Harvesting data from visitors to your website has long been one of the most effective ways to understand your audience. It’s also an invaluable tool for calibrating your content to increase its relevance to your audience, and creating personalized marketing messages that can be delivered in a more targeted fashion.
Yet because this is an evolving technology, gaps have remained that have limited the efficacy of data-rich insights. One of the most notable of these roadblocks is the “multiple device problem.” This describes a situation where a single user visits a website using multiple devices — for example, a phone, laptop, work computer, tablet etc.

Because this traffic originates from a variety of sources, it presents a problem in terms of compiling a data-enhanced profile of site visitors. In other words, if you can’t recognize these disparate sources of traffic as coming from a single person, you can’t build an accurate and comprehensive user profile — you’ll have multiple profiles that only show part of the overall picture.

Why visitor stitching is the solution

Resolution of this problem requires that all devices connected to an individual user be integrated into a single, comprehensive profile. While conventional data analytics express multi-device traffic as coming from three different people on three separate visits, there is a technique that resolves this problem: Visitor stitching.

Visitor stitching eliminates the need to manually integrate multi-device traffic (a time-consuming and expensive task) by providing an elegant real-time mapping solution. The technology works like this: Identifiers belonging to an individual (such as email addresses or social media user names) are recognized and then mapped in real time to multiple devices. This creates a new, comprehensive user profile that incorporates all of the data being held in separate, non-integrated user profiles.

Now, instead of a distinct profile being generated for each user every time a new device is used, a single profile contains all the user data generated across every device.

Why visitor stitching offers a critical competitive edge

Data analysis is the key to understanding who your customers are and what motivates them. Fully leveraging data also offers a serious competitive edge, as personalized marketing and targeted offers lead to more conversions and greater consumer loyalty. Data from McKinsey shows that personalized approaches can generate revenue gains of 10 to 30-percent while creating enduring loyalty.

Visitor stitching plays a key role in helping you take full advantage of the power of data. Without the ability to track users across multiple devices, you’re only seeing part of the picture. By creating a comprehensive profile that integrates all visitor data across every device through the process of visitor stitching, you can understand consumers on a deeper level and quickly anticipate their needs.

The takeaway

If you’re not getting the most out of your data analysis efforts, visitor stitching can play an essential role in helping you better understand your consumers. Once you have a clear-eyed grasp on who your audience is and what motivates them, you can deliver highly-relevant, personalized marketing that wins converts and creates more revenue.

For more information on how to understand your target audience and effectively interpret your consumer data using visitor scripting, contact our team professionals today.