Your “Cold” Traffic Might Be Hotter Than You Realize

Welcome back to the 140th edition of Nord Media

Before anyone buys, they lurk.

They snoop around your blog. Open your FAQ. Check your comparison page twice just to make sure you’re not full of it.

This happens 10, maybe 12 times before a single cart gets touched.

But your analytics are asleep until money hits the account.

That’s the gap. And it’s quietly costing you.

In this email, we’ll break down:

• Why post-purchase analytics only tell half the story

• How to track the “invisible” moments that lead to conversions

• A smarter way to spot high-intent visitors before they ever raise their hand

Let’s get into it:

A lot of 3rd party tools completely miss the mark with visitor ID tracking

A lot of visitor tracking tools completely miss the mark.

When ecommerce brands tested the most popular tools side-by-side, the results were staggering:

• 70–95% of first-time visitor IDs were inaccurate

• False matches flooded CRMs with junk contacts

• Spam complaints and wasted retargeting budgets followed

• Limited visibility into what shoppers are viewing or their behavior on site

• Inability to view customers across sessions, browsers, devices, and when cookies expire

Then they tested Customers.ai.

Here’s what changed:

• 65–85% accuracy in matching first-time anonymous visitors to real shoppers

• 15x more revenue per identified visitor

• 5x fewer spam complaints

• 60% lift in recognizing when customers are returning to the site

• $178K in incremental revenue for one brand in a single month

This isn’t just a better ID tool. It’s a performance engine built for brands that care about conversion, data quality, and downstream profitability.

High-Visibility Visitor Tracking tools provide actionable, accurate insights into time on site, pages viewed, referral sources, and on-site behaviors that you can act on.

Want to see what accurate ID data can actually do?

Click here to book a demo:

Why Post-Purchase Data Misses the Bigger Picture

Analytics tools are built to track what happens after someone becomes a customer.

You see which products were ordered, which emails they opened, and how often they return.

But that’s only part of the story. The decision to buy starts well before any of that.

Here are the types of signals that often go unnoticed:

• Reviewing your FAQ twice in a 72-hour window

• Reading a comparison page, then revisiting it on another device

• Spending five minutes on your blog without opting in

These behaviors show someone is actively weighing their decision. They just haven’t crossed the finish line yet.

For example:

An athletic apparel brand notices something unusual.

The highest-converting email flows aren’t just going to recent buyers. They’re being triggered by visitors who had never opted in at all, but spent time on sizing guides, product pages, and performance reviews.

After mapping those pre-purchase sessions, the team realizes these “anonymous” visitors are driving 4.5 times more revenue than any other segment and clicking through at 11 times the normal rate.

Standard tools miss the invisible journey.

Only by digging deeper into session paths does the team uncover what’s actually driving purchase intent.

When you rely only on post-purchase data, you miss the part of the journey where customers are making up their minds.

How to Uncover the Pre-Purchase Journey

Customers rarely buy on the first visit.

They move through a series of touchpoints that quietly build conviction over time.

To get visibility into this, start by identifying behavior patterns that happen across sessions.

Steps to take:

• Map common page sequences for first-time buyers

• Track which educational pages show up before conversions

• Identify content that gets repeat visits but low conversions

Signals worth watching:

• Multiple visits to a pricing or comparison page

• Scrolling through 80 percent or more of a longform blog post

• Reviewing return policy or sizing guides before navigating to PDPs

• Visiting your site from different sources within a few days

Mapping these micro-decisions gives you clarity on what matters to customers before they’re ready to act.

Why Content Consumption Should Inform Your Scoring Model

Some of your most valuable traffic never signs up for emails or adds to cart, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t interested.

They’re consuming content that indicates intent. You just need a way to surface and score that behavior.

Behaviors worth scoring include:

• Reading three or more articles in one session

• Visiting the same PDP from multiple sources

• Watching an entire product video or explainer

• Switching between mobile and desktop while browsing

These visitors may not show up in your CRM, but they’re likely on the verge of converting.

For example:

A supplements brand sees email capture rates drop despite steady traffic.

A test between two tracking tools reveals one identifies 4x more visitors with 9x higher accuracy.

With better data, the team starts scoring content engagement, like time on education pages or ingredient toggles, and triggers flows earlier.

Engagement and revenue climb.

All by acting on behavior that used to go unseen.

GA4 Is Wasting Your Time

Google Analytics 4 was supposed to be the future of web analytics... but for eComm brands? It’s become a bloated, frustrating mess. You’re probably spending more time wrestling with confusing dashboards and tagging nightmares than actually growing your business. It feels like you need a data scientist just to make sense of your own data, let alone act on it.

Heatmap's new web analytics tool changes all that:

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Final Thoughts

The best growth strategies aren’t just built on what customers bought.

They’re built on understanding the steps that led them there.

Every visit, scroll, and repeated page view is a clue.

If you start collecting these signals now, you’ll have an unfair advantage in how you acquire and convert customers moving forward.

Want to learn more? Connect with me on social 👇
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Thank you for reading! I appreciate you.

Sincerely,
Kody

Disclaimer: Special thanks to Customers.ai & Heatmap for sponsoring today’s newsletter.