Visitor Identification Software for Identifying Website Visitors Compared

Visitor-Identification-Software Definition: What is Visitor-Identification-Software?

Visitor-identification software refers to what the term already suggests: such solutions not only allow the tracking of website visitors, but also their identification in the course of this process.

This means that users can definitively determine who is visiting their pages or from which company access is made using such tools. In addition, many additional pieces of information are possible: Primarily, it is important to capture which email address or telephone number allows direct contact. Sometimes it is even possible to find out about an individual's university degree or family status.

This is often made possible by comparing the visitors' IPs with a database of IP addresses used by companies and/or other technologies, such as cookies or digital fingerprinting.

Visitor-Identification-Software (often simply called Visitor-Tracking-Software) can typically collect the following data categories.

• Information about website visits: Companies from which visitors access the website, the pages that were viewed, and the time spent on them.

• Company contact information: Contact details for the main decision-makers in the visitor's company, such as email addresses and telephone numbers.

• Other information that companies reveal about themselves and their employees: Some companies also publish technographically important data or more detailed details about individual employees, such as level of experience, level of education, age, or even place of residence and family background.

Why should companies use Visitor-Identification-Software?

Website tracking is a must for most companies that want to remain competitive in their market. The aim is to understand one's own target customers as precisely as possible and to serve their requirements and needs in as detailed a manner as possible. If this does not happen, they can quickly find an online alternative that better meets their requirements for most concerns.

Web users know best how to use the multiple possibilities that the net offers today. In addition, in most business sectors there is an ever-increasing online competition. Against this backdrop, companies should act quickly and precisely. The better you know your own target customers, the more comprehensive you can provide them with the optimal (web) offers. In the ideal case, this will not only be rewarded with one-off purchases, but also with repeat purchases and long-term strong business relationships.

Traditional tracking, however, has a large gray area. Many essential pieces of information have to be presumed or interpreted. It does not provide concrete data on who is really active on one's own websites, what their demographic and especially business situation looks like, or how these people might even be reached directly. Whoever has the chance to record such facts safely is potentially a big step ahead of its competitors, not only in terms of customer understanding. With such data, it would even be possible to carry out direct lead marketing.

The technology that may provide these and other advantages is called visitor-identification software.

How does Website Visitor-Identification-Software work?

A visitor-identification software is first connected to your own websites - similar to other tracking tools. This is usually done via a tracker code that is to be included in the source code. As soon as the respective system has access to the pages, it can query and analyse the IP addresses of the visitors. Based on this and a comparison with specific IP databases, the associated companies can be recorded and further information collected.

The result of this largely automated process is displayed on a dashboard as a list of organizations that have visited your own website. Website visitor identification tools can provide numerous additional pieces of information about these companies, such as contact details, sales contacts, and even facts about their vita.

In addition to the IP analysis approach, there are other identification options. Cookies and the so-called digital fingerprinting are particularly fruitful here.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of Visitor-Identification-Software?

The biggest advantage of visitor-identification software is, of course, the fact that by using it, people who visit your own website or the associated companies can be very precisely identified. With this basic benefit, however, go many other possible advantages. 

• Track and measure offline campaigns: With a good visitor identification tool, marketers and salespeople can match a list of companies that have been contacted offline, invited, or otherwise contacted in real time with visitors to specific campaign websites. This makes it possible to measure the progress of offline campaigns and evaluate them online. After all, it is data-based to decide which specific steps should be taken next.

• Initiate follow-up business at the right time: If your own target customers are contacted too often and possibly even in situations when they have no head for the services of the contacting company, they are quickly annoyed. The real trick is to combine the right frequency with the perfect timing. With visitor-identification software, those responsible can recognize when which existing customers show renewed interest in their product portfolio after an initial purchase: By returning to the website and being tracked accordingly. With this information, the sales team can determine the optimal time to contact them. The interests detected by the visit of the customers on the website are to be pursued in a target-oriented manner.

• Increase the efficiency of the sales team: Ideally, there is a lot for the salespeople to do. However, this work could in many cases run much more efficiently. Often a considerable part of the time is spent on leads that ultimately prove to be difficult to implement. However, if the sales staff have not only a list of leads, but thanks to visitor-identification software also see exactly which of these contacts are visiting the specific websites of the lower part of the sales funnel and when. This can make the corresponding sales processes significantly more useful. Hot leads that should be treated with higher priority can be identified precisely this way.

• Generating fresh leads: Companies and their employees who visit another company's website are curious and probably have a genuine interest in the offers listed there. By using visitor-identification software, salespeople can now very precisely determine who is looking at which offers and also get suitable contact details. There is a lot of potential for high-quality leads.

• Driving business development: Conventional tracking tools provide anonymous data showing which pages are particularly popular and how visitors access them. However, the corresponding software does not provide information on the extent to which the traffic actually involves business-relevant people and what proportion of users on the website interacts randomly or without purchase intent (such as students or job seekers). With a visitor identification tool, those responsible can see which areas are particularly important for which sales-relevant contacts. Furthermore, they can identify whether patterns are emerging. This finally provides clear customer-related insights that can be very helpful in driving one's own business.

• Website optimization: With a visitor-centered tracking tool, it is easier to find out if potentially relevant companies are finding what they are looking for during their online customer journey. Furthermore, it is clear who enjoys dealing with which topics in particular. Thus, among other things, it can be determined which parts of the website need increased attention in order to make them more attractive for very important customer groups and ultimately boost sales.

• Find opportunities for partnerships: Potential service providers, suppliers and other potential business partners can be very precisely determined using visitor-identification software. After all, those who are on the websites of their own company are not always looking for goods or services. Often these people are themselves looking for companies to whom they can offer their offers. Now there is the opportunity for users of visitor-identification software to filter out exactly those companies from these visitors with whom a partnership is likely to be particularly worthwhile. Be it for the delivery of operating resources, for the maintenance of technology and equipment, for strategic support or for any other needs.

• Predict the behavior of competitors: Not only existing and potential customers, but also old and new competitors are present on company websites. As soon as one of these competitors accesses, very enlightening findings can be collected using a visitor-identification software. For example, is there an unexpectedly large or strong interest in one's own company? Are certain products and areas particularly targeted by the competitors? Then perhaps a competitive company is threatening to adjust its services and one loses one's monopoly. Based on such activities or the recognizable interest and a comparison with the otherwise business behavior of the competitor, those responsible can guess whether a competitor is trying to go on the offensive. Perhaps one wants to reposition oneself in order to even outperform the preferred services.

Can there be disadvantages with these significant advantages? Real disadvantages should not actually arise when choosing a visitor-identification tool that perfectly fits your own requirements and using it appropriately. However, one challenge is always associated with the use of such applications: data protection.

• Data protection: Identifying website visitors involves data on several levels. Accordingly, data protectors are quickly called in. Although the information that such a tool pulls from the websites of identified companies is publicly accessible and therefore rather unproblematic in terms of data protection. The way there via IP addresses, cookies and the like can however be quite critical. If not all the provisions of the GDPR are complied with, huge fines threaten. Therefore, those interested should absolutely ensure that the chosen visitor-identification tool operates in a completely data protection compliant manner.

How to choose the right Visitor-Identification-Software?

Although visitor-identification tools are still a very specific form of software, the market is also growing steadily here. Meanwhile, offers are available for different requirements and with different functional scopes. To find the best solution for your own purposes, those interested should primarily answer the following questions.

• How high is the hit rate (match rate)? The hit rate is the percentage of visitors that the software can reliably identify. If, for example, the website receives 1,000 new visitors per month and the visitor identification software has a hit rate of 40 percent, users can expect that they will generate 400 new leads each month.

• What are the costs, and how are they calculated? Some companies require a minimum fee (e.g. 99 euros per month for 400 email addresses). Others demand a long-term commitment. For most users, a visitor-identification software is ideal where they can pay per data set. This means that you only pay when a lead results, without a long-term contract or a minimum price.

• Does the company match visitors with B2C data? If you need B2C leads, you need to choose software that works with B2C data providers. Otherwise the match rate is lower - most of the information then relates to companies and not actual people.

• Can certain data sets be suppressed? To avoid paying for data sets that are already available (for example, from existing customers), look for an option that allows such information to be excluded.

• Can the focused solution be integrated with other platforms? Some companies that offer visitor-identification software make it easier for users than others to forward acquired data sets to marketing platforms, CRM systems, etc. This can greatly facilitate the processing and maintenance of leads.

• What data does the system provide? Many solutions only provide names and email addresses of companies. Depending on the requirement, this may be sufficient. But with some software, data sets with fully verified names, addresses, email contacts, telephone numbers, personal information and more are also available. If it fits into the budget, a tool that provides as many details as possible should always be chosen.

• Are the data checked and validated? The provider should take measures to ensure that its solution provides good or helpful data. Names and postal addresses should be checked to ensure that a contact is correctly handled.

• How can the data be used and is everything GDPR-compliant? Interested parties should look for visitor-identification software that complies with current data protection laws. The information should ideally not be passed on to third parties. It is also important that the complete data sets are freely available. The use of the data should not be made dependent on the use of the visitor-identification tool provider's software, but should also be possible in all other relevant tools. Ideally, the information can be used for unlimited marketing and sales purposes.

• Will the solution be affected when cookies are abolished? There is some uncertainty about how long tracking cookies will still be a viable way to track internet users. Google, for example, has been talking about discontinuing third-party cookies for Chrome for some time. Interested parties should therefore ensure that they choose a visitor-identification software that keeps an eye on these possible changes and updates.

• Is a free trial version offered? Interested parties should look for a visitor-identification software that is available in a free trial version. As many free leads as possible should be able to be queried. This allows the quality of the data to be adequately assessed before switching to the paid version.

What does Visitor-Identification-Software cost?

Visitor-Identification-Software is available at a very wide price range. Good solutions with an average tracking volume and basic features can be obtained for between 30 and 100 euros per month. But there are also comprehensive suites for decidedly more than 1,000 euros per month. The costs are primarily based on the following factors:

• Tracking volume in company accesses or leads

• Detail level of data records

• Additional functional scope

In general: The more companies or leads per month that can be identified, the more detailed the information that the software combines in the data sets, and the more extensive the other functions besides tracking, the more expensive the solution becomes.