Without wanting to get all 1984 on you, Big Brother is watching – online at least. Every landing page you visit, from whichever device you use, can be recorded, all with the aim of giving marketers even greater insights into who you are, and – more importantly – what you’re likely to buy next.
For B2B companies, this presents a huge opportunity to learn more about your customers and to better target your approach to them. As we’ve said before, personalisation is everything when it comes to getting customers and keeping them. Your customers want to know that you, well, get them, understanding their likes and dislikes and what makes them tick.
Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s run through the brass tacks of how to track your website visitors.
How to track website visitors?
You can keep track of most people visiting your website in a number of ways, and one of the most popular is cookies. Analytics tools – like those offered by Google and HubSpot – use cookies to monitor which pages on your website your visitor is looking at, including the page they first landed on and crucially, which page they left on.
In fact, all kinds of behaviour can be tracked thanks to cookies, and before we delve into just what you can see (and how), let’s demystify how cookies do this.
What are website cookies?
How many times have you seen this message today?
This is known as a cookie alert. Cookies is the name given to data that every user volunteers to website owners when they visit their site. It can be something as small as a list of pages you visited and how long you spent on them, or something altogether more sophisticated. If you’re a gmail user, websites can even get an idea of your gender, age bracket and place of residence through cookies, helping companies get really granular with their data-gathering efforts.
Of course, no one has to give any data that they don’t wish to – GDPR saw to that – however, some cookies need to be volunteered in order to view a website. In short, cookies are the cornerstone of your website’s lead generation efforts, but you’ll have to get your head around them first.
What can cookies be used for?
Cookies are saved to your browser and can influence the content your visitor sees on your website, and off it. They affect the type of online adverts that your visitor will see, the products and offers they encounter, and the results that appear on their Google searches. All in all, cookies are pretty useful.
So, how can you use cookies to find out more about who’s landing on your website, and turn these visitors into qualified leads?
How do I see who’s viewing my website (and use this to make sales)?
Step one: set up Google Analytics for your website or HubSpot analytics – each is freely available and easy to use. Need a hand with setting up these for your website? Betta Webs can help.
Step two: create filters to group user behaviour. Google Analytics, and other analytics tools, allows you to tailor your dashboard – that is, the first page you see when you login – with graphs and statistics of the behaviour of your visitors. This can include the pages they’re visiting, how long they’re spending on your website and how they found you in the first place e.g. Google search results or via a referral from another website.
How do I use analytics to generate more conversions?
We’ve written loads of tips about how your website can generate more conversions, and perhaps why your existing site isn’t getting you the leads you need, but all our advice boils down to one thing: personalisation. And if you use your analytics data correctly, you’re already halfway there.
1. Make your paid adverts more targeted than ever before
When you set up paid adverts on social media platforms, search results’ pages, or other websites, you can tailor the look and feel of your advert (like the copy, image and call-to-action), but that’s not all. Thanks to the cookies left by visitors to frequently-viewed social media platforms like Facebook, when you set up an advert, you can reach exactly the kind of customer you’re hoping to attract – whether that’s their age, industry or job role.
Companies like Google and Facebook are always looking for ways to innovate and streamline this process, and can even suggest lookalike audiences who, based on their data, would be a great fit for your product or service.
2. Create bespoke landing pages on your website
Make the most of personalisation tools like those offered by HubSpot. HubSpot makes the whole process super easy, allowing you to set up workflows based around the landing pages your lead has visited, so the content they see is always tailored to them.
With HubSpot, you’re free to create an entirely personalised website experience. You can create bespoke pop-up messages – for instance, gated content offers or newsletter sign-up forms – or introduce smart content to your pages which shows different content snippets, products, deals and CTAs depending on your visitors interests, and where they are in their buying journey.
3. Tailor your emails to its recipient
In emails, you can use personalisation tokens that, coupled with email lists, work in a similar way. A popular way to get started would be to use your recipient's name in the email subject line – research shows that this alone has a bearing on open rate, as well as click throughs and even transaction rate.
Thanks to personalisation software that’s now freely available for anyone to use, you’re only limited by the extent of your imagination. Go nuts! For help with using HubSpot’s personalisation tools, get in touch with the Betta Webs team and we’ll be happy to help.
At a glance: how to see who’s viewing your website?
-
Online users are tracked with the cookies – small pieces of data – which they leave every time they open a website.
-
Cookies can be used to personalise the content your visitor sees on your website, the emails they receive, or the advertisements they encounter anywhere else on the internet.
-
Analytics tools, such as those offered by Google and HubSpot, can give you an insight into your visitor behaviour.
Get in touch with the Betta Webs team today to find out who's viewing your website (and how to sell to them).
