What Is Website Visitor Tracking?

Why is it important to track your website visits?

Web visitor tracking offers businesses a more nuanced understanding of their potential customers, as well as how their audience reacts to their content. Teams can retain detailed information about visitors. Depending on the exact modality deployed, they may even be able to obtain company names and contact information, which sets up warm leads for sales teams to follow up on. This provides incredible value because sales reps can strategize accordingly as opposed to relying on cold calling.

On the marketing and UX side, website tracking lets companies know if their approaches and content are working and to what extent. For example, media platforms can discover who clicks on what content (and what’s left behind), while online stores can identify the exact moment customers abandon their carts or experience issues during checkout.

Many website tracking tools offer user flows, which illustrate the way most visitors engage with your website and how they move from page to page. This data indicates the current success rate of a website and can highlight areas that need improvement or a complete overhaul.

Every type of business with a website can benefit from tracking visitor data. These are some of the most common goals associated with website visitor tracking:

• Gathering contact information from prospects to produce stronger leads
• Encouraging better engagement and ad clicks
• Increasing conversions
• Offering a more user-friendly website experience

Additionally, marketers can reduce reliance on media spend and build on what’s currently working. Sales teams can start their days with leads they know are ready to take the next step. Even product development can be improved by harnessing data about how current customers are interacting with the company. 

What visitor activity should you be tracking?

Several types of data can be obtained through website visitor tracking, including identifying information, user behavior and overall performance analytics. Depending on your company’s core goals, you may want to consider gathering the following types of information:

• Visitors’ locations, demographics, and depending on the software, the companies they represent and their contact information
• Click rates and user flow
• Overall page traffic
• Bounce rates
• Source of web traffic

Businesses can develop more effective strategies when they understand these categories. Marketers can find out which ads are the most enticing, while sales teams can discover exactly who is browsing their catalogs.

What is website visitor tracking software?

Website visitor tracking software typically focuses on three categories of data: website analytics, user behavior and visitor identity. These areas offer unique value depending on the goals of the business deploying the software, providing easy-to-understand reports with actionable information that can be disseminated between departments to maximize ROI.

While some provide high-level overviews of traffic, others are capable of providing in-depth user insights using advanced technology. Many also integrate with CRM platforms for a seamless experience.

How does website visitor tracking software work?

Most tracking software uses a reverse domain name system (rDNS) and/or a website script to gather data.

Businesses can stack current software solutions with website visitor tracking software to create a suite of tools accessible across departments. Those already storing lead data in CRMs may learn even more about prospects due to the additional data tracking software can provide, for example. Many major tracking software providers integrate with leading CRM platforms and may even alert clients when a dream customer is currently browsing their site. [Read related article: Best CRM Software]

Here’s how visitor tracking technology works:

Reverse domain name system

Every device connected to the internet has a unique internet protocol (IP) address, and most also have a reverse DNS record. Website visitor tracking software that uses an rDNS analyzes a user’s IP address to collect information, which is then supplied to the appropriate teams. It’s similar to searching for a phone number in a Rolodex, but with internet traffic instead.

Script

Website visitor tracking software may also install a script on a website that collects user data automatically. The software then analyzes this data to determine which companies are visiting, turning them into warm leads. This publicly available information may include the following about the company:

• Address
• Website
• Social media accounts
• Relevant contacts, including phone numbers and email addresses

Is website visitor tracking software GDPR-compliant?

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prevents website tracking in the European Union (EU) without the visitor’s express consent. Businesses that receive web traffic from EU users must follow the GDPR’s guidelines; otherwise, they risk incurring extremely large fines. Many website visitor tracking software providers offer tips on how to comply with the GDPR. This includes displaying a policy on privacy, terms of use and cookies that is clearly visible to users and outlines how their information is being collected and for what purpose.

In the United States, the Federal Trade Commission recommends that companies disclose data collection to website visitors, especially data used for targeted marketing. Consumers have the right to deploy “do not track” settings on their web browsers, but there is no federal law addressing website tracking in the United States. Some individual states have enacted laws about consumer privacy, including California, Colorado, Connecticut, Utah and Virginia. 

What is the most popular visitor tracking software?

When trying to decide which website visitor tracking software to use, consider what type of data your business would like to gather and how you plan to organize that data. Budget may also play a factor, since the scope of services and prices vary among providers.

Here are some of the most popular tracking software options, broken down by whether they primarily collect analytics, user behavior or visitor identity. Website analytics break down traffic, while user behavior data analyzes what visitors do once they’re on a site. Visitor identity outlines who is engaging with a website by demographics.

Analytics

• Google Analytics: Google Analytics provides basic audience and behavior metrics. It can segment users’ demographics, the devices they used to access your site, and whether they have visited your site before. It can also track a website’s advertising performance and overall traffic numbers. For many small businesses, the complimentary version of the service works well, but for big companies, the $150,000 annual fee for Google Analytics 360 is well worth the advanced capabilities and massive data capacity increase. The free version allows up to 10 million hits per month, while premium subscribers get 500 million hits per month. (Price: Free; advanced features are available at an additional cost.)
• Kissmetrics: This tracking software is suited for businesses offering software-as-a-service (SaaS) or e-commerce platforms. Kissmetrics provides a full “journey” for each user’s time spent on a website, even across different devices. This information can help teams determine what their best leads are and where to focus future efforts with the most efficiency. Whether you’re looking for behavioral analytics or customer conversion processes, this software offers complex, yet easy-to-digest data that can drive sales and streamline marketing strategies. (Price: Starter plans begin at $299 per month. )
• Woopra: One of the most powerful alternatives to Google Analytics 360, Woopra provides a qualitative and quantitative view of the people visiting your site. With tools for product, marketing, sales and support teams, this platform aims to “optimize every touchpoint in the customer experience.” Its retention feature also allows for companies to continue engaging with clients even after they convert, an attractive benefit given the fact that repeat business is always easier (and more cost-effective) to win versus new business. Woopra highlights the entire life cycle of a user, allowing companies to see where they shine and where they need to improve. This bridges a gap between sales, marketing, product development, and other critical departments of a business to improve practices throughout the organization. (Price: A basic free plan is available, with plans up to $999 per month for the full suite. Contact Woopra for custom enterprise pricing.)

Behavior

• Crazy Egg: This trusted source of website visitor tracking provides intuitive snapshots of user behavior. Crazy Egg reports include heatmaps of website clicks, scroll times and bounce rates combined with rich visitor information designed to offer a full picture of each unique experience and the ways users interact with the content on your site. (Price: Starts at $29 per month.)
• Mixpanel: Offering powerful yet intuitive reports, Mixpanel’s goal is to help companies “build better products.” With attractive and seamless user data reporting and the ability to define the successes of new site features, this software is popular with Fortune 500 companies and startups alike. (Price: Free plans available; paid subscriptions start at $20 per month.)
• UserTesting: Another option for those seeking truly qualitative insights, UserTesting allows businesses to interact with website visitors in real time. Its human insight platform aims to close the empathy gap and allow companies to demonstrate their customer-centric approach with regards to UX. (Price: UserTesting offers three plan options. Contact the company for details.)

Visitor identity

• Leadfeeder: Leadfeeder provides identification and visitor tracking software to assist marketing and sales departments with determining and converting the best leads. Its account-level visitor identification technology ties every website visitor back to a company. Reports, which can be integrated with many major CRM platforms, indicate whether leads are “warm” and to what extent. (Price: Free plans available; paid subscriptions start at $199 per month.)
• Lead Forensics: Focused on B2B companies, Lead Forensics allows their clients to discover new leads in real time as they visit a site, providing contact information for sales teams. Lead Forensics can also provide automatic lead scoring to determine how likely a user is to convert based on criteria such as their behavior, with a fully customizable “dream customer” portal to assist your sales efforts. (Price: Contact company for details.)
• Act-On: Act-On is a full-powered growth-marketing platform meant to automate and enhance customer journeys. Its account-based marketing solutions capture website visits from key target accounts and can pinpoint how visitors engage. Businesses can leverage data to improve overall efforts in marketing, business development and product innovation. (Price: Starting at $900 per month)

Track your way to success 

Website visitor tracking is an important tool if you want better insight into your customers’ behavior and preferences. The data you acquire from website visitor tracking can help you make improvements on all levels, such as your marketing and product teams. As long as your organization’s visitor tracking processes comply with local and international laws, they can help you boost engagement and better understand your customers. 

Natalie Hamingson contributed to this article.