Once someone has been triggered with some kind of switching trigger, that is, once there is an expectation violation, which means that what they have is not good enough, they have a bigger desired outcome or all of a sudden they are aware of some problem that maybe was always there but now they want to do something about it and not just that but they take some first steps, this is the transition to passive looking. Before every purchase there is usually something that happens that makes you think about it and you are in this passive looking mode first. Maybe 3 of your friends bought a car and you start considering doing the same. Your perception of reality becomes really acute, you start noticing ads, looking at cars while riding on the road etc. The brain starts passively look for reasons to fulfil your want.
There is going to be another event that turns people into an active looking mode. The person started looking at alternatives. They might be start building some kind of pro and cons, what's good and bad about the products they are comparing. In the image there are three different pulls because each alternative will have a slightly different value proposition. They haven't yet bought anything which is why the push and pull are still not greater than the inertia and friction. We are still not seeing them buying, but we are seeing them considering different alternatives.
There is going to be another transition point, some kind of event that is going to create a sense of urgency (e.g. running out of time).
Why do we care about all these events? Because they give us channels ideas. When people get hit by these events they go to certain places looking for how to get their desired outcome, that's how we may get a bunch of channels ideas. That's also where we begin to see that energy change. So it goes from "I want my idealized solution and I have all the time in the world to look for it" to "Now I need to just settle for whatever I can find because I have only a finite amount of time in which to act". And so these are the tradeoffs you start seeing when people move from consideration to decision.
At some point there is going to be a buying event and that would be the acquisition step. The push and pull are now greater than inertia and friction to buy the product.
Some people stop here. They are mostly concerned to study this story. So what are the tradeoffs people made when they buy products. They want to understand the acquisition process that gives you ideas about potential gaps in the market, positioning, better marketing.
But since you also have to build these products from scratch, you have to go beyond just acquisition. People try before they keep products and today it's very easy to try a lot of products and so just getting somebody to try or buy a product doesn't guarantee that's the right product for them. Acquisition is not a powerful indicator that when people buy a product they also really keep it.
The problem with acquisition is that there is user acquisition, which is the signup, and there is customer acquisition which is when they pay, and for some products they are different. In some products you may even buy upfront but you can still return the product. Acquisition is the point when they first start using a product. This could be just a signup with no money exchange (e.g. trial). It could also be the point where they might buy something (e.g. book movie theater) but there is still a time in which they can revert the transaction back. Acquisition does not mean revenue.
There is a desired outcome in people's mind. They bought the product for a particular reason. This is where they are evaluating and deciding. It's possible for people to do multiple of these trials in parallel. It's still possible for them to keep the old solution around. Ideally there is gonna be an event here, where people have that "Aha!" moment. They begin to realise that it's the right product that gets them closer to the job to be done. Some kind of value proposition is realised.