Leadinfo shows which company was there. What happens next, it does not say.
Visitor identification is set up in an hour — and still achieves nothing in most cases. Not because the tool is poor, but because there is no process behind it. Here is what is missing between the notification and the conversation. And when the whole thing is worth it for you at all.
What it does, and what it does not
A tool like Leadinfo reads a visitor's IP address and matches it to a company. No cookies, no consent banner. You see: company, sector, size, which pages were visited, how long, how often.
What you do not see is a person. Not who was there, not in what role, not why. You see a company and a behaviour.
That is more than it sounds — and less than most people expect. From «Bauwerk AG was on the integration page three times» to a conversation is a long way. Tools do not walk it.
We work with Leadinfo, a Dutch provider, and are an official partner there. You can also get the licence directly from the vendor — leadinfo.com — with the same scope. What comes on top with us is set out below.
Why most rollouts fail
We run visitor identification ourselves, and that is how we learned where it goes wrong. It is not the tool. It is that identification and process get introduced separately — and then the process is missing.
01Identification amplifies, it does not create
It makes visible who is already there. So the traffic on your website decides what the tool can deliver — which is why we look at that figure before switching anything on.
02Not every visit weighs the same
A glance at the home page and five minutes on the pricing page are two different things. By default they look identical. Without weighting you get a long list instead of a signal.
03A signal has a half-life
Daily summaries get read, not acted on. Call six hours later and you are calling into an interest that has already passed. The alert has to arrive while it is still current.
04The next step has to be decided in advance
The most common reason. The company appears — and then? Who calls, on what pretext, with what opening line? Without a defined next step, every alert stays a note.
What we do with that: we start by looking at how much traffic your website carries and which pages matter to you. That gives us the weighting, the alert path and the next step — before identification goes live at all. Where the groundwork is not there yet, we say so and start with visibility. That is what our SEO Health Check is for.
What we build instead
Four building blocks. They are the reason it now works for us.
01Decide which paths count
Somebody who looks at the accessibility check, reads the result and then goes to the page on interim management has done something different from somebody who skimmed the home page. Only that combination is worth a notification. We settle with you which paths count — all the others stay quiet.
02Notify at once, do not collect
Within minutes, and to the place where you work anyway. Not into another tool that has to be opened first.
03A return visit is a signal
A company that comes back a third time in ten days says more than any single visit — and always disappears in a daily list. That is why return visits are evaluated separately.
04Find the role, do not call reception
The tool supplies the company. The next step is to find the right person — usually through LinkedIn — and to approach them with an occasion that fits: the page they read. That step is exactly what is missing for almost everyone who buys the tool.
On top of that, the connection to your CRM, so that nobody is worked on twice and the history sits in one place.
That is systems integration on a small case — the same work as between ERP, shop and warehouse, only with a different source of data. The accessibility check from building block 01 is an example of such a path.
What applies in Switzerland
One sentence turns up everywhere: «No cookies, therefore compliant.» The first half is true. The second does not follow from it.
An IP address is personal data, with or without a cookie. So the question is not whether data is processed — it is — but on what basis and with what information.
The Swiss Data Protection Act
The DSG requires transparency. Your privacy policy names the processing, the purpose, the supplier involved and whether data goes abroad. Consent is not needed in every case — a recognisable purpose and information about it always are.
GDPR, as soon as EU visitors are involved
Then the legal basis becomes an express question, and individual supervisory authorities view visitor identification more strictly than others. Anyone active in the EU market settles that beforehand rather than afterwards.
What to do in practice
Add it to the privacy policy · conclude a data processing agreement with the provider · record where data is stored and for how long · decide who in the organisation has access.
Manageable. It only has to be done before the tool runs.
This overview places the subject and replaces no legal advice. For your individual case, and particularly where there is an EU connection, have the position clarified by a lawyer.
When it pays off — and when it does not
We are a partner and we earn from it. Even so, or precisely because of it:
It pays off when
- more than a handful of different companies visit your website in a week
- your deals take weeks or months and several people have a say
- the order value is such that licence and process pay for themselves
- somebody is there who really works through the notifications
It does not pay off when
- few visitors come — then visibility comes first
- you sell to private individuals; company identification finds nothing there
- nobody has time for the next step. Then you are buying a list that no one reads
If you are unsure which case you are: ask us before you take a licence. A no from us costs you nothing.
Frequently asked
Do we need a consent banner?
For identification without cookies, as a rule no — it does not access the end device. The duty to inform in the privacy policy remains. Where there is an EU connection, the question deserves a closer look.
How many visitors are recognised?
Not all of them. It works best for visitors from company networks. With home offices and mobile connections the match is uncertain or fails. What the share is for you is shown only by a measurement on your own website — any general rate would be guesswork.
Can we not buy directly from the vendor?
Yes. If all you need is the licence, that is the shorter route. Our work is the process behind it. Anyone who can build that themselves does not need us for it.
What does the licence cost?
It follows the volume recognised. We will give you the figure in conversation rather than write one here that does not apply to you.
Can we try it?
Yes. A few weeks make sense — not because of the tool, but because only then does it show how many companies are recognised and how many of them are relevant.
What connections like this look like is set out in the case studies — the same work, only between other systems.
Try it for four weeks — on your own website.
You only see whether visitor identification is worth it once it runs on your website: how many companies are recognised and how many of them are of interest to you. We set it up, let it run alongside for four weeks and look at the result with you. If it brings nothing, we stop — and you have a figure instead of a guess.