Should You Identify Anonymous Website Visitors to Improve Your SEO?

You can't even visit a website in peace anymore!

B2B sales and marketing teams are increasingly adopting visitor identification tools in an effort to capture more pipeline. But can visitor identification also have a positive impact on your SEO?

In this post, we'll cover this novel tool category and its SEO applications - as well as some key ethical and regulatory concerns.

If you were wondering whether you should install a script to identify anonymous website visitors on your website, keep reading!

What Is Visitor Identification?

Visitor identification is the process of identifying anonymous website visitors and collecting information about them. This can include their name, company, job title, and contact information.

How does visitor tracking software work?

There are various products that use different methods to identify visitors. Some tools use IP address tracking to determine the company a visitor is coming from, while others use data enrichment services to match IP addresses with known companies.

Other tools use a sophisticated technique known as "browser fingerprinting". Browser fingerprinting identifies and monitors users based on the unique characteristics of their web browsers and devices. Unlike traditional methods such as cookies, which can be easily deleted or blocked, browser fingerprinting creates a persistent identifier that remains consistent across browsing sessions.

Once these tools have identified a visitor, they create a profile for them in their database and track their behavior on the website through cookies or other tracking methods. This allows businesses to understand which pages a visitor has visited, how much time they spent on each page, and what actions they took on the website.

What types of data do visitor identification tools collect?

Depending on the specific technical setup that a product uses, it may be able to identify visitors individually, or at a company level.

For instance, here's how granular RB2B's visitor identification is:

RB2B identifies the specific user that visited your website, giving you information such as their name, location, and contact info. This degree of precision can raise some regulatory and ethical alarms. In fact, RB2B will only identify a visitor based in the US.

On the other hand, here's how Clearbit reports visitor behavior:

In Clearbit's case, the user remains anonymous, but their company is identified as a potential lead.

The tradeoff? While less precise on an individual level, Clearbit can identify visitors around the globe.

The 3 Key Benefits of Identifying Anonymous Visitors

Identifying anonymous visitors enables B2B sales and marketing teams to:

• Perform warm outreach
• Unroll laser-focused retargeting campaigns
• Implement an account-based marketing program

Let's quickly explore how:

Warm outreach

Most commonly, sales teams want to identify anonymous website visitors in order to perform what's known as "warm outreach".

Warm outreach consists of reaching out to users who've already shown interest in their product. It's an alternative to good old cold outreach. While cold outreach requires an at-scale, "shotgun" approach, warm outreach is far more precise and has higher success rates.

For instance, according to research by QuickMail, cold emails' open rates are usually in the 15-24% range. This is extremely low, especially considering that we're just talking about opens! Not clicks, not conversions.

On the other hand, warm outreach has an average open rate of  21-34%. So virtually, by switching from cold mailing to warm outreach, you could double your email open rates.

Retargeting campaigns

Retargeting campaigns get a big boost from being able to identify website visitors. By figuring out who these visitors are, businesses can craft more personalized and relevant ads.

Consider this: if a visitor leaves your website without making a purchase, identifying them or their company can enable you to re-engage them with a personalized ad campaign. This makes retargeting more effective, as the ads reach individuals or companies already acquainted with your brand, increasing the likelihood of engagement or conversion.

Plus, it helps in spending marketing resources wisely by focusing on leads that have already shown interest, potentially boosting the return on investment for retargeting campaigns.

Account-based marketing

Deanonymizing website visitors can be night and day for your account-based marketing (ABM) efforts too.

In ABM, businesses zero in on specific accounts, treating each one like its own little market. By figuring out who’s checking out your website, you can create super personalized marketing campaigns that cater to exactly what these accounts need and want. This helps make your marketing messages more relevant and impactful. Plus, it lets your marketing team focus on high-value accounts, so you’re spending your time on prospects who are most likely to convert.

How to Leverage Visitor Identification for SEO

Let's get specific! Does identifying your website visitors impact your SEO positively?

As always, it's a matter of how you use the tools and data at your disposal. Installing an enrichment script and reading through engagement data won't have any commercial impact unless you use it to implement a sound strategy.

Whether you're collecting personally identifiable information, or just company information and firmographic data, you can use this information to:

• Detect which content pieces are getting qualified traffic
• Produce personalized content

Let's quickly explore why.

Detect which content pieces are getting qualified traffic

Figuring out which content is bringing in the right kind of traffic is key to growing with SEO. Visitor identification tools can give you the scoop on the types of users checking out your content. By digging into this data, you can see which articles, blog posts, or web pages are hitting home with quality leads.

If a piece consistently pulls in interest from potential customers or valuable accounts, it's doing its job well. But if some of your once-popular articles aren't attracting the same crowd anymore, they might be outdated or need a little sprucing up. Give them a refresh by updating info, tweaking the message, or adding new insights to keep them engaging and effective in drawing the right audience. Using visitor data smartly not only helps keep your SEO game strong but also makes your site a better place for visitors.

Produce personalized content

Deanonymizing your website traffic can be a game-changer if you're looking to create content that really resonates with your audience. By identifying who's visiting your site, you gain a better understanding of what potential customers are interested in, what they like, and how they behave. With this information, you can tailor your content to fit their needs and wants.

When you understand your audience's specific challenges and goals, you can craft messages and content that truly hit the mark. This is especially important considering how confusing other SEO approaches can be. For instance, if you're only guided by competitor rankings and keywords, you may end up investing thousands of dollars in producing material that adds no value to your users.

In the era of at-scale content and AI, user insights are precious.

Personalized content grabs attention and forges stronger connections with potential customers because it shows that you genuinely understand their unique situation. This targeted approach ramps up engagement, enhances customer experiences, and boosts conversion rates.

Moreover, personalized content lets you build relationships more effectively, guiding prospects along the buyer's journey with the right information at each step. By delivering the right content to the right person at the right time, you can make your campaigns much more impactful.

The Cons of Visitor Identification

The increasing adoption of visitor identification software sets a very interesting scene for B2B marketing. But these tools are far from perfect. Let's leverage some pros & cons.

As we explained throughout this article, tools that help you identify anonymous visitors could help you:

• Finetune your content strategy.
• Unroll personalized marketing campaigns for qualified accounts.
• Ditch cold outreach and implement a much more effective, "warm" approach.

In short, visitor identification can help you improve content ROI and generate more pipeline.

However, there are some notable downsides. Collecting data on anonymous visitors can lead to violations of privacy regulations if not handled properly.

Some critics argue that these tools go against users' right to privacy and may be considered invasive.

To address these concerns, it's important for businesses to clearly communicate their data collection and usage policies on their website. This can include providing an opt-out option for visitors who do not want their information tracked.

Additionally, implementing strict data security measures and regularly reviewing and updating privacy policies can help alleviate any potential ethical concerns.

Ultimately, it's important for businesses to strike a balance between utilizing visitor identification for marketing purposes while respecting users' rights to privacy.  At this point,  it's important to emphasize that proper lead scoring and segmentation are key. You can't just install a script on your website and set up an automation that sends an email to every deanonymized user. Even if you don't share critics' technical concerns, keep your usage of this software in check. Be precise and responsible, your qualified leads will thank you.

The Best Visitor Identification Tools

Looking for a tool that enables you to identify unique visitors?

Here's a quick selection:

• Clearbit - Best for companies using Hubspot.
• RB2B - Best for US-based SMBs.
• Warmly - Best for startups with complex sales orchestration needs.
• Lift AI - Best for B2B companies with large websites and a high traffic volume.
• Factors AI - Best for scaleups and enterprises investing in multichannel marketing campaigns.
• LeadLander - Best for companies looking for a simple solution with accessible and predictable pricing.

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