Schrödinger’s Customer

Until someone clicks, they are both your customer and not your customer.

If that sounds like quantum physics, you’re right. In the famous thought experiment, Schrödinger’s cat is inside a box, simultaneously alive and not alive until someone opens the lid. In marketing, your potential customer is that cat. Until they interact, they exist in a state of pure possibility — aware of you, maybe interested, maybe not — and you won’t know which until they take action.

The Quantum State of a Lead

Every email subscriber, website visitor, or Instagram scroller is in a limbo of intent. They might be ready to buy. They might be idly browsing. They might have no memory of why they clicked in the first place. Your marketing funnel is the box. Until they move — click, sign up, book a call — they’re both your next big customer and a total ghost.

Observation Changes the Outcome

Here’s where it gets fun: in quantum mechanics, observing a particle changes its state. In marketing, testing and tracking do the same thing. A/B tests, retargeting, personalized emails — these are the equivalent of peeking into the box. The moment you observe behavior, you influence it. The subject line that gets the open, the landing page variant that holds attention — every data point nudges reality one way or the other.

Data Is Your Particle Accelerator

The best marketers don’t just wait for the box to open. They build systems that make observation easier and more meaningful. Analytics, heatmaps, conversion funnels — these are your lab instruments. They tell you which messages collapse uncertainty into action. Without them, you’re guessing which way the quantum coin will flip.

Marketing Is Quantum in a Hoodie

This isn’t just a cute metaphor. Modern marketing is fundamentally about probabilities. You can never know exactly who will convert or when. You can only increase the odds. Good creative plus smart targeting plus relentless testing equals higher probability of success. It’s math, but with better fonts.

The Takeaway

Your customer is both in and out of the box until they act. Your job is to design the experiment so the outcome lands in your favor.

Test. Observe. Adjust. Repeat.

Because in marketing, as in quantum physics, the act of paying attention changes everything.