Marketing automation in the customer journey: A complete guide
Customers now expect personalised, consistent experiences across every channel. Whether they discover your brand on Instagram, receive a WhatsApp message about a promotion, or follow up by email, they want the journey to feel seamless. That’s where marketing automation in the customer journey comes in. By combining customer journey mapping with automation tools, you can engage people at the right time with the right message without overwhelming your team.
What is a customer journey?
A customer journey is the path someone takes from first discovering your brand to becoming a loyal advocate. While every journey looks slightly different, most follow five stages:
Awareness – discovering your product or service
Consideration – comparing options and researching solutions
Purchase – making the decision to buy
Retention – staying engaged after the sale
Advocacy – recommending your brand to others
Understanding these touchpoints is the foundation for building meaningful engagement. However, without automation, managing these stages is incredibly difficult. You risk sending irrelevant messages, missing out on crucial follow-ups, and ultimately providing a fragmented and frustrating experience.
The role of marketing automation in the customer journey
Marketing automation is the use of software to automate repetitive marketing tasks. Its real magic, however, is in delivering targeted, personalised communication at scale. Instead of manually sending messages, automation tools allow you to:
Segment audiences based on behaviour or interests
Automation lets you group customers by their actions or demographics so you can tailor messaging. This makes customers feel understood and valued, strengthening their connection with your brand.Send large volumes of messages across channels
Workflows run continuously in the background, freeing your team from repetitive tasks. By automating message delivery, you enhance efficiency while ensuring a seamless and consistent experience.
Trigger timely actions, such as abandoned cart reminders or birthday rewards
Customers receive relevant communications at exactly the right moment, which builds trust and enhances their overall experience. These automated nudges also improve ROI by recovering lost sales, nurturing leads, and boosting retention.
Use SleekFlow for marketing automation to enhance your customer journey
SleekFlow makes it simple to turn every stage of the customer journey into an automated experience. From first contact to long-term loyalty, you can set up workflows that deliver timely, personalised interactions without manual effort.
For awareness: Click-to-WhatsApp ads
Run targeted Facebook and Instagram ads that direct users to WhatsApp with a single click.
Automatically trigger chatbot conversations to qualify leads.
Capture first-party data instantly for future retargeting.
For interest: WhatsApp broadcast messages
Automate personalised promotions, updates, and educational content for segmented audiences.
Rely on high open rates to ensure messages are delivered and read.
Utilise images, videos, and buttons in broadcasts to maintain high engagement.
For consideration: retargeted WhatsApp campaigns
Send automated follow-ups for abandoned carts or past enquiries.
Deliver personalised offers based on browsing or purchase history.
Trigger timely nudges that guide prospects towards conversion.
For conversions: checkout flows and CTAs
Automate in-message checkout links to simplify the buying process.
Integrate with Shopify to trigger cart reminders and payment links.
Send instant purchase confirmations and order updates automatically.
For retention: loyalty programme automation
Schedule automated loyalty rewards and VIP offers through WhatsApp.
Trigger reminders for repeat purchases, renewals, or referrals.
Collect feedback with automated surveys to strengthen customer loyalty.
Moreover, with SleekFlow, you can:
Connect all communication channels in one inbox: unify WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, and more, creating an omnichannel conversation experience for your customers.
Deploy AI agents: with AgentFlow, SleekFlow’s proprietary agentic AI, you can deploy AI agents that automatically qualify leads, respond instantly, and guide prospects towards conversion.
Segment audiences automatically: When messages arrive, utilise automated workflows to label customers, enabling you to send them the relevant messages.
Collaborate more effectively as a team: access shared chat history, add internal notes, and sync with your CRM.
How Pristine Aroma uses SleekFlow for marketing automation to generate high-potential leads
Pristine Aroma, a home fragrance brand in Singapore, orchestrated a successful giveaway campaign for their pure essential oils on Facebook and Instagram, generating high-potential leads with automation. Using automated comment replies, Pristine Aroma managed to streamline the campaign and boost engagement without exhausting their internal team. They also used SleekFlow's automated messaging capabilities to create personalised auto replies for new leads, ensuring a warm welcome and enhancing customer satisfaction. The campaign garnered significant traction with 215 new followers and 947 post interactions within a span of 7 days, and helped lay a strong foundation for long-term customer relationships.
Turn your customer journeys into growth engines with marketing automation
Customer journeys are no longer linear, and manual follow-ups can’t keep pace with today’s expectations. Marketing automation fills this gap by making every stage from awareness to retention more personalised, consistent, and profitable. However, the real opportunity at hand isn’t just about efficiency, but the customer relationship that you can nurture and turn into recurring revenue. AI agents can further enhance this by providing instant, 24/7 support and personalised communication, nurturing leads and solving customer issues automatically.
Not sure where to start? The key to automating your customer journey with marketing is to start small and scale fast. Begin from a single touchpoint, such as abandoned cart reminders, and then expand into a fully orchestrated journey.
Start for free!
Grow your revenue and turn chats into conversions with AI agents. Try SleekFlow for free, forever.
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