Can't See Company Names in GA4? How to Identify Website Visitors
GA4 doesn't show company names because it tracks individual users through cookies and device IDs, not organizational data. The platform collects user counts, session statistics, and browser information but lacks IP-to-company mapping or firmographic enrichment. To identify website visitors by company, B2B teams need supplementary tools like reverse IP lookup services, which can identify 30-78% of B2B traffic at the account level.
Key Facts
• GA4's identity model uses User-ID, device ID, or modeling - none include company-level data or firmographic attributes
• Reverse IP lookup accuracy varies widely, with leading providers achieving 86-97% company name accuracy for identified visitors
• Only 5.7% of pricing page visitors show high purchase intent, while 90% of high-intent visitors are found elsewhere on websites
• Standard GA4 reports can take 24-48 hours to process data, creating gaps for real-time sales engagement
• Enhanced conversions can improve measurement accuracy but still won't reveal company names directly
• Combining GA4 behavioral data with IP intelligence and CRM enrichment enables practical account-based identification
Most B2B teams open Google Analytics 4 hoping to identify website visitors by company name, only to discover that GA4 stops short of delivering that insight. The platform tracks users, sessions, and device data, but company-level identification simply isn't part of its architecture. This article explains why GA4 can't show you which companies visit your site and walks through practical methods to reliably identify website visitors for account-based growth.
Why GA4 Leaves B2B Marketers Blind to Company-Level Insights
GA4 was designed around individual user privacy, not B2B firmographic intelligence. By default, the platform collects user counts, session statistics, approximate geolocation, and browser/device information. Notice what's missing: company name, industry, employee count, or any other firmographic attribute.
The core issue is that GA4's identity model revolves around cookies and device IDs rather than organizational affiliation. As Google's documentation states, "User-ID is the most accurate identity space, because it uses data you collect to identify your users." But even User-ID ties back to individuals, not their employers.
This limitation became more pronounced after Universal Analytics was replaced by GA4 in July 2024. The transition moved all users to an event-based, privacy-first data model that prioritizes anonymization over identification. For B2B marketers accustomed to stitching together account-level insights, GA4's default reports deliver a frustrating gap between traffic volume and actionable intelligence.
Key takeaway: GA4 tells you what visitors do on your site, but not which companies they represent.
What Technically Prevents GA4 From Reporting Company Names?
Four architectural constraints block GA4 from surfacing company-level data.
Identity Spaces Don't Include Firmographics
GA4 relies on three identity spaces to track users:
• Blended: Uses User-ID first, then device ID, then modeling
• Observed: Uses User-ID first, then device ID
• Device-based: Uses only device ID
None of these identity spaces incorporate IP-to-company mapping or firmographic enrichment. The system was built to measure users across devices and platforms, not to connect anonymous visitors to their employers.
Cookie Limitations and Event Caps
GA4 stores a client ID in a first-party cookie to distinguish unique users. However, this cookie contains no organizational information. Additionally, GA4 doesn't process events exceeding certain limits, including a cap of 25 user properties per property, meaning you can't simply bolt on unlimited custom firmographic fields.
Consent Mode Fragments Visibility
When visitors decline analytics cookies, GA4's Consent Mode kicks in. The BigQuery export includes a privacy_info record that captures consent states, but when analytics_storage is denied, cookieless pings replace full tracking. This fragments your visibility, particularly for privacy-conscious enterprise visitors who are often your highest-value accounts.
Real-Time Gaps
GA4's standard reports can take 24 to 48 hours to process data from your website. For sales teams trying to act on intent signals, this latency undermines the value of identification entirely. By the time you see the activity, the buying moment may have passed.
How Can You Identify Website Visitors Beyond GA4?
Five methods help B2B teams close the identification gap that GA4 leaves open.
1. Reverse IP Lookup APIs
Reverse IP lookup translates visitor IP addresses into organizational identities by cross-referencing against proprietary databases. This technique can identify 30 to 40 percent of European B2B traffic and up to 78 percent of US enterprise traffic, depending on database quality and IP allocation patterns.
Accuracy varies significantly by provider. One independent benchmark found that company name accuracy ranged from 86 percent to 97 percent across leading IP APIs:
ServiceCompany Name Accuracyipapi.is97.00%ipinfo.io95.33%ipdata.co86.33%
Remote work and VPN usage reduce match rates by 15 to 25 percent, but for visitors accessing your site from corporate networks, reverse IP lookup remains the fastest path to account-level identification.
2. Implementing User-ID
For known visitors, GA4's User-ID feature connects behavior across sessions and devices once a user authenticates. Each User-ID must be 256 characters or less and uniquely assigned.
User-ID works when visitors log in, register, or submit forms. Combined with your CRM, it lets you attribute authenticated sessions to specific contacts and, by extension, their companies. The limitation is that User-ID only works post-authentication, leaving your anonymous majority unidentified.
3. Activating Google Signals & Enhanced Conversions
Google Signals associates session data with users who have signed into Google accounts and enabled Ads Personalization. When activated, you gain cross-device visibility and can create remarketing audiences that span multiple touchpoints.
Enhanced Conversions improves conversion measurement accuracy by matching first-party data (like email addresses collected during conversions) with Google's consented user data. This produces a more complete picture of cross-channel attribution, though improvements may take up to one month to appear in reports.
Neither feature delivers company names directly, but both strengthen your ability to track the same buyer across the journey.
4. Real-Time Intent Scoring Tools
AI-powered intent scoring surfaces high-value accounts based on behavioral patterns rather than simple page visits. One case study found that enhanced lead scoring driven by real-time behavioral data resulted in over 2x increase in sales efficiency for high-intent leads.
The same study revealed a counterintuitive insight: only 5.7 percent of pricing page visitors actually exhibited high intent, while over 90 percent of high-intent visitors were identified in other areas of the website. Intent scoring looks beyond obvious signals to pattern-match buyers based on session behavior, scroll depth, and content engagement.
As one analysis put it, "lead generation is a behavior science, not a numbers game." Systems that analyze thousands of company activities to surface actionable signals can dramatically outperform rule-based approaches.
5. Tight UTM & Referral Hygiene
Clean attribution data won't identify companies directly, but it ensures you can trust the signals you do collect. GA4 lets you configure up to 50 unwanted referrals per data stream, preventing payment gateways and internal domains from fragmenting your sessions.
GA4 can automatically detect and fix self-referral issues when the referrer contains your domain name and cross-domain tracking is configured. Without this hygiene, a single session can appear as multiple referrals, corrupting your intent signals at the source.
Visitor ID Vendors: Does Accuracy Matter More Than Fill-Rate?
Many visitor identification providers prioritize fill-rate (the percentage of traffic they claim to identify) over accuracy (whether those identifications are correct). This trade-off can backfire.
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Independent testing reveals that most visitor ID solutions get identities right only 5 to 30 percent of the time. When evaluating providers, look for:
• Verified accuracy methodology: Does the vendor publish how they validate matches against known ground truth?
• Database freshness: IP ranges change frequently; stale data drives misattribution
• Transparency about limitations: Residential IPs, VPNs, and dynamic allocation create blind spots that honest vendors acknowledge
As one evaluation framework notes, "Being an outlier doesn't mean data is inaccurate. In fact, when it comes to IP geolocation, it often means a provider is identifying the true location while others rely on outdated data."
Fill-rate matters only when accuracy backs it up. A 60 percent fill-rate at 95 percent accuracy delivers more value than 90 percent fill-rate at 30 percent accuracy.
How Do You Enrich GA4 With IP Intelligence for Account-Based GTM?
Combining GA4 behavioral data with IP intelligence and CRM enrichment creates a practical account-based playbook.
Step 1: Layer reverse IP lookup onto your analytics stack
Integrate an IP-to-company API that fires alongside your GA4 tag. This surfaces the company name for visitors where a match exists, while GA4 continues capturing behavioral events.
Step 2: Build 2D scoring with fit and intent
2D scoring takes into account both fit and intent when deciding which leads to route to sales. Fit scores assess whether a company matches your ICP (industry, size, tech stack), while intent scores gauge likelihood to buy based on engagement behavior.
Step 3: Sync enriched data to your CRM
Push identified accounts and their intent signals into Salesforce or HubSpot. Vanta, for example, achieved over 80 percent enrichment coverage by combining multiple data sources and adding over 1,000 new contacts monthly through automated workflows.
Step 4: Prioritize based on real-time signals
RealVNC combined Lift AI intent scores with ID reveal to find 673 high-intent accounts among hundreds of thousands of visitors. The result: a 216 percent increase in individual buyer sales efficiency and 208 percent increase for enterprise accounts.
Step 5: Personalize follow-up based on score tiers
High-fit, high-intent accounts get immediate sales outreach. High-fit, low-intent accounts enter nurture sequences. Low-fit traffic, regardless of intent, stays in marketing.
Compliance Checklist: Consent Mode, PECR & GDPR When Unmasking Visitors
Identifying website visitors requires balancing insight against privacy obligations.
Consent Mode Fundamentals
When analytics_storage is denied, GA4 sends cookieless pings rather than full tracking. Behavioral modeling can estimate activity for non-consented users, but only if your property collects at least 1,000 events daily with analytics_storage denied for at least 7 days.
Reverse IP Lookup and GDPR
Reverse IP lookup for organizational identification typically qualifies as legitimate business interest under GDPR when implemented correctly. The key distinction: you're identifying companies, not individuals.
Under UK ICO guidance, consent is required when storage/access technologies profile individuals. However, contextual or aggregated uses are considered less intrusive and may not trigger the same consent requirements.
Practical Compliance Steps
RequirementActionTransparencyDisclose IP-based identification in your privacy noticeData minimizationAvoid combining IP data with personal identifiers unless necessaryOpt-outHonor consent signals and browser-level preferencesRetentionDefine and enforce data retention periods for identified accountsDocumentationMaintain records of your legitimate interest assessment
The Data (Use and Access) Act that came into law on June 19, 2025, introduced new exceptions to storage prohibitions. Review ICO guidance to ensure your implementation reflects current requirements.
Key Takeaways
GA4's architecture prioritizes user privacy over firmographic identification. The platform collects behavioral data at the individual level, but company names fall outside its default data model. B2B teams need supplementary tools to close the gap.
Five methods extend your identification capabilities:
1. Reverse IP lookup identifies 30 to 78 percent of B2B traffic at the account level
2. User-ID tracks authenticated visitors across sessions and devices
3. Google Signals and Enhanced Conversions improve cross-device visibility for signed-in users
4. Real-time intent scoring surfaces high-value accounts based on behavioral patterns
5. UTM and referral hygiene ensures your attribution data stays clean
Accuracy matters more than fill-rate when evaluating identification vendors. Independent testing shows accuracy varies from 30 to 97 percent depending on the provider.
After you've set up data collection for your websites and apps, complete additional configurations to get more accurate and useful data. Then layer in IP intelligence and CRM enrichment to transform anonymous traffic into actionable account insights.
For B2B SaaS companies ready to move beyond GA4's limitations, Warmly combines visitor identification with intent intelligence to uncover anonymous website traffic, identify high-intent accounts, and automate personalized outreach at scale.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why can't GA4 show company names?
GA4 is designed around individual user privacy and does not include firmographic data like company names. It focuses on user counts, session statistics, and device information, lacking the architecture to identify organizational affiliations.
What are the limitations of GA4 for B2B marketers?
GA4's identity model revolves around cookies and device IDs, not organizational data. This results in a gap for B2B marketers who need account-level insights, as GA4 prioritizes anonymization over identification.
How can reverse IP lookup help identify website visitors?
Reverse IP lookup translates visitor IP addresses into organizational identities by cross-referencing against databases. It can identify a significant portion of B2B traffic, especially from corporate networks, providing a path to account-level identification.
What is the role of User-ID in GA4?
User-ID in GA4 connects behavior across sessions and devices for known visitors who authenticate. It allows attribution of sessions to specific contacts and their companies, but only works post-authentication, leaving anonymous visitors unidentified.
How does Warmly help B2B companies with visitor identification?
Warmly combines visitor identification with intent intelligence to uncover anonymous website traffic, identify high-intent accounts, and automate personalized outreach, helping B2B companies move beyond GA4's limitations.
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