Website visitor de-anonymisation

Website visitor identification, sometimes called de-anonymisation, tells you who is browsing your site when they have not filled in a form. Most tools match a visitor's network address to a company and show a list such as a firm that viewed your pricing page three times this week. Some also try to name a person, which is harder and more sensitive. Dealfront, Leadinfo, Clearbit and ZoomInfo are examples of tools with this feature.

Most visitors never fill in a form, so a sales team normally sees only a small share of the interest in the site. Visitor identification shows which companies are looking, which helps you prioritise outreach and decide when to follow up. It works best for B2B sites with steady traffic and a sales team that acts on the signal. It is less useful for small sites with few visits, or for businesses that sell to individuals.

Matches are never complete. Home workers, mobile networks and shared offices are hard to link to a company, and in Europe the use of tracking scripts needs a lawful basis and usually cookie consent.

• Does it identify companies only, or also people, and how does it handle consent in the EU?
• What share of your real traffic does it match during a trial?
• Can it send alerts or create CRM records when a target account visits a key page?
• Can you exclude your own staff, existing customers and irrelevant countries?