Heatmaps are visual representations of data and, in case of websites, point out with which content people interact with, how deep a page they scroll, how they move the mouse around the screen, etc. This is done by tracking the mouse clicks and mouse movement of the visitor.
Different heatmaps can be generated, depending on what is being tracked by the tool you use. The most common ones are clicks, movement and scroll depth. Click heatmaps allow you to analyse the clicking behavior, movement heatmaps will show you how people move their mouse over the screen and the scroll depth shows you how far the page people scroll down the page.
So that was a small intro on what heatmaps are. Now let me show you some of the tools! I started out with Crazy Egg a long time ago but have tried several alternatives.
I have been using Hotjar since the early Beta version and I am actually very happy with it. The tool is really easy to set up and produces useful heatmaps per device (desktop, tablet and mobile phone) and per type (click, move and scroll). This means a nice variety of options to analyse and gain insights from.
But it doesn’t stop there for Hotjar because they offer so much more than heatmaps. Other features include live recordings, funnel analysis, polls, surveys and even live user tests via screen sharing.
Every feature is enabled for the basic (free) account but restricted in use. Really worth your time to check it out. If you would like to know more about Hotjar’s other features, you check out the review.
Hotjar offers heat maps, live recordings, funnel analysis, polls, surveys and even live user tests via screen sharing.
A while ago, Crazy Egg was a free service, but that’s not longer the case. They have various payment-options and if you have a look at the demo, you’ll notice that 9$ a month is not that much. If you prefer to have a free alternative for Crazy egg, you can just keep on reading…
I also wrote an extensive review about Crazy Egg if you’re interested in this tool. It includes a link, giving you the opportunity to subscribe for a 60 day free trial.
Smartlook is a bit of a special one in this list. Not only does it integrate session recordings, heatmaps, event tracking and funnels for the web environment, but also for native mobile apps. Both iOS as Android are possible via an SDK. Although still in beta, things are finally looking up for native app users.
The session recordings are pretty detailed and offer a lot of filtering possibilities. It also has a few other tricks up its sleeve. For example, you can add notes to the session or look at the console of the user. Another nice and useful touch is that you can connect the recording to individual users from your database through an API.
The heatmap track clicks, moves and scroll depth of the visit and you can filter them on several parameters. When setting up a new heatmap, you can either collect data from new visitors (and new data points) or use historical recordings to populate the heatmap.
With event tracking, you can inspect every element on your website. You can either use a specified CSS selector or their built-in event selector tool. On top of that, you can specify special events that track JS errors in the console. A handy tool for developers to track javascript errors.
Last but not least, Smartlook allows you to create funnels, giving you some better insights where in the customer journey people start to drop off.
Smartlook has a free subscription which allows you to track 1500 visits per month. Of course it’s limited in the amount of session recordings, the amount of generated heatmaps and the tracked platform. If you would like to track more sessions, generate more heatmaps and look at different platforms, you will need to upgrade to a Starters package (€19/month) or the Powers package (€79/month).
IMPORTANT NOTE: I have written a more extensive review about Smartlook, so if you’d like to know more about the tool, just head out over there.
Smartlook offers all of the known features for the web environment and native mobile apps.
Plerdy was actually recommended by one of my readers, so I really wanted to have a look at it. And Oh boy, Plerdy doesn’t disappoint! Setting it up was like any other tool in this list and it went really quick. Going over the tool’s dashboard, it immediately noticed that they have plenty to offer.
The entire feature list is divided into 3 larger topics: UX Analysis, Smart forms and SEO alerts. Let us start with the UX Analysis.
Plerdy’s UX analysis contains the following features:
Plerdy also allows you to create smart forms and integrate it within your website. They have an entire list of forms of which you can choose from or you can create your own. Plerdy offers:
Last but not least, Plerdy can track your SEO status.
Plerdy has a free subscription which allows you to track 2000 page views per day. Paid packages starting at 29$ per month, which allows you to track up to 10000 page views per day.
Next in line is Mouseflow. Besides a detailed mouse click heatmap, it also offers a mouse movement and scroll heatmap. But it doesn’t stop there.
Mouseflow is in fact a powerful web analytics package that gives you plenty of statistics and features to play around with. It records the pageviews, total visit length, interaction time (which I find very useful), bounce rates, loading time, response time and the scroll reach (in percentages and pixels).
On top of that, Mouseflow offers live streaming, a very nice feature with which you can follow your users live (only for paying subscriptions)! It also records whole visitor sessions, which you can playback in your browser or simply download to your hard drive to watch it whenever you want. These recordings include the mouse movements, clicks, scroll events and key strokes.
For only 10€ a month you get 1000 recorded sessions – which is a bargain – but if you’re still not sure you can always start with a free subscription.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Mouseflow has just released a new version of their tool. Check out the new Mouseflow.
Next one is Lucky Orange, which has more features to offer than any other tool mentioned in this list. They have session recordings, heat maps and funnels. On top of that, they have also integrated a live chat functionality, polls and form analytics.
The heat maps are divided into clicks, moves and scroll depth. So what’s so special then? Well, Lucky Orange doesn’t simply take a ‘snapshot’ of your web page but instead creates an interactive overlay as you browse your website. That’s right people. Finally a solution for dynamic content and interactive interfaces! No need to worry about about menus, drop downs or popups any more.
You can easily switch between screen sizes and event types. Filter on behaviour tags (similar behaviour), keywords, source, browser, etc. and create segments for frequently used filter combinations, making it possible to define your personas for example.
Lucky Orange has several pricing plans. Pretty pretty good value for money I might add, but, unfortunately no free subscriptions. However, readers of paulolyslager.com will enjoy a 30 day trial instead of the normal 7 days. Just sign up and they will make the necessary changes for you!
Lucky Orange – Finally a heat map solution for dynamic content and interactive interfaces.
Next one in line is MouseStats, which has several features to offer. They have session playbacks, heatmaps, form analytics and surveys.
The heat maps are divided into clicks, moves, scroll reach, viewport overlap, attention and areastats. The coordinates of the clicks are pretty similar compared to the other tools but they seem somewhat less refined (think bigger blobs).
MouseStats has also included the services of Unbounce, Instapage and Optimizely, giving you the possibility to generate a different heat map per A/B test variant for example.
The session recordings will show you, besides the actual video, the duration of the visit, the amount of pages during the sessions and some other details such as OS, browser, screen size and whether it was a touch device or not. In all honesty, I’ve seen better implementations of this feature.
MouseStats has several paid plans available, but they also offer a free life-time plan. All of the above features are enabled in this free plan, but highly reduced in the amount of recordings.
Continue reading on the second page where you’ll find more alternatives for Crazy Egg.
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View Comments
Very accurate job!
Another solution to avoid performance issues, could be to have a separate server just for heatmap.
What do you think?
P.S.
I didn't know CrazyEgg has got commercial, damn!
If the cost-benefit ratio was ok, then this would be a great solution... but only for those websites which attract a lot of visitors. More visitors means more clicks to be recorded, so they would certainly benefit of a second server.
great post, thanks kindly
You're welcome Dave!
I am new to the world of web analytics and i think the functions are unbeleivable. I have an online private business and it has always been so frustrating to me how i could not observe the activity of my customers. I came accross ClickTale analytics on a similar blog and i tried out the free option offered and my eyes have been opened. I now feel confident to adjust my website according to the behaviour i can see in the videos and all the heatmaps. Its so simple and so effective, I wish i had found it earlier.
@Steve Mann: Thank you for the comment Steve. Since a few weeks now I've been testing ClickTale as well. I'll let you know my findings as well.
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Love the list thanks so much.
Regarding clickheat - I installed it on the checkout pages of a store to see how people used the page.
A while later the site owner complained that when he viewed the checkout pages he got the IE 'this page contains secure and insecure content' error, and he worried that this was reducing the conversion rate. I checked and checked and checked again, and I couldn't find any non-https images.
Eventually I finally realised what was happening - it was the clickheat script that was the insecure content on the https page!
@Stuart: Hi Stuart, nice to hear that you like this list and thanks for your interesting comment. I've been using Clickheat sporadically for a few months now (actually only used it to write this article and test it a bit) and I never crossed this IE error message before. The implemented code from Clickheat seems a bit aggressive and maybe a good thing to keep it out of the secure checkout pages. I can imagine that the CR dropped down a bit because of this message, but maybe you can switch to a less intrusive package.
Although I find Clickheat's system interesting (follow the mousemovements of the visitor), I prefer to use A/B testing in checkout pages to increase the CR.