SMB Marketing Automation Blog » Website Visitor Identification

Fans You Didn’t Know You Had…Identifying Website Leads

Lindsey Bowman — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 22:42:39 +0000

While on a recent run (Ok, jog) around the neighborhood, I headed up the steepest climb, rocking out to Sticky Fingers (who doesn’t love the Stones?). As I made my slow uphill progress, I heard another sound that I couldn’t quite place. I removed my earphones and saw three neighborhood kids cheering me on from their vantage point in the backyard. I smiled, waved and felt re-energized by this impromptu cheer.

Oddly enough, it also made me think about website visitors and leads – and how, in many cases, you don’t really know who your fans…your site visitors…really are. It’s like leaving money on the table because these visitors are interested enough to come to your site, yet unless they contact you directly, you’ll never know who they are, what product they are interested in, etc.

For example, when you use Google Analytics, you can see useful aggregate data and trends but you cannot drill into visitor behavior (aka ‘your fans’) on a granular, individual level. Additionally, when you send an email using one of the popular email service providers, you can see who has opened/clicked on an email but you can’t take the tracking past that initial click.

Marketing automation software can bridge this gap between aggregate anonymous traffic and identifying your supporters. If someone completes a form on your website, they are no longer an anonymous visitor, and you can now track their current visit, future visits and also add them to future email campaigns (if they opted in). Once the people in your database interact with an email you’ve sent, they are recognizable within the software so all past, present and future visits are fully trackable.

This type of visitor intelligence can quickly become addictive and you’ll be able to think of website visitors as leads…

•   See the company name of anonymous visitors (by way of their business class IP address) to give your outbound callers a great starting point for calling efforts
•   Gauge what topics or offers produce the greatest number of repeat visitors to your website so you can tailor web messaging, special offers, etc.
•   Store your lead’s site visits, email activity, pages viewed, etc. in one central location so you can create lists based on attributes OR behavior
•   Associate lead sources with specific visitors to send more relevant communications

As you can see, the possibilities of using this deeper tracking are really limitless. By identifying and appreciating your fans (or leads) on an individual level, you’ll be able to build a relationship with your cheering squad to make climbing that big hill of lead generation a little easier.

>>Learn more about Net-Results website lead tracking.

Have Your PII and Eat It Too

Lindsey Bowman — Fri, 21 May 2010 16:12:06 +0000

“Personally Identifiable Information (PII), as used in information security, refers to information that can be used to uniquely identify, contact, or locate a single person or can be used with other sources to uniquely identify a single individual. The abbreviation PII is widely accepted, but the phrase it abbreviates has four common variants based on personal, personally, identifiable, and identifying. Not all are equivalent, and for legal purposes the effective definitions vary depending on the jurisdiction and the purposes for which the term is being used.”(Wikipedia 2010)

For all intensive purposes, Net-Results uses the concept of PII to identify web visitors and reveal digital footprints to eventually expose a sales ready lead. While PII can sometimes be exploited by those less than honest, Net-Results certainly does not use the information to steal identities or stalk individuals, that’s what Facebook is for. However, Net-Results does provide PII to its users so that they may identify prospects and leads who are at the height of their interest for a product or service.

Net-Results employs various methods to identify PII, including internal and external aspects of the system. The first is through the proprietary web form mapping feature. By copying the URL of a web form (ie: Contact Us Form, Request a Quote form, Request a Catalog form etc.) into Net-Results, you are enabling the platform to capture and archive the PII information the visitor provides in its internal contact database. Once the information is captured, each time the visitor returns from the same access point (IP address), they are personally identified by the information they provided in your web form. Net-Results can capture and reveal this information whether they return tomorrow or 6 months from now. The Net-Results PII system can also back track the information, to reveal all previous anonymous visits by that same visitor.

Not only does Net-Results capture the information visitors provide in submission forms, it also associates the PII from its contact database with the recipients of your emails. This means that once you’ve imported your.CSV list of contacts, set up your email campaign in Net-Results, and launched your campaign, each contact that opens your email will be forever stored in the Net-Results database, giving you the same effect as your submission forms. Where other ESPs stop is where Net-Results takes off, not only giving you the personally identifiable information for each one of your email recipients, but also providing you insight into their navigation through your site when they open your email and each time they return going forward.

Lastly, Net-Results integrates with Jigsaw, a leading provider of business information and data services that leverages user generated content from around the world. Users can access a community of over 900,000 members, giving them accurate business data for hard to reach decision makers that may be on their site, looking for information. To access the Jigsaw integration, simply click the actions drop down menu on the My Visitors page, and click on the Jigsaw icon to initiate the Jigsaw search for the unknown contact that has visited your site. Integrating Jigsaw with Net-Results is a cost effective and easy way to improve and accelerate your sales and marketing execution.

Net-Results Takes Automated Marketing Beyond The Website

Lindsey Bowman — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 22:37:23 +0000

Utilizing Net-Results has its obvious online marketing advantages, but how do you take your marketing to the next step efficiently and cost effectively? One of the most effective ways to integrate Net-Results with outside and interactive efforts is to use it to promote, register, track and analyze webinars, seminars, or interactive events. By utilizing Net-Results for your event marketing, you have the ability to integrate your event registration, email marketing, post event analysis, and website tracking of event attendees and registrants, all in one platform.

The first step to getting the word out to your prospects about your upcoming event is to create your email invitation campaign in Net-Results. You can not only create a standard email campaign, but an action based campaign that will track whether or not a recipient has signed up for your event either through your email or through a registration form on your site. If a recipient does not register, Net-Results can be set up to automatically send them another set of emails until they elicit the desired response. Net-Results will of course also track all opens, clicks and visits to your website from your email invitation. However, unlike other ESPs, Net-Results tracks the recipients visits to your site far beyond their initial opening and viewing of your email, and provides individual contact information and site navigation each and every time they return. You can even set up a real time alert to let you know when someone has opened your email, visited your site, registered for your event, or opened your email and did not register for your event. You can even set up an alert to notify you when registrants return to your website in the future.

When using Net-Results to track your registration, you are not only collecting your data in a streamlined, easy to access fashion, you are also able to view your registrants return visits to your website, automate your responses when someone signs up for your event, and cross reference your website’s pre existing web form capture mechanism, to ensure you are capturing each and every registrant and visitor. Not only can you see your registrants contact information and navigation through your site once they sign up for your event, you can also see all of their future visits, whether its next week or next year, you have access to exactly what they’re looking for and when and how to contact them.

Additionally, mapping your registration forms to Net-Results eliminates time consuming and manual data transfer, because all of your registrant’s information is easily streamed into a list in Net-Results, and hopefully into your sales pipeline. Also, having all of your registrants in a list in Net-Results enables you to send them future email marketing campaigns, promotions, discounts, and nurture them to the point of sale.

Once you’ve mapped your registration forms to Net-Results, the next step is to set up your auto responder emails to confirm their registration and provide them with any further information regarding your upcoming event. It also gives them a chance to respond back with questions, comments or suggestions. By using the Net-Results auto responder functionality, you’re saving money and time with email invitations, automatic confirmations and 24/7 self-service online registration.

Net-Results Stays Classy In San Diego: DMA 2009

Lindsey Bowman — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 18:29:00 +0000

Article marketing, blogging, pay-per-click advertising, banner ads, search engine marketing and optimization, social media, web design and development- These ideas and strategies that were meaningless 10 years ago were the hot topics at the Direct Marketing Association conference in San Diego this year. Net-Results showcased their state of the art intelligent email marketing and lead management automation tools in the exhibit hall amongst the industry’s latest in technology, services, and strategy providers including conglomerates like Google, Experian, and Kodak.

Monday morning the conference kicked off with a key note speech from the one and only Martha Stewart. Stewart, the founder of Martha Stewart Living, as well as numerous best selling product lines, brought attendees behind the scenes of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to discuss her innovations and strategies that have made her one of America’s marketing icons. While the Net-Results team couldn’t make it to the discussion to get some “insider” tips, Martha Stewart did share with many attendees the creative principles and practical ideas that have made her one of America’s most successful women.

Monday and Tuesday attendees flooded the exhibit halls and came to the black and red booth eager and interested to find out how Net-Results Marketing Automation software could create a revenue driving powerhouse out of their website. Many folks were interested in simply tracking their visitors and following up with their prospects, while others were interested in utilizing the dynamic email marketing, contact management, API and social media tools within the Net-Results system. Not only were visitors learning and absorbing information about all the functionalities of Net-Results, but the Net-Results team also gained valuable perspective on new channels, next generation strategies and many other new aspects of direct and digital marketing.

Overall, DMA San Diego proved to be a success and an excellent experience for the Net-Results team, from the food and entertainment, to the appealing displays, interactive demonstrations, and even the savvy marketers ready to pounce.

Identifying Website Visitors in a B2B Environment

Michael Ward — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 19:20:41 +0000

This post is the 2nd in a series that explains the world of website visitor identification and tracking. The first post laid out what’s not possible when trying to identify website visitors. Now we get into what is possible in a business to business environment (the next post will discuss B2C and more on the B2B side).

Certain B2B sales and marketing organizations have a leg up when it comes to using a visitor tracking system to identify website visitors. Why? Because in a lot of cases it’s possible to instantly identify the companies that visit your website using just an IP address. The website visitor doesn’t even have to fill out a web form or otherwise identify himself at all. The instant a visitor comes to your site that visitor’s IP address is available to you. Many IP addresses are easily associated with a company name and location. Professional visitor tracking systems make that association for you and go much further, detailing exactly which pages were viewed by that visitor, the search engine they used, even the exact search phrase they typed so that you know exactly what they were looking for (this allows you to easily identify qualified vs. non-qualified prospects).

Here’s the rub: not all companies are identifiable via their IP address. As a general rule, companies using a decidedly “business-class” internet connection (think T1 or better) are readily identifiable, while companies using “residential-class” internet connections (think DSL or cable modem) are commonly not. This dictates that if a reasonable percentage of the firms your company deals with are large enough to have at least a T1 internet connection you may well benefit from implementing website visitor identification software.

As I said in my previous post on this topic, nothing can be done at this stage to identify the name, email address or phone number of the individual that visited your website. Despite this, many organizations generate more leads and close more business by identifying and monitoring the activity of prospect companies on their websites. Can your company be one of them? Well that depends on a few things…

The companies that stand to benefit most from this level of visitor identification not only deal with “larger” companies (primarily medium to large sized organizations, but some bigger “small” ones as well), but they also sell a product or service (as a manufacturer, distributor, professional services… etc.) that is “relatively expensive” or generates a “substantial” amount of revenue per sale. This is because the value of any given lead increases with the size of the potential sale. “Relatively expensive” is (obviously) a relative term. I’ve seen companies that generate $5,000 per sale do very well with visitor identification. Start adding zeroes and the results continue to improve.

I sometimes come across people who question the value of visitor tracking systems (mostly people who’ve never used one). I often find it useful to point out the costs of not using one (like, say, letting great prospects go unnoticed, turning your back on a distinct competitive advantage). Allow me to illustrate what happens every day when you don’t leverage visitor identification and tracking. Here’s the story of how I came to invent my first visitor tracking solution in early 2003.

My company was developing a website for a distributor of industrial gearboxes (exciting stuff, I know). These gearboxes sell for as much as $40,000 each and generate gross margins near 40%. I was looking through the log files on their web server one day (I’m a geek, we read log files) and saw that someone had searched Google for a specific gearbox by model number and visited my customer’s website. The visitor had looked at several pages (including the “Contact Us” page) before moving on. It occurred to me that there aren’t many people proactively searching for industrial gearboxes who don’t need them (Note the eloquent use of the double negative. Don’t hate me, it’s a born skill). I told my customer about the website visit and asked whether they’d heard from the prospect. Answer? No. Nothing. No phone call. No form was filled out. No email arrived.

This made me absolutely nuts. I realized that the web is the only place in sales where we leave it to chance and hope the prospect will contact us. We spend time and money building a website, driving traffic to it, making sure the message is right and then… hope. Hope they’ll contact you. Hope the website looked good enough to them. Hope you’ll meet your targets for the quarter while you’re at it.

You’d never do that at a trade show. You’d never do that on the phone. A good salesperson believes they can close any qualified prospect, all they want is the chance. Well here was a chance: the prospect searches the web for the exact product my customer sells (by model number!), visits their website, looks at the product, learns how to contact them and then nothing. That guy is buying a gearbox from somewhere, it just won’t be from my customer.

The bottom line: B2B sales & marketing teams can leverage visitor identification and tracking tools right out of the box with almost no additional skills, knowledge or change in existing business processes. Here comes the teaser: Identifying & tracking website visitors at the company level via IP address barely scratches the surface of what a modern piece of software is capable of. The plot thickens…

Read the next post about how Net-Results can identify and track individuals without employing spyware or other nefarious means. These techniques can be leveraged big-time in both B2B & B2C environments. Learn more about Net-Results website lead tracking.

Identifying Website Visitors: The Naked Truth (Part 1)

Michael Ward — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 16:25:18 +0000

The Net-Results website gets a lot of traffic from people who would like to identify individual website visitors. Search phrases such as “identify website visitors” and “track individual web site visitors” bring traffic to us on a daily basis. We find that many people are searching for a solution that will tell them the email addresses (or names & phone numbers) of each person that visits their website.

This post is the first in a series that will explain exactly what is and is not possible when it comes to identifying and tracking visitors to your website. Having personally built popular software for identifying website visitors I have at least one truckload of experience in this area, maybe more depending on the size of your truck.

What’s Not Possible
A universal truth: No legitimate software or service in existence can identify the names, phone numbers or email addresses of each visitor to your website. I know, I know. That sucks. Very disappointing. But that’s absolutely the way it is. Let me show you why this is the case.

Think about your computer. Where in it would you find your email address? How about your name and phone number? The first place that comes to mind is your email program like Outlook or Entourage. Another place where your name may be found is in the operating system itself. You may also have look in the various documents you’ve created. Here’s the deal: The code used to build web pages is not technologically capable of accessing information stored in these places. Web browsers like Internet Explorer, Firefox & Safari are specifically designed to not allow access to the information stored in other programs. You can’t build a web page that sorts through Outlook contacts, Word documents or operating system settings without the user’s permission. It’s not only a question of ethics, it’s also just not possible without tricking the user into downloading something sneaky.

“But what about cookies?” I hear someone asking. No, cookies cannot provide this kind of information either. Many people have the mistaken impression that they can but they cannot. Web developers use cookies to store pieces of information they already know. Cookies cannot discover new information, they can only store known information.

That is the bottom line. End of story. But wait…

There is one kind of program that’s capable of digging around in your address book or elsewhere to find email addresses and other contact information. It’s called spyware (I’m sure you noticed that I said no legitimate software can identify each visitor to your website). Spyware can probe various areas of a computer and “phone home” with all the dirt it digs up. You won’t find anyone openly selling this kind of software because it is only used by criminals and spammers (if there’s really a difference there). But alas, even spyware has its limitations. In order to use spyware to get at sensitive information you first have to trick someone into installing it on their computer. Your mileage may vary, but I’m not predicting success in identifying all of your website visitors in this manner.

So what is possible when trying to identify anonymous website visitors? The next post in this series is now available and begins to lay out all that is possible and how you can benefit. Follow us on twitter or learn more about Net-Results website lead tracking.