How to identify anonymous website visitors [3 easy ways]

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B2B companies spend thousands on marketing campaigns to attract high-intent website visitors. They may run ads, create blogs, organize webinars, and improve social media presence. 

Yet the average B2B website conversion rate is just 3.6%, meaning over 96% of visitors leave without taking any action (FirstPageSage).

Your visitors might be genuinely interested in your product. They might even become loyal customers. But they leave for countless reasons. What if you could identify them?

In this blog, we’ll share three powerful strategies to identify anonymous visitors so you can uncover high-value sales opportunities you’ve been missing. You’ll learn who they are, where they work, and how interested they are in your solution.

What is website visitor identification, and why does it matter?

97% of website visitors remain anonymous. They are people who land on your site but leave without any meaningful engagement, like signing up, filling out a form, or downloading your lead magnet.

You don’t know who they are, but they could be valuable leads because they’re already exploring your offering. Website visitor identification helps you reveal these anonymous visitors. It gives you access to their company-level data (name, size, industry, decision makers), intent data (buying signals, lead scoring), and behavioral data (pages visited, scroll depth, and button clicks).

Effective de-anonymization gives your sales and marketing teams valuable insights to attract more sales opportunities. Here are the key benefits:

  • Identify buying-intent leads that might otherwise be missed.
  • Find companies and their decision makers to send personalized outreach messages.
  • Spot potential buyers in the awareness stage to shorten the sales cycle.
  • Understand your buyers deeply through their on-site behavior.
  • Create intent-based ads that may have a 220% higher click-through rate.

3 Effective strategies to identify website visitors

Now let's reveal those potential buyers visiting your website every day:

1. Use visitor identification software

This is the easiest and most effective way to identify anonymous visitors at the top of your sales funnel. These tools usually reveal the companies visiting your site. You can see details like company name, description, size, industry, annual revenue, and key decision-makers.

Advanced platforms like Expertise AI go even further. In addition to company-level data, it provides heat scores and buying-intent signals. It also helps you take quick actions like emailing their team, visiting their website, or checking their LinkedIn. This lets you prioritize warm leads and send personalized messages instantly.

When choosing a visitor identification software, make sure it: 

  • Is easy to set up with no steep learning curve
  • Provides comprehensive visitor profiles
  • Makes outreach quick and simple
  • Integrates with your CRM without coding
  • Complies with privacy guidelines like GDPR. 

The right tool will save you time and help you focus on high-quality leads.

2. Leverage an inbound AI SDR

This strategy increases website engagement so that you can retain more visitors and collect their contact details.

Inbound AI SDRs are AI-powered sales agents that engage visitors the moment they land on your website. They start conversations, collect important visitor data, and route qualified prospects directly to your sales team. 

For example, Expertise AI lets you build a smart AI SDR for your website that:

  • Automatically asks intelligent questions based on visitor behavior. 
  • Understands needs and delivers hyper-personalized responses to each query.
  • Asks personalized qualification questions to segment leads and spot high-value buyers. 
  • Collects names and emails, then saves them straight to your CRM.
  • Books meetings with qualified leads or connects them to the right sales rep instantly.

With an AI SDR working 24/7, you can easily engage your anonymous visitors and turn them into leads.

Bonus read: 5 High-impact website engagement strategies

3. Analyze user behavior

This method doesn't directly show who is visiting your website, but what they do once they’re there. Benefit? It helps you uncover optimization opportunities to increase visitor retention and conversions.

Tools like Google Analytics and Hotjar can help you track actions like pages visited, scroll depth, time spent, and mouse movements. You can also visualize conversion flows and see where visitors drop off in your funnel.

Similarly, Expertise AI reveals what questions your buyers ask, their thoughts about your product, and the pain points they share. With these insights, you can create super-relevant content that directly answers their queries. This type of content not only attracts more traffic but also encourages more visitors to share their identity.

Privacy considerations for visitor de-anonymization

Since we’re dealing with sensitive personal data, privacy is a significant concern. Your visitors may not like being tracked and identified without their consent. Hence, ensure the following best practices:

  • Comply with privacy laws like CCPA and GDPR.
  • Get user consent before using tracking cookies.
  • Don't trick users into providing their data through misleading buttons.
  • Let users know what data you collect and which tracking tools you use in your privacy policy.

How to set up a visitor identification software

Expertise AI is a GDPR, CCPA, and SOC 2-compliant B2B intelligence tool. It tells you exactly which companies are visiting your site in just one click, while following strict privacy best practices. No coding, no complex integrations, no lengthy setup. 

Here’s how to set it up in a few minutes:

  1. Sign up for Expertise AI to create your account.
  2. Train the AI agent by adding your website URL or relevant files.
  3. Customize its look and tone so it matches your brand.
  4. Set your business goals, like getting form submissions or booking meetings.
  5. Enable AI engagement and lead qualification to retain visitors and qualify their needs.
  6. Integrate it with your CRM (HubSpot, Salesforce, Zoho) so new leads are saved.
  7. Add a code snippet to your website’s HTML to connect the AI agent.

That's it. Now your AI agent will not only capture details of engaged visitors, but also reveal those who leave without interacting. You can view all collected leads and visiting companies in the Leads tab anytime.