When a company (as determined by their IP address) has been to your website before, you will see the date(s) of that previous visit. You will also see the History link as shown below.
By clicking on History, you can see the complete history of that visitor, as shown below.
If you wish to view details for some or all the previous visits then you tick the boxes alongside those of interest (as in the example above) and then click ‘Show Visits’. This will result in a view showing how that visitor interacted with the website on the dates of interest to you. The example below shows the second part of one visit and the first part of the previous visit …
Why would this be of value?
Here are two reasons why you’d want to see the complete history of a particular visitor:
- You want to see what led them to your website originally (for example, Google Adwords, or organic search engine visibility), so that you can accurately measure what form of visibility has worked, and which pages contributed towards the person making contact.
- If they are not yet a customer, by understanding their paths through your website on each visit, you are in a position to shape the conversation based on what they appear to be interested in.
Important note:
Although you may see repeat visits from that same company, they are still just repeat visits from that same IP address.
Many businesses have one IP address and so it could be that there’s more than one person within that company who is visiting you. You can usually tell this by looking at the changes in screen resolution, browser, and operating system.