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As an experienced software developer, sales professional and Internet marketer, Michael Ward is the entrepreneurial backbone of Net-Results. Throughout his career, Michael has helped companies increase productivity, efficiency and revenue. He envisioned the concept for Net-Results in 2003 determined to create a sales/marketing automation platform that would not only appeal to B2B enterprise markets, but would also be available to smaller organizations. Since then, he has developed a solution for both B2B and B2C markets at price points designed to facilitate wide-scale adoption in the SMB space, now known as Net-Results 2.0.

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Debunking Myths About Visitor Tracking

Written on
Jan 12, 2010 
Author
Michael Ward  |
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Debunking Myths About Visitor Tracking

cyclops_smallADOTAS – Website visitor tracking software is an effective lead generator for many B2B companies. It’s a key component of most marketing automation platforms and provides a major portion of the “behavioral” in behavioral targeting or trigger-based campaigns.

While it’s easy to understand that marketing based on behaviors provides substantial benefit, relatively few companies are currently utilizing this technology. This is possibly due to some misconceptions that have generated confusion about visitor tracking and marketing automation.

Somehow, somewhere, people got the idea that visitor tracking technology can identify the email addresses, names or phone numbers of otherwise anonymous website visitors.

While this myth is rampant in the minds of some consumers, I am surprised to find it existent among marketing professionals. No legitimate software or service in existence can proactively identify this type of information without some interaction from the website visitor. Visitor tracking software does not equal spyware.

I like to think of visitor tracking as a form of listening, of paying attention to what a given prospect is “telling” you. Did the prospect click through your email and visit your website? That tells you something, and most ESP’s provide that information. Bring visitor tracking into the picture, however, and the whole game changes.

Visitor tracking is telling you:

  • What happened after that person clicked through?
  • Did they look at one page and “bounce” off your website?
  • Or did they stick around?
  • What products did they spend time on? How much time? Did they repeat visit your site within the next week?

If you were talking to those prospects, you would listen intently to discover their interests and then tailor your conversation based on what you heard. Visitor tracking allows you to automate this process no matter how many prospects you have on your hands. Your team can start launching marketing campaigns based on what you “hear” to tap the powerful advantages of visitor tracking software.

Cooling Tower Depot (CTD), a Colorado-based company that builds, repairs, and supplies parts for industrial cooling towers, implemented basic website visitor tracking several years ago, but they recently upped the ante by implementing a marketing automation system. The impact on lead generation and sales was instant.

CTD is closing business with approximately 10 additional customers per quarter resulting in a 15% increase in top-line revenues. The Colorado company increased revenue because they “listened” to the actions of potential customers.

Visitor tracking software can proactively identify the names of the companies that visit a website whether they fill out a web form or not. It also reveals their location, which pages were viewed, the visit duration and the search phrase used to find the site (if any).

CTD used this information to contact companies that had searched “high value” phrases or spent a good deal of time on the site. They converted many prospects that would otherwise have gone by the wayside.

Visitor tracking and marketing automation offer a competitive advantage as shown by the short CTD case study. Visitor tracking technology is not spyware.

We’re also not dealing with magic. The technology can only deliver information and act on instruction. No substitute exists for a competent human that knows her market and understands customer motivations.

The bottom line: B2B sales and marketing teams can leverage basic visitor tracking tools right out of the box with almost no additional skills, knowledge or change in existing business processes. Targeting prospects with individually tailored messaging requires additional brainpower but the ROI on the table will make the effort worth your while.





Reader Comments.

Michael could you point us at some software that you think might be a good solution?

Posted by Chuck | 1:49 pm on January 12, 2010.

He stated he is the entrepreneurial backbone of Net Results, an automated email management software. Heard great things! Hope this helps.

Posted by Kim | 11:39 pm on March 24, 2010.

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