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What is beencounter?

beencounter is a behavioral tracking analytic and targeting service.

How is beencounter different from web analytics?

Web analytics services track what your visitors do in your site and where they came from (referrals). beencounter tells you which sites your visitors have been to, not their referrer click path. Web analytics don't help you change your content based on visitor profile. beencounter does.

What is behavioral targeting?

Behavioral targeting or interest-based advertising is a technique used by online publishers and advertisers to increase the effectiveness of their campaigns.

Behavioral targeting uses information collected on an individual's web-browsing behavior, such as the pages they have visited, to select which advertisements to display to that individual. Practitioners believe this helps them deliver their online advertisements to the users who are most likely to be interested.

Behavioral Targeting allows site owners or ad networks to display content more relevant to the interests of the individual viewing the page. On the theory that properly targeted ads will fetch more consumer response, the seller may ask for a premium for these over random advertising or ads based on the context or content of a site that is visited.

Would beencounter be useful in my site?

Sure. Behavioral targeting can be used in almost any site.

Example 1: You sell TV sets and a visitor found your site on Google. Most web analytics services will show Google as the origin of the visitor. With beencounter, you can know if that visitor has been to competing electronic sites before he found your site.

Example 2: You have a content site or a blog about stock trading and you sell advertising to stock trading courses. With beencounter, you can know if your site's visitors have been to stock trading courses sites. With this information you can sell advertising to competing courses. Since your site's audience has seen their competitor's sites but not their own site, your visitors are highly targeted for their business.

Example 3: You sell bike accessories. You notice on your beencounter report that most of your site visitors have been to 3 bike-related portals. Since there are 5 big bike-related portals, you decide to advertise your site on the two remaining portals since, apparently, their visitors have not heard of your site.

How does beencounter work?

First you will need to create a tracking profile. In your profile you will list which sites you want to know your visitors have been to. After you have added the supplied tracking code to your site, you will be presented with charts showing the distribution of sites your visitors have been to.

The chart below shows an example of popularity distribution of the sites your visitors have been to. The bars show the percentage of your visitors that have been to each site. Each visitor can, of course, visit several sites. Therefore the chart does not sum up to 100%. If, for example, you see that 44% of your visitors have been to www.bing.com, it does not mean that www.bing.com sends 44% of your traffic but that 44% of your visitors have been to www.bing.com.


If your subscription includes API privileges, pages that include the beencounter code will pass a JavaScript array including the sites the current visitor has been to and other information so you can change your page content to fit that specific visitor. You can learn more on how to use beencounter API here.

Are my visitors enquired to install some software or toolbars? Do competing sites need to install your code as well?

The answer to both questions is No. The only action that needs to be done in order to use our service is to add one line of JavaScript code to your site.

If a visitor has been to a tracked site one year ago will it show in the report?

No. Sites that have been visited more than 3 months ago will not be shown in the report.

How much does beencounter cost?

beencounter has both free and paid subscription plans. Please visit our pricing page for more information.

Are the reports in real time?

There is a small 10 minute lag between the time someone visits your site and the time that visit is included in the report.

Can the reports be exported?

Yes. The tracked data can be exported in CSV format so you can analyze it with your favorite spreadsheet.

Does my site need special hardware in order to use beencounter?

No. beencounter is a hosted service, all the tracking is done by our servers.

Is it complicated to add beencounter tracking code to my site?

No. As with other analytics services, you will need to paste the code you receive to your site. Adding the code is simple - just one line of code is added to your pages.

Do you accept any payment methods other than PayPal?

No, but PayPal does accept all major credit cards.

Visitor's privacy

Out of respect for your visitors' privacy and to avoid misuse of data, our privacy team reviews tracked sites. For example, banks and login pages will not be tracked by our system. Your site's "privacy policy" should state that your site can track information about which sites your visitor has been to. You can see the beencounter privacy policy here.