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The reason your IP lookup tool isn’t as effective in 2019

Published 10 Sep 2019 by Chris, CANDDi
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Ahh, 2007. What an exciting time to be alive.

Steve Jobs unveiling the iPhone. The breakthrough of stem-cell research. Shrek 3.

And in the world of B2B, IP Lookup tools were the big new thing.

These tools are commonplace now, of course; plenty of B2B companies make use of the likes of Lead Forensics and Leadfeeder. But just over 10 years ago, this was new technology.

The premise was simple: by tracking the IP address of your website visitors, software could check it against a list of registered company addresses and alert you of a match.

Or, in short: IP address in, company name out.

Even then there were issues with the vagueness of this information (we’ll address that soon) but in terms of identifying the companies who visited your site, these tools were very effective.

So what changed?

The decline of IP lookup technology

Well, in 2007 it was a safe bet that the majority of your prospects were accessing your site from their office desktop.

But in 2019 with the ubiquity of smartphones, laptops, and tablets? Not so much.

Now, to be clear; IP lookup tools are still useful for modern B2B selling, but it’s important to recognise their increasing weakness in the technological age.

The issue is this: the second someone visits your site from anywhere other than their office, you completely lose visibility of them.

In fact, most tools won’t even notify you of these visits.

To see this lack of visibility for yourself, simply check how many visitors your Google Analytics says you got last month, and compare it with how many visits were logged by your IP lookup tool.

I’m willing to bet there’s a big difference in these numbers.

The rising importance of Visitor-Level Tracking?

Unfortunately, this lack of visibility isn’t something that can simply be fixed with “better” IP lookup technology. The limit isn’t in the quality of the IP lookup, but in the nature of the tool itself.

Look at it this way: you wouldn’t expect a more advanced screwdriver to help you with your taxes. It’s just not the right tool for the job.

So what’s the alternative?

Visitor-Level Tracking.

Tools like CANDDi don’t stop with a simple IP lookup. They also employ means to track and identify the individual who sits behind that company IP address.

Let’s say, for example, that someone visits your website from within the Coca-Cola offices.

An IP lookup identifies their company from this first visit. But what about when that person takes their laptop home that night, and goes back on your website to do some further research?

Now you have two issues:

  • - You don’t know who it was from Coca-Cola who visited. Was it the intern or the Sales Director?
  • - You’ll never know about this second visit from home. Their home IP address isn’t tied to a company, so the visit is never even logged in your tracking software.

This gaping hole in visitor data is why CANDDi also drops a first-party tracking cookie on every piece of hardware that visits your site.

Thanks to this, that second visit from home is still recognised as the Coca-Cola employee from before, even though it’s from a completely different IP address.

What’s more, the second this individual can be identified, their visitor profile will be updated with a name and contact information.

This ensures complete visibility of their journey through your website across ALL of their visits, and it even allows you to get in touch with them directly with a pitch that’s tailored to their interests.

As mobile connectivity and dynamic IP addresses continue to surge in popularity, it’s absolutely crucial to maintain complete awareness of the activity your prospects carry out on your website.

So why settle for only half of the picture?

Pick a slot for a quick CANDDi demo today and we’ll show you everything CANDDi can do to help secure more sales from your website traffic.

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