Imagine Julia, a marketing director at a growing SaaS company, frantically trying to schedule demos with five different stakeholders for a software purchase that needs to happen EOM. Between conflicting calendars, time zone challenges, and the inevitable no-shows, what should be a straightforward evaluation process stretches into weeks of coordination headaches. Meanwhile, her team falls further behind on critical projects while waiting to see if the software actually solves their problems.
This scenario plays out daily across B2B companies, with buyers citing lengthy purchase processes and lack of self-service options as two of their biggest pain points. The fundamental disconnect between how buyers want to evaluate software and how vendors typically showcase their solutions creates unnecessary friction that kills deals and frustrates everyone involved.
The solution lies in product walkthroughs: self-guided, interactive tours that let buyers explore your software on their own terms and at their own pace without the coordination nightmare of traditional demo scheduling. When you can offer this, you give every stakeholder instant access to your product story—personalized, scalable, and always ready when they are.
In this guide, you’ll learn exactly how to create compelling product walkthroughs that engage buyers, shorten your sales cycle, and provide valuable insights to your sales team. Plus, you’ll discover top product tour software options to get the job done.
What is a Product Walkthrough?
A product walkthrough, or tour, is a guided, immersive experience that introduces buyers to your software's key features and demonstrates how it solves their specific problems. Think of it as having a knowledgeable sales engineer available 24/7 to guide future users through carefully crafted journeys highlighting the most important aspects of your solution—minus the scheduling hassles.
While a traditional live demo experience requires scheduling coordination and live presentations, product tours are self-paced and available on demand. They provide hands-on exploration that helps future users understand your product's value prop without waiting for a salesperson, sitting through a generic pitch, or juggling calendars just to get a peek at your product.
Product Walkthroughs for Buyers vs Current Users
Product walkthroughs can serve different purposes depending on the audience—but the most strategic organizations use them to drive both net-new revenue and customer expansion.
For buyers, product walkthroughs act as a self-guided sales engineer. They’re designed to clearly answer the #1 question on every stakeholder’s mind: “How does this actually solve my problem?” Instead of waiting on scheduling, juggling calendars, or sitting through a one-size-fits-all pitch, buyers get an interactive, personalized experience that puts your solution in their hands—on their time. It’s a faster, more frictionless way to drive consensus across decision-makers and accelerate deals.
For current users, walkthroughs shift from persuasion to education. These tours support onboarding, feature adoption, and customer success—making it easy for users to unlock new value as your product evolves. They’re often triggered by specific actions or milestones and guide users through deeper functionality to ensure they’re getting the ROI they signed up for (and then some).
While post-sale enablement is critical for driving retention and expansion, this guide focuses on pre-sale product walkthroughs—and how they can help your revenue teams engage more buyers, faster, and close deals with less lift.
The Importance of Using Product Walkthroughs in the Sales Process
Modern B2B buyers have fundamentally changed how they evaluate and purchase software, preferring self-service exploration over traditional sales interactions. So much so that today’s buyers only spend about 17% of the entire buying process in direct contact with vendors.
This has led to a significant drop in vendor influence during the buying journey, making self-led product tours critical for capturing buyer attention, delivering value early, and enabling decision-makers before your sales team even enters the conversation.
In fact, more than half of B2B buyers consider interactive content—like product demos and walkthroughs—the most helpful in addressing their business challenges. It’s also the type of content they rely on most in the final stages of the buyer’s journey, when deals are won or lost.
Reason 1: Personalizes the Buyer Experience
Personalization in B2B buying has become essential, with 86% of B2B buyers expecting tailored experiences that acknowledge their unique challenges and requirements. Personalized product walkthroughs allow buyers to focus on features most relevant to their specific needs and use cases, creating stronger emotional connections with your solution and making it easier for them to align internally, justify the purchase, and move forward with confidence.
Using a product experience platform like Consensus, you can personalize your product walkthroughs in several key ways:
- Role-based content: Tailor demonstrations to specific job functions and responsibilities
- Industry-specific scenarios: Show use cases relevant to the buyer's sector
- Company size considerations: Highlight features appropriate for their organization's scale
- Use case branching: Allow buyers to choose their own adventure based on their primary needs
This approach transforms generic product walkthroughs into relevant, compelling narratives that resonate with specific audiences.
Reason 2: Introduces Product Features to the Buyer in Context
Product walkthroughs are ideal for introducing new or complex features in a way that’s both educational and intuitive. Instead of overwhelming buyers with everything at once, walkthroughs reveal the right level of detail at the right time—a concept known as progressive disclosure.
This approach is especially effective for demonstrating value within a larger workflow. Buyers don’t just see what a feature does—they understand how it fits into their day-to-day reality.
But here’s the catch: most users will only click through four steps before they leave, Five on a good day. That means every step needs to deliver immediate value, spark curiosity, and nudge buyers toward a meaningful next action.
If they drop off before reaching the "aha" moment? You may never get them back.
That’s why tracking buyer behavior isn’t just helpful—it’s critical.
Reason 3: Supports Buyer Enablement
Buyer enablement is the process of making it easy for buyers to buy from you. It focuses on providing quality resources—like customized education, engaging product tours, and tailored guidance—to help them make confident purchase decisions independently.
With 83% of the buyer’s journey happening without your sales team and the average B2B deal now involving up to 10 stakeholders, providing shareable, consistent experiences is crucial for maintaining momentum across complex buying committees. Buyers can investigate your product's features when convenient for them, then share these insights effortlessly with decision-makers to build consensus.
A seamless product experience isn’t just about showing off features—it’s about eliminating friction and making it effortless for buyers to engage, explore, and move forward. Today’s buyers want control. They expect to evaluate solutions on their own terms, without chasing down sales reps or sitting through unnecessary meetings. With Consensus, you deliver a full-funnel product experience that’s always-on, personalized, and scalable—focused on four key actions:
- Watch: Engaging demos and video walkthroughs let buyers visualize the product in action, building excitement and clarity.
- Try: Hands-on product tours and interactive experiences allow buyers to test real use cases, reinforcing the product’s value.
- Explore: Deeper dives into features and capabilities let buyers self-educate and uncover the details that matter most to them.
- Track: Every interaction generates data, helping both buyers and sellers make faster, more informed decisions.
Buyer enablement isn't about replacing sales interactions—it’s about making them more valuable. And here’s the kicker: Buyers who engage with nine or more demos show a close rate of 55%. That’s not a guess: That’s a data-backed signal that deeper engagement leads to better outcomes. The more your buyers interact with your demos, the more aligned they become with your value and the more likely they are to convert.
How to Create a Product Walkthrough for Buyer Enablement
Here’s how to create interactive tours that achieve their intended goals and provide meaningful experiences for buyers.
1. Align Product Walkthrough Content with Your Goals
Establish clear objectives for your walkthrough based on buyer needs and sales goals. Without defined goals, walkthroughs can become unfocused and confuse buyers—rather than convert them.
Some product walkthrough goals might include:
- Driving early-stage awareness by showcasing high-level value props to multiple stakeholders
- Accelerating deal velocity by answering common objections upfront
- Enabling champion selling with shareable demos tailored to specific roles
- Reducing presales burden by automating repetitive, top-of-funnel demos
- Increasing qualified leads by using demo engagement data to surface buyer intent
Once your goals are set, align the content of your walkthrough with specific stages of the buyer’s journey. Early-stage buyers need different information than those ready to make purchase decisions—your walkthroughs should reflect a sliding scale of needs. For example, an early-stage walkthrough might focus on business outcomes and high-level use cases, while a late-stage version could go deeper into technical differentiators or integration capabilities.
Flex your sales storytelling muscles to create relevant experiences that meet buyers where they are in their evaluation process and guide them to where they want to be.
2. Choose Your Product Walkthrough Type
Different types of product walkthroughs serve different purposes and audiences. Some buyers prefer structured guidance, for example, while others want freedom to explore on their own terms.
With Consensus’ Product Experience Platform, you can choose from the following product walkthrough options:
- On-demand video demos with interactive elements: Combine the engagement of video with clickable hotspots and branching paths that let viewers explore areas of interest
- Interactive product tours with guided navigation: Provide step-by-step guidance through key workflows while allowing buyers to interact with realistic product interfaces
- Automated product simulations: Offer sandbox environments where buyers can experiment with your product using realistic data and scenarios
- Hybrid approaches: Combine multiple formats within a single experience, such as starting with a video overview and transitioning to interactive exploration
3. Use a Dedicated Walkthrough Software
Building walkthroughs from scratch requires substantial technical resources and ongoing support that most companies can't justify. But, a specialized product tour platform allows for faster creation times, better analytics, and easier maintenance. They empower non-technical team members to create and modify walkthroughs independently, reducing bottlenecks and enabling faster iteration.
Consensus’ product walkthrough solution combines simplicity with powerful personalization capabilities and insightful analytics. The platform offers:
- No-code/low-code walkthrough creation: Enables marketing and sales teams to build walkthroughs without technical dependencies
- Personalization and branching capabilities: Offers dynamic content based on buyer responses and interests
- Intent data and analytics: Tracks engagement patterns and identifies high-value prospects
- Live UI elements that respond exactly like your product: Provides fully-functioning buttons, live checkboxes, and responsive text fields
- Sharing and collaboration features: Makes it easy for buyers to share experiences with stakeholders
The result? Engaging product walkthrough experiences that make buying easier and faster.
Explore the Consensus platform
4. Analyze and Revise Product Walkthrough
Measuring walkthrough effectiveness and making data-driven improvements ensures your experiences continue to deliver value to buyers over time. Without ongoing analysis, even well-designed walkthroughs can become stale or misaligned with changing buyer needs.
Using Consensus’ Demolytics, you can track and analyze walkthrough engagement in detail. Monitor key data points like:
- Total View Time: The cumulative time spent interacting with your product walkthroughs by all stakeholders
- Feature Exploration: The number and types of features buyers investigate
- CTA Clicks: The number of times call-to-action buttons were clicked
- Return Rate: The frequency of repeat visits to product simulations
- Sharing Activity: How often and which elements buyers share with colleagues
Then, use these engagement patterns to identify optimization opportunities and continuously refine your walkthroughs.
Best Product Walkthrough Software
Here are some of the top platforms for building product walkthroughs—each offering unique capabilities to help you deliver exceptional product experiences.
1. Consensus
Consensus empowers buyers to explore your solution on their own terms. Its AI-powered Product Experience Platform equips revenue teams with everything they need to deliver personalized, self-paced product walkthroughs at scale.
From interactive product tours to on-demand video demos and automated product simulations, Consensus ensures every buyer gets exactly what they need, when they need it. All while giving you deep insight into their interests and intent.
Key Features:
- Interactive Product Tours: Highlight only the features your buyers care about through immersive, multimedia storytelling.
- Demo Creator: Build tailored demos for any stage of the customer journey to create a personalized experience every time.
- Demo Player: Deliver demos that perform seamlessly on any browser or device.
- DemoBoards & BuyerBoards: Provide branded, secure landing pages and champion-friendly boards for sharing demos, tracking engagement, and achieving stakeholder alignment.
- Public Links & Merge Links: Share custom demo links across social media, campaigns, or your website for broader reach.
- Content Downloads: Pair demos with easily accessible, supplemental resources to deepen buyer understanding.
- Lead Forms: Capture leads directly within your demos and route them straight to your sales team or CRM.
- Demo Library: Maintain a centralized, searchable hub of demos for team-wide access and consistency.
- Demolytics: Visualize buyer engagement with heat maps and detailed analytics to qualify prospects and guide follow-up.
Pricing: Custom pricing based on your team’s needs—contact Consensus for a tailored quote.
With Consensus, sellers see 2x the deals, 50% larger deal sizes, and 30% shorter sales cycles.
2. UserPilot
Userpilot offers personalized onboarding and walkthroughs without requiring code. It aims to help SaaS companies onboard, engage, and retain customers through in-app product tours. With a visual builder, real-time triggers, and analytics, users create walkthroughs across both web and mobile apps.
Key Features:
- No-Code Visual Editor: Create interactive guides that can be customized to match your brand without coding.
- Real-Time Triggering: Set tours to appear based on user actions, specific pages, or defined events.
- Audience Targeting: Show different walkthroughs to different user groups depending on their needs.
- Multi-Platform Support: Build product tours for both web and mobile applications.
Pricing:
- Starter: $299/month (billed annually) – Includes segmentation, analytics, user engagement, and NPS feedback.
- Growth: $799/month – Adds advanced triggers, unlimited feature tagging, and dedicated success manager.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing – Includes premium integrations, priority support, and advanced security.
3. Arcade
Arcade aims to help teams create interactive, shareable product tours designed to highlight key features. Teams can embed these tours, called Arcades, on websites, include them in campaigns, or share them as standalone links. The platform targets marketing, sales, and customer success teams
Key Features:
- Instant Capture & Editing: Record product flows and make adjustments directly in Arcade.
- Interactive Steps: Add clickable elements and annotations to guide users through the experience.
- Custom Branding: Match the look and feel of tours to your brand.
- Analytics Dashboard: Track engagement, completion rates, and viewing patterns.
Pricing:
- Free Plan: Limited to 3 Arcades and basic features.
- Pro: $32/month for unlimited Arcades with custom branding and analytics.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing for advanced integrations, permissions, and support.
4. Navattic
Navattic enables teams to create interactive, no-code product demos that let buyers explore on their own. Teams can embed product tours on websites, share them in campaigns, or send them directly to prospects. The platform serves marketing, sales, and go-to-market teams that aim to showcase a product before they speak with a sales representative.
Key Features:
- Point-and-Click Capture: Record product workflows quickly in a browser-based editor.
- Branching Paths: Allow users to navigate different product areas based on their interests.
- Embed Anywhere: Add interactive tours to marketing and sales channels.
- Analytics: Monitor how viewers interact with each step of the tour.
Pricing:
- Starter: Free; 2 seats, 1 HTML demo, unlimited views, basic analytics, default theme.
- Base: $600/month; 5 seats, unlimited demos/integrations, custom themes, Navattic JS, in-app suggestions, dedicated CSM.
- Growth: $1,200/month; 10 seats, account ID, A/B testing, advanced filters, translations, collaboration, custom domains, teams, SSO.
- Enterprise: Custom pricing; custom seats, offline demos, audit logs, pro services, priority support, consultation.
5. WalkMe
WalkMe is a digital adoption platform (DAP) that offers in-app guidance, automation, and analytics to help users navigate software. It’s designed for organizations that want to improve onboarding, increase adoption, and streamline processes across multiple applications.
Key Features:
- Walk-Thrus: Provide step-by-step guidance directly within applications.
- SmartTips & Launchers: Offer contextual tips and triggers to assist users in real time.
- Automation: Simplify or eliminate repetitive processes to improve efficiency.
- Cross-Application Support: Deploy guidance across web, desktop, and mobile environments.
Pricing: WalkMe offers customized pricing based on organization size, implementation scope, and required features. Contact their team for a quote.
Build Interactive Product Walkthroughs Using Consensus
Product walkthroughs smooth out the buyer’s journey in all the ways B2B buyers crave. They’re available on-demand and are self-paced, allowing buyers to explore your platform pressure-free and make confident purchase decisions independently. All it takes is the right product walkthrough software to create meaningful experiences for your buyers.
Consensus is your guide to building truly engaging walkthroughs. Buyers tell the platform what features they want to test drive most and it creates a product tour that’s perfectly tailored to the pain points they want to solve.
And when buyers interact with your walkthroughs, they reveal their priorities and interests, as well as who’s involved in the decision-making process and what matters to each stakeholder. This data tells your sellers when and how to move your buyers to the next steps. Consensus users see shorter sales cycles, bigger deals, more deals—and better customer relationships.
Watch a demo now and see for yourself how Consensus can help you build top-notch product walkthroughs at scale.