Unveiling the unknown customer

How to leverage The anonymous people on your website

As technology evolves, so do the people who use the technology. Website users consistently change their behaviors based on experiences with a product or technology, and businesses must work in an endless cycle of innovation, agility and intelligence to keep up with evolution.

Digital transformation is not a one-and-done solution; it requires a sustained commitment to meet customers at every stage of their buyer or user journey. This includes the physical journey. Each web user who navigates through a business's online presence leaves behind a data footprint. Businesses use this data to make strategic decisions, ranging from targeted marketing initiatives to personalized advertising.

First-party data, which is collected through sign-ups and campaigns, is essential for optimal marketing. Businesses collect personally identifiable information (PII) across platforms, tying all behaviors together to hyper-personalize the customer experience.

But what about those who stumble onto a website, browse anonymously and then leave without signing up or making a purchase?

Getting to know the unknown customer

Known customers are individuals who have interacted with a business, shared their contact information or made a purchase. These customers have a high level of engagement with the brand and are more likely to make repeat purchases.

Unknown customers are individuals who interact with a business or visit a website without providing any PII or establishing a direct relationship with the company.

Unknown customers represent a significant portion of website visitors, typically ranging from 85% to 98% of the total traffic. They are often identified by their IP addresses or other tracking methods, but their personal information remains undisclosed. As a result, businesses have limited knowledge about their preferences, behaviors and purchase history.

Engaging with unknown customers poses a challenge for marketers, especially as research shows that:

• 78% of U.S. consumers said a personalized web experience will increase their purchase intent.
• 70% of marketing and sales executives have reported data-driven marketing as an important initiative.

Without PII, companies can’t personalize marketing efforts or tailor messaging based on individual characteristics. Engaging users when they’re just another number on your analytics dashboard requires broader thinking.

Building personas

When the information left behind by a user doesn’t make them “known,” it’s time to tie their behavior to a persona or a user segment. Machine learning classification models can classify people into groups based on their behaviors.

Using personas, you can develop predictions for where a new person might fall within the classification segments you’ve developed. The goal is to gather enough data about these unknown people in your personas to better understand how to make your targeting strategies more effective.

A high-level approach to creating your personas

1. Obtain internal stakeholder approval. Creating personas comes with a nominal operating cost. Operating and implementation is easy.
2. Find tools that meet your needs. Some analytics platforms allow you to create up to 100 personas. Others, such as Google Analytics 360, allow for more, will integrate with ads and can be streamed to BigQuery, Google’s cloud platform suite of products.
3. Identify prime users and create an audience as a look-alike.
4. Make your personas broad — broader personas will target more users in a single visit.
5. Determine your goals using features on your website. Dynamic content on the web will engage users, and their engagement becomes the data by which your personas are designed.
6. Once the unknown customer becomes known, reengage with them quickly.

Consider the regulatory future

The regulatory landscape for collecting electronic user data has evolved significantly over the years. Several regulations and frameworks — such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Privacy Rights Act — have been implemented to protect user privacy and provide individuals with control over their personal information.

Unknown customers are only going to increase as regulation grows — as opt-out models increase, it will become harder to collect data. Looking forward, companies will have to move to an opt-in model, which is a much more difficult proposition.

Businesses will need to prioritize the value they generate and optimize the user experience so that customers feel comfortable sharing their information. It is crucial for businesses to navigate the evolving regulatory landscape, ensuring compliance with privacy regulations and fostering trust among customers.

Building robust personas and user segments can be a strategic approach to drive marketing efforts and better understand the changing needs of customers. Businesses can stay ahead of the curve, forge meaningful connections with both known and unknown customers, and remain compliant as data privacy regulations change.

How Wipfli can help

Our teams help businesses integrate their analytics platforms, such as Google Analytics 360, and then learn how to optimally use those platforms to create robust and successfully targeted personas. Wipfli teams can build persona segments, connect them back to your CRM with personalization included and help you upgrade to services such as Google’s BigQuery. To learn how we can help optimize your company’s digital marketing efforts, see our digital strategy services page.