When website visitor tracking first came on the scene it was an online revolution. Suddenly businesses had information on their current and would-be customers that allowed them to transform their sites, marketing and products to be more profitable.
What Does It Mean To Track Website Visitors?
Website visitor tracking is when you use an analytics tool to record all of the activity taking place on your site. But not every analytics tool records the same activity, the same way. Some are very simple and track basic actions like visitor count, time on site and bounce rate.
Behavioral analytics tools like Kissmetrics will tell you a lot more. They’ll reveal who’s visiting your site, where they came from, what they engage with, and where they drop out of the sales funnel. You’ll be able to identify behaviors like:
- Viewing websites and landing pages
- Viewing videos
- Reading blog posts
- Clicking on your sales pricing, links, and offers
- Signing up for email notifications
- Signing up newsletters
- Viewing blog posts
- Adding items to cart
- Completing a purchase
- And more
You’ll be able to segment your data any way you like so you’re getting the information that’s most meaningful to you. Kissmetrics also tracks visitors across devices. So you’ll know if they first clicked on an ad on their phone to arrive on a landing page, then opened an email on their computer, and finally purchased from their iPad. These insights give you in-depth information about your customer’s journey.
What Are the Benefits of Website Visitor Tracking?
Did you know that just a measly 2.35 percent of people who visit your website will convert to purchasing customers? Those statistics can be quite disheartening for marketing and sales teams. Especially when you’re working so hard to drive eyeballs to your site in the first place.
This is where analyzing your website traffic can help you optimize your site for flow and messaging, and possibly lead to a higher conversion rate.
Here are some additional benefits of website visitor tracking:
Benefit #1: Website visitor tracking can help improve lead generation and quality
We all know that qualified leads are the bread and butter of sales quotas. And meeting those benchmarks hinges on having a consistent, steady flow of leads progressing stage-to-stage through the sales pipeline. If you use a behavioral analytics tool to track your website visitors, you’ll get better information on who’s most likely to purchase and the messaging that’s most likely to speak to them. You’ll see:
- The marketing campaigns that brought in the most leads.
- The pages your qualified leads most visit and the links they click.
- Who converted and/or purchased and who didn’t.
- Where they fell out of the sales funnel.
This critical knowledge will allow your marketing team to better target quality leads,optimize marketing campaigns, content plans, and sales messaging.
Benefit #2: You can use website visitor tracking to improve your sales process
Website visitor trackers provide additional website metrics that help your sales team understand how customers find your website. Is it through Google? A social media website? An online forum? Whilst this is intensely useful for marketers for promotional purposes — helping them understand the success of varying campaigns so they can properly design their next — this information is equally useful for sales teams. The more information sales teams have about their potential customers, the easier it is for them to communicate on an intimate level and overcome any roadblocks their targets have.
Sales teams can also use visitor tracking data to prioritize leads. By knowing the types of customers most likely to become big spenders and power users, i.e. those likely to be the most valuable to your business, your sales team can prioritize communication and on-boarding for these cohorts. This is especially effective for small sales teams fielding a high volume of leads.
Benefit #3: You can close more sales with website visitor tracking
The capabilities in website visitor tracking work seamlessly together to get you the payoff you’re after. Here’s a quick example to illustrate what is possible:
A returning user comes to your site for the 5th time in as many days. The system recognizes the user, who is already set up in your company’s CRM system, and automatically sends an alert to the sales rep, informing them that this specific user is very interested in Product A.
The system also applies the lead scoring algorithm to the user’s record based on past and current engagement behavior with site content and interest. The current visit puts the user’s score above the ‘sales-ready’ threshold for Product A, automatically triggering a sales alert email and auto-enrolls the user into a nurture campaign.
When the user later opens and then clicks on the sales alert email, another alert is automatically sent to the sales rep who — after reviewing the user’s activities in the CRM record — calls to follow up with the user and is successful at setting up a product demo the following day. After attending the demonstration, the user purchases Product A.
From this example, you can easily see how beneficial website visitor tracking can be for your growing company.
What Are the Most Common Factors That Affect Website Visitor Behavior?
If it doesn’t convert, it doesn’t work. Here are the most common factors that affect website visitor behavior:
- Your offer is not appealing. Do you feel like your offer is attractive? If you were a new visitor on your website, would your offer make you want to buy your product? Having a poor offer can greatly affect website visitor behavior — and not in a good way.
- Your website takes too long to load. The average consumer spends just 30 seconds on each site before navigating to another. If your website takes too long to load, you could be losing valuable customers.
- The layout of your website is confusing. Keep your website’s length short and sweet, with easy access to the content that consumers want to see. If you bog your site down with ads and pop-up windows, people may be less likely to return to your site.
- No clear CTA. Visitors need to be told what to do. Buy now. Schedule a demo. Contact us. Sign up. These are all clear call-to-actions linked to a desired conversion that tell the visitor what they should do next. If your CTA isn’t clear: both visually (i.e. highlighted with a brightly colored button) and verbally, you’ll get fewer conversions.
- The content on your website is outdated and/or not useful. Consumers who come to your website search for certain information or content, so keep things fresh and be sure to update often. Keep your blog posts relevant to the service or product that you offer, and share new and relevant content as often as possible.
Tips for Boosting Website Traffic
If you’ve struggled with driving traffic to your website or landing page, don’t worry — you’re not alone. According to recent research, 61 percent of content professionals are challenged with knowing what’s most important to their target audiences, 50 percent are challenged with understanding the goal of the target audience at a particular stage of the customer’s journey, and 49 percent struggle with knowing the steps in the customer’s journey.
Between posting on social media, writing a new post for your blog, and strategizing for a new email campaign, it’s tough to look back and see what’s driving traffic to your site — and what isn’t.
Here are a few quick tips to help you boost website traffic:
- Optimize your website for organic search.
- Greet visitors with an eye-catching and targeted landing page.
- Promote your website with great digital ads.
- Use email marketing to direct traffic.
- Engage your audience on social media.
With this many different avenues for boosting website traffic, you’re sure to find a channel that works for your brand and your customers. Now it’s just a matter of finding the right tools to help you do it.
The Bottom Line
If you’re not currently tracking your visitors, an effective website visitor tracking software like Kissmetrics will show you who is doing what on your website. It’ll show you how they got there and the steps your most valuable customers or power users take on the road to becoming your VIPs. This will give your marketing, sales, UX, and product teams valuable and in-depth information to better hone their efforts.
Your marketing teams will be able to see which campaigns brought in your best customers so they can create more of them. Your sales teams will see the types of customers they should be targeting to build better leads. Your UX team will know where the customers and users get stuck and what works to make adjustments. And your product team will see what’s popular and what’s not so they can better plan your products.
We’ve seen how website visitor tracking is an indispensable tool for finding out who your visitors are, how they engage with your site, and who’s most valuable. Now it’s time to put that newfound knowledge to work improving your sales and marketing activities.
For the best behavioral analytics tool to help take your business to the next level, check out Kissmetrics — request a demo with us today and see for yourself. Trust us—you’ll be glad you did.
Sources:
7 Conversion Rate Truths That Will Change Your Landing Page Strategy | Search Engine Land
