FROM THE FUNNEL TO BEHAVIORS
#00
BY AGUSTíN SIMESEN
5 min
FROM THE FUNNEL TO BEHAVIORS
For years, the sales funnel helped us understand the consumer journey: attention, interest, desire, and action. A model presumed to be sequential—useful for planning campaigns, measuring results, and allocating budgets. Today, that linear path is no longer enough to explain how people discover, explore, and choose brands. Purchase decisions happen across multiple screens, in a fragmented way, blending content, inspiration, and shopping simultaneously.
In this context, the 4S behaviors emerge—a framework proposed by Boston Consulting Group and Think With Google to rethink marketing based on the real habits of audiences.
What are the 4S behaviors?
- Shopping:
This new framework redefines how brands should think about their strategies: it’s no longer enough to invite consumers on a journey where they discover, consider, and decide. Brands must accompany them, inspire them, and make decisions easier across multiple moments and formats. - Searching:
Search has become multimodal: text, voice, image, and AI-integrated tools coexist to respond instantly to needs and desires. - Scrolling:
Also known as “digital window-shopping,” it reflects how today people discover more by scrolling than by intentionally searching. They explore without a clear purchase intention, yet remain receptive to ideas, products, or recommendations that spark their interest. A striking visual or a well-told story can turn a scroll into action. - Streaming:
Audiovisual content consumption is continuous and personalized. Connected TV platforms and podcasts accompany users in their moments of leisure, exploration, and decision-making. Unlike traditional advertising, streaming enables an interactive narrative that turns passive viewers into protagonists, allowing them to move from discovery to action.
From marketing to business strategy: brands facing the challenge of evolving with their audiences
Understanding the 4S behaviors is not just an opportunity to optimize campaigns. It is an invitation to rethink business models themselves.
The brands leading today don’t just communicate well; they understand how to create real value at every touchpoint with their audience. Where there used to be a clear line, there is now a network of formats, platforms, and behaviors that intersect and overlap. In this context, many companies are expanding their value proposition to accompany consumers where they are, in what they do, in what they need — and even in what they didn’t know they needed.
It’s no longer enough to simply have a presence on digital platforms — many brands are building their own ecosystems. We see it in companies like Mercado Libre, which started as a marketplace and today also offers financial services and even an entertainment platform. This not only multiplies touchpoints with the audience; it also allows for integrated experiences, more complete solutions, and valuable data that fuels the entire commercial strategy.
In addition, operating within a unified ecosystem makes it possible to strengthen traceability throughout the entire purchase journey, access increasingly precise attribution metrics, and activate highly effective retargeting strategies — whether users are searching for a product on an e-commerce site, paying for a service through a digital wallet, or watching a series from their couch at the end of the day.
Connected TV, Retail Media, and new touchpoints
The rise of formats like Connected TV, for example, directly responds to the evolution of streaming behavior. But it’s not just about adding a new channel to the media strategy — it’s about rethinking how entertainment environments can integrate discovery, intent, and purchase within a single journey.
The same applies to Retail Media: if users browse, search, discover, and buy without friction, brands must act with the same fluidity. The most innovative brands are designing integrated proposals where every touchpoint not only communicates, but activates.
A holistic, real-time perspective
This new logic demands a profound shift: moving away from disconnected channels or isolated campaigns and toward designing living systems of interaction. It requires integrating technology, data, creativity, product, and experience under a single, user-centered vision.
Understanding the 4S behaviors is not just about mapping behaviors. It’s about reading the signals that reveal how the business must evolve in order to stay relevant.
Agustín Simesen
Sr. Account Director
