conversation, gives you information no tool records, including mentions that started on social or in an AI answer.
2. Track branded searches. If discovery content works, searches for your name should grow, with a lag. Search Console shows them.
3. Use Search Console platform properties. Since July 2026, Google lets you add Instagram, TikTok, X, and YouTube properties and see which search terms lead to your content in Search and Discover, with performance reports and data export. It is a new and useful piece for connecting social to search.
4. Review direct traffic and referrals from AI assistants in your analytics. They are small but growing signals, and it is worth starting to record them.
5. Compare trends, not exact figures. What matters is whether the set of signals improves after an action, not whether each one is attributed to a single cause.

To split credit across touchpoints without fooling yourself, marketing attribution: which model to choose explains the limits of each approach, and how to build a marketing measurement system shows how to organize it to answer business questions.

Common mistakes

Measuring each platform separately. If discovery happens on Instagram and conversion is credited to a branded Google search, judging each channel by its direct conversions leads you to cut exactly what feeds the other. It is the same problem that affects your Google Ads and Meta Ads investment.

Producing more discovery content when validation is failing. If people who find you do not land on a convincing site, more reach only increases the number of people who do not convert. It is one of the reasons many B2B websites do not generate leads.

Chasing each platform’s algorithm. Formats and rules change. A coherent brand base and useful content withstand changes better than any formatting trick. And in an environment where everyone uses AI to produce, what people remember is what has its own voice, position, and proof.

Declaring traditional search dead. Pew’s data shows that AI summaries reduce link clicks in that sample, not that people stopped searching. What you get from search changes, which is why it matters more than before that your brand is the one that appears when someone confirms it. The approach to building visibility when the search ends without a click is developed in a separate article.

Deciding on a statistic with no method. A figure with no date, sample, or origin is not a basis for deciding where to invest. If you cannot check it, treat it as a hypothesis.

Where to start: a one-hour audit

With no extra budget, you can begin with this exercise:

1. Search your brand and your three main services on Google, in the search of a social platform where you are present, and in an AI assistant. Note what appears and what does not.
2. Check consistency: name, description, contact details, value proposition, and proof. Do they match everywhere?
3. Walk your own path: start from a piece of content and follow it all the way to the form or contact. How many steps are there? Where would you get lost?
4. Add “How did you hear about us?” to your form and your sales process.
5. Set up a Search Console platform property for the social accounts you use and record a baseline.

With that, you will know which function of the journey is costing you the most, which is where to start.

Next step

The customer journey can be designed as a system, but it has to start from what an interested buyer actually finds, not from what we would like them to find. At Maccam Network we approach this diagnosis through our SEO methodology and SEO service, connecting it with measurement through marketing analytics. If you want us to review together what your customer sees at each touchpoint, get in touch.

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Sources

Sources verified as of October 9, 2026.

• Pew Research Center (McClain, C. & Eddy, K.). (2026, March 2). 8 facts about Americans and TikTok. pewresearch.org/…/8-facts-about-americans-and-…
• Pew Research Center. (2025, July 22). Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results. pewresearch.org/…/google-users-are-less-likely…
• Pew Research Center. (2026, June 11). The share of Americans who say they use ChatGPT has more than doubled since 2023 (from “Americans and AI 2026: Chatbots, Smart Devices and Views on Impact,” survey conducted Feb. 17-23, 2026). pewresearch.org/…/the-share-of-americans-who-s…
• Adobe. (2026, January 7). Holiday Shopping Season Drove a Record $257.8 Billion Online with Consumers Embracing Generative AI Tools. news.adobe.com/…/adobe-holiday-shopping-season
• Think with Google (BCG). (2025, February). Mapping today’s customer journey with BCG’s Derek Rodenhausen. business.google.com/…/customer-journey-mapping
• Fortune. (2022, July 13). Google search engine faces competition from TikTok, Instagram for Gen Z (remarks by P. Raghavan at Brainstorm Tech). fortune.com/…/google-tiktok-instagram-sear…
• Google Search Central. (2026, July 7). See how content from social and video platforms performs on Google Search. developers.google.com/…/search-console-social-video-…
• Google Search Central. (2026, July 29). Platform properties roll out globally, plus a new social and video performance guide. developers.google.com/…/platform-properties-social-v…
• Google Search Central. (accessed Oct 9, 2026). AI features and your website. developers.google.com/…/ai-features