Web Beacons and other tools

Why do websites use Web Beacons?

Web beacons are used by website owners to log activity on their web pages and websites. Their purpose depends on what a site wants to understand about how visitors interact with pages. In this demonstration of how web beacons work, the website www.sport.co.uk is able to identify:

• Which online ads attracted visitors to the site.
• Which of those visitors then visited their online store.
• Which of those visitors then ordered goods.
• The sales values of those orders.

From this demonstration www.sport.co.uk can find out whether the money it spent on online advertising was worth it. Clearly, www.sport.co.uk might understand who its individual customers are but www.bannerad.com only has anonymous data linked to its cookies.