60-Second Summary
An IP address uniquely identifies a device or network on the internet — public IPs expose a device to the wider web while private IPs stay within a local network. Company-level IP identification (via ping, WHOIS, reverse DNS, or enrichment tools) reveals firmographic insights useful for ABM and website-to-CRM workflows, but privacy rules like GDPR must be considered.
Key takeaways: IPs map devices to networks — public IPs identify traffic to the internet, private IPs stay inside LANs. Company-level IP mapping turns anonymous visits into firmographic signals (company name, industry, size, pages viewed) and helps measure market coverage.
Standout strategies & tactics: Use simple diagnostics (ping) and WHOIS/reverse-DNS for manual lookups, then scale with IP enrichment platforms like Leadfeeder to match IPs to companies, create custom feeds, enrich with firmographics, and push leads into CRM and marketing automation.
Real-world lessons & frameworks: IP-based identification supports ABM: measure how much of your TAM visits, score intent from on-site behavior, and automate routing to sales. Note limitations — IPs may point to hosting providers and rarely identify individual users reliably.
Compliance & implementation tips: Treat IPs as potential personal data under GDPR — consult your DPO/legal, prefer company-level enrichment over individual tracking, and use vendors that handle consent and integration to reduce risk while operationalizing ABM.
*This summary was created with AI assistance, using our original content.
An IP (internet protocol) address is a unique set of numbers that identifies a device or network used to access the internet. It's equivalent to a house address, but for your computer. There are public IP addresses and private IP addresses.
“A public IP address identifies you to the wider internet so that all the information you're searching for can find you. A private IP address is used within a private network to connect securely to other devices within that same network. Each device within the same network has a unique private IP address.” -Avast.com
Just like you need to know someone's street address to send them a letter or phone number to call, networks need to know a computer's IP geolocation to send data. To go beyond the company name and get firmographic details, you need IP enrichment -- which layers additional data onto each resolved IP.
In this guide, you'll learn how to run a company IP address lookup step-by-step, including manual lookup methods and automated tools. IP lookup is one component of a broader website visitor tracking strategy that turns anonymous traffic into pipeline.
How to Find a Company IP Address
Every IP address is registered to an organisation, usually an internet service provider (ISP), a hosting provider or a company that runs its own network. So, how do you find specific IP addresses for companies in real-time? There are a few ways.
Step 1: Open the command line
On Windows, open the search bar and type Command Prompt
On Mac, open Spotlight and search for Terminal
Step 2: Ping the website
Type the following command:
ping www.example.com
For example:
ping www.leadfeeder.com
Your computer looks up the website's domain name and shows the IP address of the server that answers. That server often belongs to a hosting provider, not the company itself. You'll get a response, which looks like this:
How to Find a Company by Its IP Address
1. Use an IP to company lookup or WHOIS tool
If you already have an IP address, you can plug it into an IP lookup tool, like who.is, to find out what company the IP address is from, then look them up on LinkedIn.
This typically reveals:
Organization name
Network provider
Location
ISP information
You can see if they fit your ideal customer profile and go from there.
2. Run a reverse DNS lookup
You can also use a reverse DNS lookup, which is what Leadfeeder does. This identifies the domain name connected to an IP address. This method helps determine which company network the address is associated with.
However, these methods can be time-consuming and often don’t tell you what that company actually did on your website.
There’s also another limitation: most analytics tools don’t show you visitor IP addresses.
For example, GA4 reports on users and sessions, not companies, and it does not show visitor IP addresses. GA4 tells you a session came from a LinkedIn campaign. It cannot tell you that the session was a 200-person manufacturer in your ICP.
You can capture IP addresses using Google Tag Manager, but it's complicated to set up and could violate privacy laws, depending on where your traffic originates.
If only there were an easier way to identify companies by their IP address, and turn that information into data you could use.
Well, there is. This is where tools like Leadfeeder come in.
How Leadfeeder Identifies Companies by IP Address
Leadfeeder identifies visiting companies and matches them against a company IP address database of 45M+ IP-to-company mappings covering about 9M companies (60M companies and 400M contacts is the database size, not what can be identified on a site) -- revealing company name, industry, size, revenue band, employee count, and the specific pages and behaviors on your site. You see which companies visited and which pages they looked at.
Here's what you'll see when a lead visits your site.
1. Website visit details
If your site is integrated with your email marketing platform, you can see exactly who visited your website and what pages they clicked.
Even without integrations, you’ll still see key firmographic information such as:
Company name
Pages viewed
Website
Industry
Location
Company size
This makes it easier to understand which companies are engaging with your content.
2. Contact Information for Potential Stakeholders
Leadfeeder also includes a “contact” section that provides details of potential stakeholders from companies visiting your website.
These contacts aren’t necessarily the exact individuals who visited your site, but they’re likely to be involved in the buying process.
Where possible, Leadfeeder also provides social profiles and email addresses to help your sales team connect with the right people.
3. Custom Feeds for Ideal Customers
With custom feeds, you can tell us exactly who your ideal customer is—their location, industry, revenue, even specific behaviors you want to track—and we'll notify you every time you get a visit from a company that fits your parameters. (Don't worry, you can customize these notifications!)
Even better, creating custom feeds takes less than a minute.
4. Automating Lead Management
You can also automate the lead management process by connecting Leadfeeder to your sales and marketing platforms.
For example, you can:
Send small-business leads directly to a specific sales representative
Notify marketing when someone downloads a whitepaper
Automatically push visitor data into your CRM
All of these features (and more) start by finding company IP addresses.
Now You Know How to Identify Company by IP Address, What’s Next?
Finding a company by its IP address provides access to more information than you might think. Company-level identification is lower risk than identifying individuals, but an IP address can be personal data, so it is not outside GDPR. Check your setup with your DPO or legal counsel. This is general information, not legal advice. Think of all the ABM possibilities — they’re endless. Sam O'Brien, VP of Marketing at Leadfeeder, makes that scale concrete:
"I can identify there's a hundred thousand companies in that market. What I want to do is be tracking how many of those hundred thousand are now visiting my website. How many are engaging with my content? How many are moving through the funnel?"
That’s the real advantage of IP-based identification — not just spotting individual leads, but understanding how much of your market you’re actually reaching.
The data can be used to qualify leads more effectively, speed up sales response times, and make sure your website lead tracking and marketing reporting are on point. Leadfeeder sends data directly to your CRM. Beyond identification, confirm with PMM whether Leadfeeder offers IP-based ad targeting today. If not: "IP data can also be used for IP targeting in B2B advertising, which lets you serve ads to specific companies." -- letting you serve ads directly to specific companies.
Leadfeeder identifies the companies visiting your site, scores their intent based on behavioral signals, and gives your team verified contacts to follow up with -- all in one place. Trusted by 15,000+ customers and leading GTM partners. Try it free.
