Tracking and identifying visitors on your website may not sound like something salespeople are concerned with as part of their daily routine, but don’t discount it offhand. Technology is bridging the gap. A website visitor that fits your idea of an ideal lead can show up in your CRM almost immediately, giving you better insights, leading to more sales.
There are many free tools available such as Google Analytics for one, which are usually enough for small businesses wanting to get an idea of basic audience and behavior metrics, but the data collected with these tools is not specific enough to add much value to B2B sales teams. That’s where website visitor tracking software comes in.
What is website visitor tracking software?
Website visitor tracking software typically focuses on three categories of data: website analytics, user behavior and visitor identity.
While some provide high-level overviews of traffic, others are capable of providing in-depth user insights using advanced technology. Many integrate with CRM platforms for a seamless experience, quicker response times and overall better lead nurturing.
Understanding how the software works is less important than the value it brings, especially for sales teams with high ticket solutions. Put it this way, prospecting gets a whole lot easier when an ideal client shows up browsing your company website and you know it almost immediately. Your company website turns into a virtual showroom when you can see who is browsing around.
If you have concerns about the violation of privacy regulations, then you are right to be. There is new and evolving legislation in and around the world, but you are able to gain a wealth of information since there is scope for compliance.
GDPR and website visitor tracking
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) prevents website tracking in the European Union (EU) without the visitor’s express consent. However, in the United States, there are no federal consumer tracking laws. For other regions and countries you’d need to check local legislation, but bear in mind that most website tracking software providers provide valuable compliance information.
In many cases in the EU, as long as you’ve got a clear privacy, terms, and cookies policy visible on your website that is easy for visitors to access (with links from your footer and email opt-ins) and includes how the data your tracking is used you’ll be compliant.
Outbound leads cost 39% more than inbound leads. [Hubspot]
Lead generation
Without in-depth insights from website tracking you have nothing more than statistics on the effectiveness of advertising and marketing campaigns online. However, you can supercharge the ROI from each lead generation tactic when you add website visitor tracking into the mix because you’re able to:
- See the exact profile of companies browsing your website–including key details like company name, industry, employee size, and location.
- Identify companies who fit your target client profile quickly, even if they weren’t in your initial prospect list.
- View typical behaviors, and prioritize nurturing new site visitors who demonstrate the same behaviors.
Did you know… You can see the companies visiting your website, even when they don’t fill out a form.
In short: With website visitor tracking, you can identify high-value potential leads who are passing through your funnel and sync them to your CRM for sales teams to approach and convert to new customers.
Limitations
Personal data is most definitely limited. You can’t identify the specific person making the click, but you have a chance at an educated guess. If the visitor is from company X based at location Y (data you can see) and they were looking at finance blogs for example, with a little research on LinkedIn you’d probably have an idea who was visiting.
This process of elimination is impossible for bigger companies with a large campus, and more often for remote workers, where there is no company information associated with their home network.
There are instances where limited information still holds value. You’ll be able to have an idea from your prospecting efforts when someone has opened an inmail in LinkedIn or a normal email as part of a campaign and then tie that together with a subsequent visit to your site.
One way to make this easier is by establishing a unique landing page for your prospects that can tie them to directly visiting from one of your lead generation efforts.
5 practical uses for sales teams
1. Identify sales leads quickly
The rapid identification of leads through your website who not only fulfill the criteria you are looking for, but also have relevant company information are golden. These prospects are partly pre-qualified and are most definitely warm.
37% of salespeople say prospecting is the hardest part of the job. [Hubspot]
2. “Warm-up” cold outreach
90% of decision makers say they never respond to cold outreach emails. This is not surprising since decision makers receive many of these types of emails and have become savvy as a result. By making your first contact with them less salesy, you can get on their radar before pitching.
You can:
- Reply to their tweets
- Comment on their blog posts
- Respond to posts shared by decision makers you’ve identified on LinkedIn
3. Improve your LinkedIn strategy
Now you’re able to identify which companies are visiting your website and find a decision maker through LinkedIn, you have the opportunity to execute your LinkedIn connection strategy while the prospect is still warm.
4. Automate alerts to capitalize on dream clients visiting your website
You can create alerts via email, Slack or your CRM when a perfect lead visits your website. These can vary between those you have contacted in the past without reply, those already traveling nicely through your pipeline, as well as those who fit certain criteria like company size and industry for example.
5. Personalize sales messages
The data on your visitors also lets you know more about a specific problem they may be having due to the content they viewed. Particular blogs or service pages viewed will give you a heads up and the ability to tailor your outreach for that pain point.
As a sales team, these benefits enable you to get out ahead of your prospects and understand their needs before they’ve initiated contact.
Conclusion
Turning cold calling and hard grind prospecting into the ability to guide prospects through your funnel for some, if not many of your leads is gold. It still takes work and there is a learning curve but the benefits far outway the hardships.
Cheaper lead acquisition and better insights into your prospects wherever they sit in your funnel can only lead to higher conversion.
Pipeline Factory has been using website tracking software as part of a proven outsourced pre-sales process for B2B sales professionals. The results of including this technology add to the efficiency of the process throughout, keeping sales pipelines healthy and maintaining ROI. Want to know what it could mean for you? Contact us and we’ll gladly tell you.