Website Visitor Tracking?
Once they land on your site – what’s next? They inquire of course – they leave you their contact details and you can start prospecting to them! Unfortunately, on average only around 2% of your visitors will inquire without website visitor tracking. So what happens to the other 98%?
Many companies will just accept this conversion rate, but all is not lost once a visitor leaves your site without inquiring. There are tools on the market that identify your visitors even if they don’t leave their details. So let’s get into it…
Different kinds of website visitor tracking?
IP tracking
IP address (internet protocol address) is an identifying number associated with a specific computer or computer network.
Most website analytic tools use website visitors’ IP addresses to identify their approximate locations, which can help you understand where your audience is geographically.
Some tools give you additional insight into your website visitors. For example, Lead Forensics identifies the company that a website visitor is from, and provides contact details for key decision makers at that company.
Device tracking
Analytic tools usually help you track the type of device visitors use to access your site (PC, tablet, or mobile). You can even track the specific devices (Samsung Galaxy X1234, iPhone, iPad, etc.), brands (Samsung, LG, Apple, etc.), input selector (touchscreen, etc.), and operating system (Windows, Android, iOS, etc.).
Knowing this can help you focus your site development and testing on the most popular devices to give visitors the best possible experience.
Pixel tracking
Marketing pixels, also known as tracking pixels, are snippets of code added to a site to create a small transparent 1×1 pixel image. They allow for monitoring user behavior, site conversions, web traffic, and other metrics. Pixels are usually hidden and can be encoded in everything from banner ads to emails to track users’ interaction with them.
For example, when you use tracking pixels, website visitor tracking software can report whether users have opened your email newsletter or visited your page.
What features should you look for in website visitor tracking software?
Real-time, categorized data
A good website visitor tracking company knows which data matters most, and delivers it in real-time.
Every visitor’s business name, company size, industry, location, website, and full contact details will be provided so you can take full control, turning passive perusers into hot leads.
On top of all this, the best website visitor tracking software will also show you each identified visitor’s on-site behavior, including what they searched for, the pages, blog posts, or content they looked at, how many times they have visited and how long they stayed.
Using this behavioral data, sophisticated website visitor tracking software can sort your visitors into buyer’s journey stages, awareness, consideration, and decision, so you know the best moment to contact them and how to approach them. You can continue to watch these prospects as they move through the buyer’s journey, as their every activity is tracked.
Prioritize your hottest leads
Based on the B2B buyer’s journey stage and your own definition of a quality lead, the best website visitor tracking software can prioritize leads. Using set criteria to assign value to your leads, they will automatically send them directly to a sales representative’s inbox so they can get straight on the phone.
Giving your sales team this control and depth of information will empower them to perform better. Instead of cautiously wading into a list of contacts, they can confidently dive in headfirst, equipped with the knowledge they need to close deals.
See who was referred by which channels
Once you know you can turn your B2B website visitors and prospects into hot leads with website visitor tracking, you can put more emphasis on getting visitors to your website and less on your on-site conversion strategy.
The best website visitor tracking software tracks the original source of each visitor. For example, someone from a marketing agency found you on Twitter, a manufacturer came to you via Google search, and an engineering company employee clicked on a link on a referral website.
Knowing the search terms used by your various buyer personas means you can target these keywords more to continue ranking highly and reach more of the same type of buyer. It also means you can start experimenting with other, similar keywords, to see if you can rank for those as well and attract more visitors.
CRM tool
As the website visitor tracking software gathers your leads in one place in real-time, it should also allow you to add further contact details, set reminders and callbacks, schedule meetings and appointments, and keep track of your notes, quotes and proposals.
This way, you and your sales teams can stay up to speed with the progress on each lead. Never miss a trick; track your sales opportunities from start to finish, from lead to customer.
Create a wishlist of clients
The option to upload a dream list, a list of those businesses you’ve always wanted to work with, should come with instant alerts when one of the businesses visits your website.
This feature works on the reasonable assumption that they visit your website when they are looking for more information or considering their purchase. It gives you the opportunity to introduce yourself to those ideal B2B clients at the right moment, beating your competitors and closing the deal.
What are the pros and cons of website visitor tracking?
The pros
Reach out to the right person at the right time
The best website visitor tracking tools present real-time insight into who is visiting your website. This provides businesses with multiple benefits.
Firstly, revealing the identity of visitors helps marketers and sales teams generate warm leads that are already engaged with their business.
Secondly, real-time notifications provide the advantage of timing — not only do you know a visitor is interested in your business, but you also know they are thinking about it right at that moment. This can help businesses get in front of potential clients before their competitors do, simplifying their buyer journey and helping to reassure them that they are the right brand to work with.
Gain customer insight
Knowledge is power — especially when it comes to understanding your customers or potential clients. Tracking visitors to your website enables you to get inside the heads of people interested in your business and discover exactly what they are looking for. What do your visitors have in common? Are they all from the same industry or sector? Are they a similar demographic?
Knowing who is interested in your product or service can help fuel your business decisions going forward. And, with access to user journeys, you can see the content that is of interest to your visitors and ensure everything you create resonates with them.
Enhance customer experience
Customer experience is pivotal to success — and if you work in a competitive industry, it can be the factor that makes you stand out from the crowd. With effective tracking tools in place, not only will you gain an understanding of your audience, but also of your website’s overall performance.
Discover what your visitors are looking at, for how long, and at what point they decide to leave your website. This way, you can make changes to your site to ensure the best user experience for your visitors. And, utilizing visitor journey data to personalize your follow-up sales calls and emails could help you win clients faster.
The cons
Initial cost
Marketers are often met with a barrier when it comes to budget. So, including website tracking software in your strategy and budget plans from the outset is crucial. While it may seem costly in the first instance, it is crucial to consider the return on investment from effective marketing tools.
Will it increase the number of leads generated? Will it speed up your processes and save your teams’ valuable time? Will the quality of leads generated help increase your website conversion rate? Be prepared to monitor and measure the success of the technology, and decide if the initial cost is worth the return.
Managing and understanding data
Access to high-quality data brings with it increased knowledge and opportunities — but it also comes with great responsibility to handle it properly. Data compliance is crucial, and although the introduction of GDPR initially caused some confusion among B2B marketers, it is pivotal to put the safety and privacy of customers at the heart of everything you do. When selecting a tool to help supercharge your business, do your research and ensure the software is data compliant. You will also need to execute your follow-up strategy according to data regulations, as well as managing, storing and acquiring your data appropriately.
Reliance on technology
Technology is growing more intelligent and powerful every day. However, it still poses the risk of failing. And, relying solely on technology for any process can cause problems. While technology reduces the chances of human error, it is crucial to have a plan and appropriate resources in place to support any technological issues.
Do you have a team member in place to manage your website tracking software? Do you have a strategy in place to support the technology, or is it undertaking the whole process? Does the software brand you have opted to use offer customer support at every stage — helping you to get the most out of the tool and providing a solution to any issues you may face? Consider this when planning your purchase.
What should be your deciding factor?
Every business is different — and each one will have its own set of goals and objectives. When it comes to deciding whether or not website visitor tracking is for you, it ultimately has to be based on whether it will help improve your business.
If you are looking to generate high-quality leads, maximize your website and gain detailed insight into your customers, website visitor tracking can revolutionize your strategy. However, it is important not only to select the most beneficial software for your business, but also to ensure you have the budget, resources and knowledge in place to utilize the technology effectively.
With that in mind, let’s get into some of the best tools to help you track your website visitors…
Tools
IP Tracking:
Lead Forensics
Lead Forensics is a leading website visitor tracking software supercharging the B2B lead generation process. It works by revealing previously anonymous website traffic and alerting users of their visitors in real-time. Thanks to a global leading database of business IP addresses, users will discover the organizations visiting their site and gain access to the contact details of key decision-makers. And, with detailed user journeys at their fingertips, sales and marketers can design the ultimate sales pitch and heighten their chances of gaining new business — reaching out to the right person at just the right time.
Main features:
- Identify your anonymous website visitors
- Contact decision-makers
- Win more business
- Deep visitor insight
- Unlimited users
Book a free demo of Lead Forensics
Analytics:
Google Analytics
A great starting point for any company wanting to know more about website visitor tracking. Google Analytics is a web analytics service that provides basic statistical and analytical data for search engine optimization and marketing purposes.
The service is free, but there are paid options that give you advanced insights. Google Analytics is easy to set up with a quick tracking code.
Main features:
Data collection and analysis, monitoring and visualization (including dashboards, motion charts, and scorecards that display changes over time), and reporting (including custom reports for advertising, audience behavior, acquisition, and conversion).
The most popular Google Analytics metrics include:
- Unique users tracking
- Bounce rate
- The percentage of visitors who viewed only a single page
- User sessions tracking
- Average session duration
- Percentage of new sessions
- Pages per session
- Goal completions/conversion
- Page views
Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is an analytics and multichannel data collection website visitor tracking tool that is perfect for advanced users and larger companies. It helps you create a comprehensive view of your business by turning customer interactions into actionable insights.
Main features: Adobe Analytics enables you to collect and measure data from multiple sources (web, email, campaigns, mobile devices, client-server applications, and most applications connected to the Internet), explore and understand this data with the help of advanced metrics, segmentation, and cross-device analytics; and get insights and predict users’ behavior; and much more.
The most popular Adobe Analytics metrics are:
- Sessions — digital analytics
- Engagement
- Entry and exit pages
- Standard and custom event tracking
- Retention
- Return
- Conversions
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is a website visitor tracking software that helps companies measure what matters, make decisions, and build better products through data.
Main features: With Mixpanel, you can measure active usage, analyze conversion and drop-off, and find retention drivers.
The most popular Mixpanel metrics include:
- Engagement
- Entry and exit pages
- Standard and custom events
- Retention
- Return
- Conversions
- Funnels
Visitor behavior:
Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is a heat map web analytics product.
Main features: Crazy Egg’s heat maps, scroll maps, and other visual reports can show you exactly how your customers interact with your site’s elements.
The most popular Crazy Egg features are:
- Heat maps
- Session replays
- Monitoring
- Data segmentation
- Click tracking
- Mouse movement
- Frustration tracking
Hotjar
Hotjar provides insights that show how users behave and what they feel strongly about, so product creators can deliver real value to them.
Main features: Hotjar can help in revealing your users’ online behavior. The tool can give you the full picture of how to improve your site’s UX, performance, and conversion rates.
The most popular Hotjar features include:
- Heat maps
- Session replays
- Monitoring
- Data segmentation
- Survey
- Click tracking
- Mouse movement
- Conversion
- Side-by-side analysis
- Webpage element analysis
VWO Insights
VWO is an enterprise program for behavioral website visitor tracking and site optimization. VWO Insights product is a tool that highlights user experience bottlenecks so that you can frame your user experience problems and work on them.
Main features: VWO Insights combines heat maps, session recordings, on-page surveys, and more to diagnose problem areas in your visitors’ experiences. It also works very well combined with other VWO products, such as WVO Testing and WVO Plan.
The most popular VWO Insights’ features are:
- Heat maps
- Session replays
- Data segmentation
- Conversion opportunities
- Mobile device analysis
- Data quantification
- Webpage element analysis
