Web Intent — User

Web Intent — User Guide

Audience: Users of the Sopro platform — sales, marketing, customer success, and account managers who set up campaigns and act on the results. In one sentence: When someone visits your website, Sopro works out which company they came from and, overnight, turns the companies worth pursuing into real, contactable people in your campaign.

💡 The big idea

Most people who visit a website never fill in a form, so you never learn who they were. Web Intent (also called IP Match and Engage) closes that gap. A tiny piece of Sopro code on your website quietly notices each visit and answers two questions:

1. Do we already know this person? — They clicked a link in a Sopro email, so we can tie the visit to that exact prospect.
2. If not, what company are they visiting from? — Worked out from the visitor's internet (IP) address.

Companies that match your ideal customer profile are then automatically researched, real contacts at those companies are found, their work emails are located, and they are added to your campaign — ready to be emailed.

👥 The two kinds of visitors

• Known person (email click). The visitor came from a tracked Sopro email, so we already know exactly who they are. We log which pages they viewed and how long they stayed — strong engagement signals your team can act on immediately.
• Anonymous visitor. We don't know the individual, so we identify their company from their internet address. If we succeed, the company and the visit are recorded (and the visit count goes up on repeat visits). If we can't, the visit is still logged — just without a company name.

🪜 What happens step by step

1. The visit is noticed. Sopro's website widget spots the visit and collects basic, non‑personal details: which page was viewed, the device and browser, where the visitor came from (referrer), and the visitor's internet address.

2. The company is identified. For anonymous visitors, Sopro looks up the internet address to find the company behind it. It checks, in order: a fast memory of companies we've already seen (quick and free), Sopro's own company database, and finally an external service (Clearbit) as a back‑up. The external service uses credits — your account has a monthly allowance, and Sopro manages this automatically so you don't need to think about it.

3. The visit is saved and counted. Identified companies are recorded, and every return visit increases their visit count. Over time this shows which companies keep coming back and are warming up.

4. Overnight, the best matches are selected. Every night the automation reviews the companies that visited since the previous run and checks each one against your campaign's targeting — the right company size, industry, and location. Companies that don't match, or that are already in active engagement, are set aside. This keeps your prospect list focused and high‑quality.

5. Real contacts are found and checked. For each matching company, Sopro finds suitable people based on the job titles you care about. There's a built‑in quality cap: a maximum of 20 contacts per company domain per campaign. This means even if a large company has 50+ matching people, only the top 20 make it through. Why? It keeps your prospecting sensible — you never blast an entire company at once, protecting your email reputation and keeping conversations natural. Each contact's email is then verified through a data‑quality check before it moves forward.

6. They enter your campaign. Those verified contacts become prospects in your campaign, with their email addresses ready to go. Each new prospect is assigned to one of your email profiles (sending identities) in a rotating fashion — so if you have 3 email profiles and 15 new prospects, each profile gets roughly 5. This spreads your sending evenly and keeps deliverability healthy. Usually all of this completes by the next morning.

📅 A day in the life — a quick example

Here's how a single week might unfold for one visiting company:

• 🕘 Monday, 9:14 am — Someone at Acme Ltd reads your blog. They didn't come from an email, so Web Intent works out the company from their internet address and records the visit.
• 🕑 Wednesday, 2:03 pm — A colleague at Acme opens your /pricing page. Your "visited a key page" goal fires and you get an instant email alert 🔔.
• 🌙 Overnight — The automation checks Acme against your targeting (size, industry, location). It's a match ✅, so Sopro finds suitable contacts by job title, verifies their emails, and — because Acme has 35 matching people — selects the best 20 (the 20‑contact cap).
• 🌅 Thursday morning — Two verified contacts at Acme appear in your campaign as brand‑new prospects, ready to email. 🎉

From an anonymous blog visit to two contactable prospects — with no forms filled in and no manual research.

🎯 What you set up (targeting)

Web Intent only pursues companies and people that fit the profile you define. For each campaign you control a targeting profile:

Setting	What it controls
Company size	Only companies in the selected size bands are kept.
Industry / industry group	Only companies in the chosen industries (or broader industry groups) are kept.
Company location	Locations to include and/or exclude (country, region, city). An excluded location always wins.
Job titles	The prospect roles to look for at each qualifying company, in priority order.
Prospect location	Optional location filter applied to the people, not just the company.
Email profiles	The sending identities used; when several are chosen, new prospects are shared across them evenly in a round‑robin. This keeps your sending volume balanced and protects deliverability.
Engagement stages to include	Whether to include companies that are New, in Active engagement, or an Opportunity for reengagement. Most clients target New companies to find fresh prospects, and may also include Opportunity for reengagement to revisit lapsed contacts.
Automation on/off	A switch that turns the nightly automation on or off for the campaign.

If automation is off, visits are still recorded and visible — but no new prospects are created automatically.

📊 What you can expect — realistic numbers

Web Intent works best when you have steady website traffic, but not every visit becomes a prospect. Here's a realistic picture of the numbers at each stage, using a typical B2B website as an example:

Stage	What happens	Rough expectation
Website visits	Anonymous visitors land on your site	500–2,000 per month (varies widely)
Companies identified	Sopro resolves the company from the IP address	~30–50% of anonymous visits
Visits recorded	Company visits are saved and counted	The 30–50% that were identified
Overnight qualification	Companies checked against your targeting	~15–25% of identified companies pass targeting
Contacts found & verified	Email addresses located and verified	Up to 20 per qualifying company
New prospects in campaign	Contactable people ready to email	Typically 10–50 new prospects per month

The key numbers: Roughly 1 in 3 anonymous visitors can be tied to a company, about 1 in 5 of those companies will match your targeting, and each matching company yields up to 20 contacts. The exact numbers depend on your website traffic volume, how tight your targeting is, and the types of companies visiting.

Why some companies produce zero prospects

Even when a company visits and matches your targeting, it might not produce any prospects. Common reasons:

• No matching job titles — the company doesn't have people with the roles you're targeting
• 20‑contact cap already reached — you've already added 20 people from that company's domain in this campaign
• Data verification failed — the email addresses found couldn't be verified (outdated, invalid, or catch‑all addresses)
• Already in active engagement — the company is already being actively worked in your campaign
• Excluded — the company's domain is on your exclusion list

📈 What you see in the results

• Companies that visited — the list of identified companies for your site/campaign, each with a visit count and a last‑visit date.
• Repeat interest — rising visit counts highlight companies that keep returning.
• Unknown visits — anonymous visits where no company could be identified are logged separately (useful for volume context).
• New prospects — the contacts the overnight automation found and added, ready to engage.
• Known‑visitor engagement — for email‑click visitors, the pages viewed and time spent, tied to the exact prospect. Time‑on‑page is measured via periodic heartbeats while the visitor has the page open.

🔔 Instant alerts — goals

Beyond the overnight prospecting, Web Intent can email you the moment a visit shows real buying intent. These triggers are called goals. You choose which goals matter, and Sopro emails the right people (the prospect/company owner and/or a list of colleagues) as soon as a goal is met — so you can follow up while interest is hot.

The three goals:

Goal	Alerts you when…	You configure
Visited a key page	A visitor opens one of your high‑intent pages	The list of page URLs (e.g. /pricing, /request-demo, /book-a-call)
Returning interest	A visitor comes back after a set number of days away	The number of days (e.g. 7)
Repeat visitor	A visitor makes a set number of separate visits	The number of visits (e.g. 3)

Goals work for both kinds of visitors:

• Known people (who clicked a Sopro email link) — the alert names the exact prospect, the page they viewed, and their company, and goes to that prospect's owner.
• Companies (anonymous visitors identified by Web Intent) — the alert names the company and can go to the sales owner(s) connected to it. You can be alerted for engaged companies (ones you're already in contact with), qualified companies (ones matching your targeting), or both.

How you set goals up:

• Turn prospect goals and/or company goals on or off.
• Enter the key page URLs, the returning‑after days, and the repeat‑visit count you care about.
• Choose who gets alerted for each goal — the record's owner and/or a list of extra email addresses.
• Pick the timing: an instant alert the moment a goal is met, or a daily or weekly summary instead.

To avoid inbox spam, repeated triggers are throttled — the same visitor/company won't generate duplicate alerts within a short window (and each key‑page alert has a short cooldown).

📬 What the alert email includes

A goal alert is built so you can act in seconds. Depending on the goal and whether the visitor is a known person or a company, it typically shows:

• 👤 Who — the prospect's name and company (known visitor), or the company name (anonymous visitor).
• 🌐 What they did — the page they visited and which goal was triggered (key page / returning / repeat visits).
• 🕒 When — the date and time of the visit.
• 📈 Context — how engaged you already are (e.g. how many people at the company you're in contact with) and the visitor's location.
• 🔗 Quick links — straight to the prospect or company so you can follow up right away.

⏱️ Choosing when alerts arrive

You pick the rhythm that suits your team:

• ⚡ Instant — an email the moment a goal is met (best for high‑value pages).
• 📅 Daily summary — one digest per day.
• 🗓️ Weekly summary — one digest per week.

You also choose who is alerted for each goal — the record's owner, a list of colleagues, or both.

🚦 Understanding lead status and stage status

Each identified company carries two labels that help you prioritise.

Lead status — how engaged the company already is with you:

Lead status	Meaning
Not engaged	No prior engagement on record.
Engaged	Has interacted with your outreach before.
MQL	Marketing‑qualified — showing marketing‑level interest.
SQL	Sales‑qualified — ready for sales attention.

Stage status — where the company sits in your engagement cycle:

Stage status	Meaning
New	Not yet engaged in a campaign — a fresh opportunity.
Active engagement	Currently being engaged (skipped by the nightly automation to avoid duplication).
Opportunity for reengagement	Previously engaged and worth approaching again.

The nightly automation uses these labels (together with your targeting) to decide which companies to turn into new prospects.

🌟 Why it matters

Benefit	What it means for you
No lost visitors	Interested companies are captured even when nobody fills in a form.
Better targeting	Only companies matching your ideal customer profile are pursued.
Fresh, warm prospects	New contacts come from companies that already showed interest.
Fully automated	Selection and contact‑finding run every night — no manual effort.
Engagement insight	Visit counts and time‑on‑page reveal which companies are heating up.
Efficient spend	External look‑ups are only used when needed, and per‑company limits keep lists sensible.

ℹ️ Good to know

• 🔒 Privacy. For anonymous visitors we identify the company, not the individual person. An individual is only known when they click a tracked Sopro email link.
• ⚖️ Fair usage & the 20‑contact cap. To keep your prospecting sensible and protect your email reputation, Sopro limits new prospects to 20 contacts per company domain per campaign. Here's what that means in practice: if a qualifying company has 60 people matching your job titles, only the best 20 become prospects. The cap prevents you from emailing too many people at one company at once — which looks unnatural and can damage your sender reputation. It also means your campaign list stays focused rather than being flooded by a single large organisation. The same company can appear across different campaigns (each has its own 20‑contact allowance), and if they visit again in future, new prospects can be added as your existing ones progress through the pipeline.
• ⏰ Timing. Visits are recorded in real time, but company selection and contact‑finding happen overnight, so new prospects typically appear the next day.
• ⏪ Backdating. When a new targeting profile is switched on, the first run can look back to catch recent visits so you don't start from empty.
• 🤖 Bots are ignored. Automated crawlers, scrapers, and bots are filtered out — both by the widget (client‑side) and by the IP‑lookup service (server‑side). They are never counted as visits and never consume look‑up credits.
• ⏱️ Fleeting visits are cleaned up. If a visitor stays on the page for 5 seconds or less (no heartbeat ping was sent), the visit is automatically deleted — only genuine, engaged visits are kept.
• 🚫 Excluded domains are respected. When you add a domain exclusion (general or competitor), it cascades into Web Intent automatically. Companies on excluded domains are immediately marked and will never appear as new prospects — even if they visited before the exclusion was created. Exclusions can be scoped to a single campaign, all campaigns for a client, or globally.
• 🎛️ You stay in control. Targeting, sending identities, and the on/off switch are all yours to set per campaign.

❓ Frequently asked questions

Do we see the name of the actual person who visited? Only if they clicked a tracked Sopro email link. Otherwise we identify the company, then separately find appropriate contacts at that company.

How soon do new prospects appear? The automation runs nightly, so prospects from today's visits typically appear the following day.

Why did a company that visited not produce any prospects? Common reasons: it didn't match your targeting (size, industry, or location), it's already in active engagement, no suitable job‑title matches were found, the per‑domain cap was reached, or contact data failed verification.

Why are some visits "unknown"? The visitor's internet address couldn't be tied to a company (for example home broadband or a mobile network). These are still logged for context.

Can I change what gets pursued? Yes — adjust the campaign's targeting (size, industry, location, job titles) at any time. Changes apply to future nightly runs.

Does turning automation off lose data? No. Visits keep being recorded and stay visible; only the automatic creation of new prospects pauses.

Why aren't some visits showing up in my results? Two safeguards keep your data clean. First, bots and automated crawlers are filtered out — visits from datacenters, headless browsers, and scrapers are detected and discarded before they reach your reports. Second, the 5‑second engagement rule removes fleeting hits: if a visitor stays on the page for 5 seconds or less, the visit is treated as non‑engagement (a bounce or accidental click) and is automatically deleted. Only genuine visits are kept.

What happens when I exclude a domain? When you mark a domain as excluded (either as a general exclusion or a competitor), it automatically cascades into Web Intent. All companies on that domain are immediately marked as excluded across your campaign targeting — even if they visited before you created the exclusion. The nightly automation will skip them entirely, so they never produce new prospects. Exclusions can be scoped to a single campaign, all your campaigns, or globally.

Why is there a 20‑contact cap per company? The cap keeps your outreach natural and protects your sender reputation. Emailing dozens of people at the same company at once looks artificial, can trigger spam filters, and isn't how real business conversations work. The 20‑contact limit ensures you contact a sensible number of people per organisation — enough to find the right decision‑makers, but not so many that it raises red flags. As those contacts progress through your pipeline (replied, booked a meeting, opted out), space frees up for new people from the same company in future runs.

How many new prospects should I expect each month? It depends on your website traffic and targeting, but a typical B2B client sees 10–50 new Web Intent prospects per month. About 1 in 3 anonymous visitors can be tied to a company, roughly 1 in 5 of those companies match typical targeting, and each matching company yields up to 20 contacts. If your numbers are lower than expected, check that your targeting isn't too narrow and that your website has the widget installed on all pages.

What are credits and do I need to manage them? Credits are what Sopro uses to pay for external company look‑ups (Clearbit). Every time an anonymous visitor's company can't be found in Sopro's own database, one credit is used to check an external service. Your account has a monthly credit allowance managed by Sopro — you don't need to track or top up anything. If credits run low, Sopro's operations team is notified automatically. Visits that can be resolved from the internal database or cache don't use any credits at all.

✅ Getting the most out of it

• 🎯 Pick your key pages carefully — reserve URL goals for genuinely high‑intent pages (pricing, demo, contact) so alerts stay meaningful.
• 🔔 Match alert timing to intent — instant for key‑page goals, daily or weekly summaries for gentler signals like repeat visits.
• 🧭 Keep targeting tight — precise size, industry and location filters mean warmer, more relevant prospects.
• 👥 Share the load — add several email profiles so new prospects are spread evenly across your senders.
• 🔁 Review regularly — revisit your targeting and goals as your ideal customer changes; updates apply to future nightly runs.
• 🌙 Remember the timing — visits are captured in real time, but new prospects arrive the next morning after the overnight run.

📖 Glossary

Term	Meaning
Web Intent	Detecting the company behind an anonymous website visitor and evaluating it for engagement.
IP Match and Engage	The full journey that turns an anonymous visit into a contactable prospect.
IP address	The internet address of a visitor, used to work out their company.
Targeting	The rules (size, industry, location, job titles) that decide which companies and people to pursue.
Prospect	A contactable person added to your campaign.
Email profile	A sending identity used for outreach; multiple profiles are cycled across new prospects.
Lead status	How engaged a company already is (Not engaged / Engaged / MQL / SQL).
Stage status	Where a company sits in the engagement cycle (New / Active engagement / Opportunity for reengagement).
Backdating	Looking back over recent visits when a profile is first switched on.
Goal	A trigger — a key page visited, a return after N days, or N repeat visits — that emails you an alert.
Instant alert	An email sent the moment a goal is met (as opposed to a daily or weekly summary).
Credits	Units used to pay for external company look‑ups. Managed automatically — you don't need to track them.
Data verification	A quality check that confirms an email address is valid and deliverable before adding a prospect to your campaign.
Sender reputation	Your domain's trust score with email providers. Good reputation = emails land in inboxes; poor reputation = emails go to spam.
Round‑robin assignment	When you have multiple email profiles, new prospects are shared evenly across them so no single sender gets overloaded.