Have you ever felt like you're shouting into the void when it comes to your website visitors? You pour your heart and soul into creating content, designing an attractive site, and crafting compelling marketing campaigns, but who's actually seeing it? What are they doing? Are they the right people? Are they interested in what you have to offer?
If you're struggling to answer these questions, you're not alone. Businesses of all sizes grapple with the challenge of understanding their website visitors. This is where website visitor identification comes in.
Table of Contents:
Offline visitor identification - Traditional methods meet customer insights
Online visitor identification - Unveiling the power of website tracking tool
Investing in a website visitor identification tool is essential for businesses
Popular Visitor Identification Tools to get a deeper understanding of your audience
What features does website visitor identification software include?
How can you use website visitor identification software for B2C and B2B scenarios?
How can Zoho SalesIQ help in tracking anonymous website visitor identification?
Offline visitor identification - Traditional methods meet customer insights
Over the years, gathering information about customer behavior has been a common practice among business owners. Whether it's a shop vendor in a local neighborhood or an enterprise, understanding visitor preferences has been crucial. For example, a skilled shop vendor in a neighborhood might keep track of their visitors using metrics such as:
The number of times they visited the shop
The time they visited the shop
The kinds of products they frequently bought
The kind of feedback they have about the products and their overall customer experience (CX)
Their demographic details
More significantly, these business owners actually talk to their customers face-to-face. They make sure to stay in touch and give them a personalized experience. They keep track of buyers at various stages using different things like notebooks, files, Excel sheets, and whatever else they can find.
Online visitor identification - Unveiling the power of website tracking tools
If we jump ahead to the present day, it's fascinating to see how much online businesses have learned about their visitors. Online businesses have zero physical interaction with their website visitors, but to get a transparent view of how their visitors interact with their business site, they've adopted website visitor identification tools. These help them track visitors in real time, amp up their sales and marketing efforts, increase conversions, and provide proactive customer engagement and CX.
Particularly after the pandemic, the entire CX journey has been elevated to the next level. Business owners are now facing some interesting challenges, like the need for on-demand personalization and instant support availability—especially the sales, marketing, and support teams.
What is website visitor identification?
Website visitor identification helps businesses identify website visitors, their demographics, what devices and apps they use to access the site, and preferences. It also tracks visitor activity, including the pages they visit, the content they demonstrate interest in, time spent on each page, and how many times they visit a particular site. It's like having a behind-the-scenes view of how visitors engage with a particular website.
How has website visitor tracking impacted businesses?
With the implementation of a website visitor identification tool to analyze the visitors' behavioral patterns, companies have acquired insights into identifying things that previously seemed impossible.
Businesses can now see the entire digital footprint of individuals browsing their sites, including information like the following:
- Website Traffic
- Rate of engagement/bounce
- Demographics
- Behavioral analysis
- New or returning visitors
- Path discovery
- Real-time reporting
All these behavioral analytics yield insights that help improve marketing, sales, and other business areas with more focused targeting strategies.
Investing in a website visitor identification tool is essential for businesses for the following reasons:
1. Improves lead generation
Website visitor identification helps you better understand your target audience and refine your lead generation strategies. Knowing details such as preferences, geography, and interests helps set specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound (SMART) lead generation goals.
By improving buyers' journeys to becoming potential customers, website visitor tracking assists businesses in increasing conversion rates.
2. Improves your understanding of buyers
Understanding buyers and their journeys becomes easier with the help of website visitor identification software, as businesses can connect the dots to understand visitor behavior on their websites.
For example, say a user lands on the website of a company called Zylker website and starts browsing through their brochures and services. Let's also say the user's session duration increases, and their bounce rate decreases—meaning they've found what they're looking for. Zylker gives the user precisely what they want from the product. This browsing pattern continues with the user checking out their pricing—a sign of increasing intent to buy.
From the above example, it's clear that tracking potential buyers' browsing behavior patterns helps businesses predict users' personalities and preferences. Businesses can thereby devise better marketing strategies and more immersive customer experiences.
3. Enables personalized customer experiences (CX) and customer engagement (CE)
Continuing with the previous example, how can Zylker amp up the CX of that particular user? With a website visitor identification tool, Zylker can see that the visitor is from a Fortune 500 company based in the U.S. Moreover, the visitor's activities indicate that they have a high buyer intent (time spent on the site, number of pages visited, and actions taken on the site), and are the "right" account for Zylker.
Zylker can start a proactive live chat with that user and instantly connect with them. A live chat enables Zylker to speed up the sales cycle. Furthermore, they can send the user personalized emails with products of interest, complementary products, and special discounts. This results in an enhanced and timely CE. Isn't that all that matters when it comes to delighting potential customers?
All business owners want to provide the best customer experience and service possible, but how many are committed enough to take action? Going that extra mile is how businesses can gain a sustainable competitive advantage. Offering personalized approaches can create unique experiences tailored to specific individuals and build long-lasting customer relationships.
4. Improves ROI
Data is everywhere. Using data from website visitor identification software can yield actionable insights to improve ROI. Businesses can drill down to track the progress of the sales, marketing, and support teams to understand the effectiveness of their strategies.
Related reads:
Popular Visitor Identification Tools to get a deeper understanding of your audience
The popularity of Visitor Identification Software (VIS) varies depending on factors like company size, industry, and specific needs. However, some established choices consistently rank high due to their features and effectiveness. Here are a few popular options:
B2B-focused Visitor Identification Software:
- HubSpot Sales Hub: Offers a comprehensive sales suite with VIS capabilities, including company identification, website activity tracking, and lead scoring.
- Lead Forensics: A well-known tool for uncovering website visitors and gaining insights into their company background, intent, and activity.
Albacross: A European-based company that offers visitor identification software with a focus on GDPR compliance.
- ZoomInfo SalesOS: Combines visitor identification with CRM functionalities, providing sales teams with a unified platform for lead generation and management.
- Dealfront (formerly Echobot & Leadfeeder): Focuses on identifying companies visiting your website and providing sales intelligence on those leads.
- VisitorQueue: Offers real-time identification and engagement tools for website visitors, including chat capabilities and personalized greetings.
General-purpose Visitor Identification Software:
- Zoho SalesIQ: Its free plan offers basic visitor identification, including company name, location, and estimated revenue. Paid plans provide more detailed insights, including contact information, technology stack, and website activity. It also combines visitor identification with website tracking, engagement tools, and integrations, saving you the need for multiple separate tools.
- Clearbit: Identifies companies and individuals visiting your website based on email addresses or IP addresses.
- CANDDi: Provides insights into website visitors, including their demographics, interests, and purchase intent.
- Snitcher: Offers accurate visitor identification along with campaign tracking, real-time alerts, and integrations with various platforms.
What is website visitor identification software?
website visitor identification software enables online businesses to track visitors who end up on the website from various sources. It gathers web traffic data on each user and provides insights to businesses to improve lead generation activities.
For instance, let's explore the website visitor tracking feature offered by Zoho, a leading provider in this domain.
What features does website visitor identification software include?
1. Real-time visitor tracking
A good website visitor identification software provides businesses with real-time website visitor details anonymously to avoid identifying individuals and violating their privacy. However, website visitor identification tools can de-anonymize the tracking if the visitor voluntarily provides details such as their name, email address, and phone number.
The tool can gather general details, such as:
Organization Name
Number of employees
Country
Region
Website
Contact details
Most importantly, the website visitor identification software shows visitors' on-site behavior and provides a solid understanding of each individual user.
2. Customized views
Another significant feature to look for in a website visitor identification tool is that it should enable business users to create customized views based on a specific set of criteria.
For example, say you're running a campaign targeting financial service organizations in the UK and Ireland region, and you want to track the companies visiting from that region. It's tedious and inefficient to filter your views manually all the time. Setting up a customized view is much easier and more effective.
3. Lead prioritization
Website visitor identification software should help with automatic lead scoring. With behavioral data, businesses can assign lead scores to visitors by setting up rules that add lead scores to visitors automatically. Depending on the business's requirements, it can be positive lead scoring or even negative lead scoring.
Accordingly, businesses can prioritize leads with the highest lead scores and target them to convert them into potential customers. Lead prioritization helps the sales team focus on the most important leads.
4. App integration
Having scattered data makes it challenging for businesses to make informed decisions. Ensure that the website visitor identification software is flexible enough to integrate with your business's existing tools, such as web analytics tools, email campaign software, data visualization tools, and more.
Integrating with CRM software also helps businesses easily sync potential leads identified via the website visitor identification software and add them to the CRM pipeline to expand outreach strategies.
Related Resources:
Integrate CRM with live chat software
Is website visitor identification software GDPR-compliant?
Yes. Due to the strict compliance rules and regulations on privacy and security, website visitor identification software is, by default, GDPR-compliant. Failure to adhere to GDPR results in hefty fines for vendors, so they have strict rules for collecting data. A website visitor identification tool will not identify the user if the visitor does not consent to tracking on their web browsers.
One effective approach is to leverage website visitor identification software, which can be a game-changer for both B2C (Business-to-Consumer) and B2B (Business-to-Business) companies.
How can you use website visitor identification software for B2C and B2B scenarios?
B2C Engagement:
a. Personalized content delivery: Imagine a scenario where a B2C e-commerce website identifies a visitor who has been browsing sports equipment. With visitor identification software, you can track their behavior, identify their preferences, and then display personalized recommendations on their next visit. For instance, if they were interested in tennis rackets, the website could display new tennis racket arrivals, special offers, or related products.
b. Cart abandonment recovery: For B2C companies, cart abandonment is a common issue. Visitor identification software can help by identifying the specific items a customer added to their cart before leaving the site. You can then send them targeted emails with enticing offers or reminders to complete their purchase.
c. Customer segmentation: This software can also help in segmenting your B2C customer base based on their preferences and behavior. For example, categorize customers as "Frequent Shoppers," "Discount Seekers," or "Newbies," and tailor your marketing campaigns accordingly.
B2B Engagement:
a. Lead generation: For B2B businesses, visitor identification software can be a goldmine for lead generation. When a company's representative visits your website, the software can provide valuable insights, such as the pages they've viewed and their contact information. This data can be used to initiate contact and nurture potential leads.
b. Account-Based Marketing (ABM): ABM is a strategy employed by B2B companies to target specific high-value accounts. Website visitor identification software can help you identify which companies are showing interest in your products or services, allowing you to tailor your marketing efforts toward those accounts.
c. Content customization: Similar to B2C, B2B companies can use visitor identification software to customize content for visitors based on their industry, role, or past interactions with the site. For example, if a visitor from a technology company explores your IT solutions, the software can recommend relevant case studies or whitepapers.
What's next?
It's essential to choose the right tool by understanding the current requirements while anticipating future needs.
The journey continues even after a visitor becomes a customer. Businesses need to consider how they can boost customer engagement. Before finalizing a tool, revisit your goals and objectives and then make a decision. Also, think about what's next. What else can you do to improve the customer experience?
There are many tools available, such as a customer engagement platform with a built-in visitor tracking feature. This kind of tool helps businesses start proactive live chats with visitors, set up chatbots to have conversations 24/7, and provide instant customer support. It can also help streamline communications from different channels like email, live chat, Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, and others.
How can Zoho SalesIQ help in tracking anonymous website visitor identification?
Zoho SalesIQ is a customer engagement platform that can assist in tracking anonymous website visitor identification in the following ways:
i) Live chats: Through live chat interactions, Zoho SalesIQ captures visitor information, allowing for engagement and lead generation.
ii) CRM webforms: Online inquiries or newsletter subscriptions can be done through CRM webforms, enabling the collection of visitor details.
iii) Email campaigns: Zoho SalesIQ tracks website visits originating from email campaigns sent to CRM contacts or leads
iv) JS API Configuration: By configuring the JS API, Zoho SalesIQ can identify visitors and gather their information.
Important Note: Zoho SalesIQ ensures that visitor details are only collected with their explicit consent, prioritizing privacy and adhering to data protection regulations.
Learn more about Zoho SalesIQ's website visitor tracking software.
More importantly, what about privacy?
Leading the way in user privacy: Cookies and SalesIQ
'PRIVACY FIRST' is Zoho's way, and SalesIQ has been implementing it since day 1. In this video, watch our Senior Technical Support Engineer, Manikandan, talk about how Google's policy to revoke support to third-party cookies doesn't affect our SalesIQ users.
Also, check out our data privacy and security deck to get detailed information about our commitment to privacy.
Conclusion:
From offline vendors to online enterprises, understanding visitor behavior and preferences drives targeted strategies, personalized experiences, and improved ROI.
As businesses continue to prioritize customer engagement, website visitor identification remains a critical tool for success in today's competitive landscape.
Very informative article. I've looking for this all over the web. Thank you so much for sharing.
Glad you found the blog informative!