Website visitor tracking has become an essential component of any marketing strategy nowadays. But why use a website visitor tracker when you can use Google Analytics for the purpose?
That’s a question worth asking, considering the fact that Google Analytics comes free of cost, in contrast with the tracking software available in the market.
In this article, we’ll look at the differences between Google Analytics and website visitor tracking software. We will also try to explain why a tracking software is still needed, even after the working of Google Analytics.
Why Google Analytics Isn’t Enough?
As of now, the internet contains more than 2 billion websites.
So for obvious reasons, a website needs to continuously update itself in accordance with the user interests if it wants to thrive in such a competitive environment.
And since the user interests vary from one organisation to another, using visitor tracking software can help a website identify which companies are visiting it. That’s something Google Analytics can’t help with.
Google Analytics & Visitor Trackers Aren’t Same
Google Analytics and B2B website visitor trackers aren’t a substitute for each other. Both platforms work differently and focus on different areas.
Google Analytics provides you just statistical data. Whereas B2B tracker helps you figure out which companies are visiting your website.
And if you are a sales website, using B2B tracker software becomes essential as it helps you with direct sales prospecting and lead generation i.e. attracting prospects and cultivating them into your potential clients.
The workings Of Google Analytics
Google Analytics monitors website traffic and report the figures to the web owner.
It assembles the information into various categories so that the web owner could assess their website from all possible aspects.
To put it simply, Google Analytics answers three queries:
- How much traffic is observed on your website and at what time?
- Where are the visitors coming from? Or more explicitly, from which site most of the visitors got your website’s link?
- On which page/ areas of your website, people are staying the most?
Google Analytics employs the following styles to report the figures of your interest:
- Acquisition
- Real-time
- Conversions
- Audience
- Behavior
A Critical Analysis Of Google Analytics
Google Analytics offers unlimited customization options to its users, allowing them to interpret whatever is happening on their website in a handy manner.
However, there’s a catch.
Since these endless options allow the user to design the platform as per convenience, it also increases the complexity.
So, to utilize the benefits of the platform to the fullest, one has to spend a lot of time in understanding a lot of complex features.
To summarize it all, Google Analytics just provides statistical data to be visualized by the web owner. It doesn’t take any measures to help improve the web experience for users or to convert visitors into customers.
Website Tracking Software (B2B IP Tracker)
Website tracking software/ B2B IP tracking software traces the IP addresses that visit your site and figures out which organizations or businesses these IP addresses belong to and reports in a simple dashboard which companies have visited your website.
As a result, the tracker helps you outreach the companies that visit you and allows you to interpret their activity on your website. You will then be able to outreach to these companies already knowing what they are interested in!
Benefits Of Using A Website Tracking Software
A B2B visitor tracker does a lot more work than Google Analytics. Here is an overview of what it can do for you.
1. Sales Prospecting
The software helps recognize the businesses and companies that visit your site.
By helping you identify the relevant businesses and their activity on your website, the tracker helps with sales prospecting.
2. Locating Relevant Market
You can’t just hope and wait for people to find your website.
To make you proactive in attracting traffic, a visitor tracking software helps you identify the most prospective locations where you can target your marketing efforts.
3. Boosting Conversions
A visitor tracking software increases the odds of converting your visitors into customers.
Since you have an idea about which companies are visiting your site, you can communicate and follow up with them to boost conversions.
Major Website Visitor Tracker Features
The website visitor tracking software provides data analytics in an easily comprehendible manner. The major analytics it provides are as follows:
- Hits
- Source
- Keywords
- Total Visits
- Total Page Views
- Total on-site time
- Entire Visitor Journey
- Companies by Channel
- Companies by Search term
- New vs Returning Table & Graphic
The tracker works to enhance sales by helping you with:
- Triggers
- Categories
- Social Integration
- Real-Time Notifications
- LinkedIn Plugin of Company
- Contact Information – Phone Number, Website, Email
A Common Misconception
Though website IP tracking software can match IP addresses to the organizations, they can’t help you identify the individuals who are visiting your site.
The reason is that it is considered an information breach and a purely illegal practice, according to the internet protocols and GDPR.
Google Analytics focuses on quantitative analysis in an anonymous form.
It just reports numerical data related to traffic and website hits. It can tell you how your website is doing and how much progress you have made over time.
On the other hand, the B2B visitor tracker focuses on qualitative analysis.
It allows you to identify at least the organization that is behind your frequent visitors. Moreover, it helps you with measures to boost the visitors’ experience at your site, while also helping you turn your web hits into customers.
Which Tool Should Be Used?
Google Analytics and B2B visitor tracking software perform two different kind of tasks.
While Google Analytics helps you with quantitative analysis, the B2B IP tracking software works on qualitative side of things.
So, if you want to truly enhance the performance of your website and ultimately increase sales leads, consider using the two tools together.
Contact us today for a FREE NO OBLIGATIONS 15 Day Trial of our tool
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How do we track visitors?
We track website visitors by recording their IP address.
What is an IP address.
IP address stands for Internet Protocol address which is a unique set of numbers (e.g. 192.123.456.123) which identifies your device and allows it to communicate with other devices connected to the Internet.
There are two types of IPs, Dynamic and Fixed. When an individual connects their computer to the internet they either connect with the same IP address every time (Fixed IP), or they connect with a new IP address (Dynamic IP) which expires every so often. Depending on the ISP (Internet Service Provider) and type of connection you use, you will be allocated either a Static IP or a Dynamic IP.
You can check what your IP address is by using a website like whatismyipaddress.com
How does our B2B tool use IP addresses?
As soon as a visitor lands on your website a footprint is left behind. This footprint contains information about the visitor. This visit will be recorded by the ISP and in some cases, it will also be recorded by the website owner of the page visited.
In this footprint, there will be information like the date and time and the IP address.
Our system collates this information and digs a little further using data from various sources. Some information is freely available regarding IP addresses. All IP addresses are released and allocated in batches. This means that in a particular range, certain information become available, including your ISP and your geographical location. (it is usually up to the level of a city and not an actual address) Sometimes depending on the ISP and its system for allocating the IP addresses some of this geographical data may not be accurate.
Our system will only use Static IPs to identify who a user is, since the information supplied by the owner of the Static IP will usually have a registered business information that we can source from their ISP. A dynamic IP will not hold any information that can be used so we do not show the details of this visit.
Data Protection with IP addresses.
Many customers ask if what we are doing is legal vis-a-vis data protection laws and most recently GDPR . The short answer is yes. We are only supplying information that is available in the public domain and putting it in a consolidated and quick to use format.
The Data Protection Act regulates the collection and use of Personal Data. An IP address on its own is not personal data. This is because it is linked to a computer and not the individual using that device.
Moreover, we only provide business related (B2B) leads and therefore the opportunity to reach out to these businesses is the same as any other marketing approach you may take when reaching out.
We do not collect information on individuals, we only focus our efforts on identifying the organisation behind the IP. We can never tell you the name of the individual that visited your website from the company as that is considered as personal data and it is very difficult to achieve in any case.
In terms of best practices, we advise that you amend your privacy policy to reassure your own visitors that you are not individually profiling them.
We recommend that you add the following to your privacy policy:
Legal Statement:
Our website uses software that tracks your IP data. This information is supplied to us from Thewebally.com. Thewebally.com is a service offered by Isle Dynamics Limited and uses only information available from the public domain.
When you visit our website we may automatically log your IP address, a unique identifier used on the internet to identify your computer or other access device. We will not use your IP address to identify you, the individual, in any way
Visitor tracking to your website takes can be a daunting task which is often neglected. Unfortunately, though, you could be making a big mistake if you are not tracking visitors on your website..
Visitor tracking is critical to the proper and successful function of your business. It can help you improve your content strategy for starters. You may also better optimize your design and even generate leads!
It’s important to remember that just because something works for a similar business in your sector, it doesn’t mean it will work for your business. You shouldn’t rely only on external data and campaign statistics to gauge your marketing efforts and to improve your website.
You may need to boost your website (content, design, user experience etc) in order to attract more visitors. Visitor tracking is the first place you should look to get started.
There are other reasons why you may need analytics performed for your business. Keep reading to learn more.
Sourcing Traffic
Perhaps the number one reason businesses perform visitor tracking on their websites is to gain a better understanding of where their traffic is coming from.
Find out which search engines are sending traffic to your site. Also, gain key insights by determining which traffic comes from which links and from which sources. You can use this information to increase your online presence where your visitors are most active and interested.
Top Ten Ranking
With visitor tracking, you can easily learn more about your top landing pages.
Something that feels right to you may not be working for your customers in terms of page content. Track your top ten pages so you can learn what your customers like.
Rearrange your top ten pages according to your customer’s interest to reflect the most important details about your business. Offer ways for customers to connect with you here.
Evaluations
Just as with your top ten pages, you should be reviewing your entire website with visitor tracking to gain a better understanding of your customers’ likes and dislikes.
Evaluating your website for content that draws more business can greatly improve your content strategies. Likewise, allowing your customers to ‘leave’ can have a great impact on your evaluation process. This gives you the opportunity to incorporate the content that customers are looking for into your website, thoroughly.
Learning Your Customers
Based on tracking results, you can also learn just exactly who is visiting your website and why.
Is the visitor male or female? How old are they? Where do they live and work? Analytics can track and provide this information.
Search Engine Optimization and local online and mobile ads, as well as social media group campaigns, are great ways to target traffic from a specific location. Utilize your tracking results to accurately and precisely facilitate these orders.
Unique Visitor Tracking
While looking at the total number of visitors to your website is great, looking at unique visitors reveals a lot more information.
Unique visitors are those that request pages from your website, regardless of how often or not they visit the site. With this information, you can make better decisions about content strategies for those specific pages or those specific customers. Or both.
Unique visitor tracking provides an accurate picture of the size of the audience you’re reaching.
Lead Generation
Tracking your visitors is a good source of leads, too.
Once you understand your customer’s wants and needs based on the results of their searches, you can better cater to their needs on your landing pages.
Make sure your keywords match with your content and learn which keywords convert to increase sales more rapidly.
Visitor tracking provides a unique source of lead generation.
Conversion Ratings
Find out how many customers are actually making purchases. See which type of customer responds to social media. How many visitors sign up for email or newsletters? Set up goals and track how many visitors reach the goal.
When you’re tracking the customers on your website, you’re more involved with them at other levels. Analytics can provide pertinent details relating to customer preferences, purchases and feedback. You can also track the success or failure of a social media marketing campaign or your pay per click (PPC) efforts.
Find Errors
What if your website is running with errors or defects. This could affect how many visitors are coming to your pages and influence whether or not they decide to stay or come back.
You can easily find things have gone wrong on your website when you’re using analytics because you’ll notice the difference in traffic to those pages. A dip in traffic on a particular page could mean that the page is not loading correctly, so you might need to solve any pending issues.
Referrals
Similar to sourcing traffic, tracking visitors provides a unique look at where your traffic is coming from when it is being referred from other sources.
Use this information to gain rapport with your customers when you link your site back to these referred sources so that your customers can find you easily.
Auditing
Using tracking sources to audit your marketing. You want to make sure you’re spending your money where it really counts.
Tracking your visitors can provide important information about marketing campaigns and web page content. Learn where to funnel marketing funds with analytics that show you exactly what appeals to the customer.
Exit Pages
Learn how many times a customer visits your site, the time spent on your website before they leave. Using analytics you can see the customer journey on your website, that shows how many and which pages were visited and for how long.
When you know more about which customers are staying and leaving, you’ll have a better idea about how to design your website to provide a better user experience. Improve your content strategy and links on your site pertaining to what your customers like or don’t.
Bounce Rates
You want to keep your bounce rates low since this has become a ranking factor for Google.
This is the rate at which visitors are coming to your site and immediately leaving or never making it past the first page.
This information is crucial for conversion tracking and keeping a tally distance between those bouncing visitors and those that actually stay longer on your site.
Website Visitor Tracking
Visitor tracking is essential for any business to capture key information and details about their website performance. Any business large or small can benefit from being aware of how customers are behaving on their website and optimise your site to convert visitors into leads.
You might feel that there is so much to do and you don’t know where to start ! buy you don’t have to go at it alone. We can help you setup and configure the best tools to track your website visitors and also to convert visitors into leads. Contact us when you’re ready to take your website tracking to the next level!
