Utilizing Heat Maps to Track and Analyze User Behavior

Utilizing Heat Maps to Track and Analyze User Behavior Utilizing Heat Maps to Track and Analyze User Behavior

Utilizing Heat Maps to Track and Analyze User Behavior

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August Ash

While tools like Google Analytics are useful for digging up data regarding session duration, behavior paths, demographics, and countless other insights, heat mapping is a great tool that visually displays visitor behavior on a website. 

There are different software applications that allow you to use heat mapping for your site, but in this case we’re going to refer to CrazyEgg, one of the tools we use and recommend to our clients. CrazyEgg is affordable, easy to implement, and simple to use. All you have to do is add CrazyEgg’s tracking code to the footer of your website, and then set up which URLs or specific landing pages you would like to have tracked.

Site administrators have the ability to visually analyze CrazyEgg data in a variety of different ways: heatmap, scroll map, confetti, overlay, and list. The most useful (in our opinion) views are the heatmap, scroll map, and confetti views. We will go over the pros and cons of each, and give you an inside look of the tools in action.

HEATMAPS

Heatmaps show where users click most by the intensity of the color: Blue = Cold (fewer clicks) Red = Hot (many clicks)

heat map home page heat map home page

Pros:

  • Easy to visualize
  • Gives insights to what items work and which don’t
  • Provides ideas for new layouts/order of menu headings or other items

Cons:

  • Will not show data for sub-nav menus
  • Does not show number of clicks – only the area clicked

SCROLL MAPS

Scroll maps show how far down users are scrolling on your page before going to a different page or exiting your website. White and yellow = Hot (most visitors are scrolling to that portion of the page), Blue = Cold (very few visitors are scrolling to that portion of the page).

heatmap heatmap

Pros:

  • Color-coded
  • May provide insight on how engaging content is
  • Shows exactly where people start leaving page

Cons:

  • Does not show user duration on page
  • No insight to where users go once they leave the page

CONFETTI MAPS

Confetti Maps show exactly where site visitors click via colored dots. 

confetti map confetti map

Pros:

  • Shows exact location clicked
  • Shows referrer, search terms, source, etc.
  • Visual (Color-coded via source)
  • Can help determine new features or design elements to test

Cons:

  • Does not show sub-nav clicks
  • Click numbers shown in the detail window are not all legitimate (they count no matter where someone clicks, even if it’s not a link to another landing page on the site)

Heatmapping along with scroll mapping and confetti views can provide great insight as to how users are viewing and using your site. The game changer is that these tools give site administrators to ability to see firsthand what’s working and what isn’t. We’ve done extensive heatmapping on our own website and as a result we’ve tested new buttons, call-to-actions, menu/page layout, content restructure, amongst other things.

Have any questions, or simply want to learn more about heatmapping? Our certified team of digital marketing strategists is happy to help. Contact us today.

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