Heatmaps are an invaluable tool for analyzing the user experience. With color gradients illustrating where users spend most of their time in your product, heatmaps offer more insight than meets the eye. Leveraging advanced heatmap features goes beyond the red and blue color gradients. Learn more about 11 of them and how you can incorporate them into your product improvement process.
Feature 1: Clickmaps
Clickmaps, or click heatmaps, show you where your users are clicking most in your product. Warmer colors like red and orange represent areas clicked on most, while cool colors like blue represent areas clicked on the least.
Click heatmaps can help you understand which navigation paths are popular. In turn, you can place CTAs (calls to action) or high-priority content along these paths. You can also use clickmaps in tandem with A/B testing for new content or features. If click patterns and paths change, you’ll know what’s performing well and what needs work.
Feature 2: Scrollmaps
Scrollmaps track how far users go down a page or app screen before leaving or stopping. By using this type of heatmap to measure scroll depth, you can learn how engaging your content is and whether it’s meeting your users’ expectations and needs. “Good” scroll depth depends on the content purpose and page length, but generally, 60% or more is a positive scroll depth.
Let’s say your SaaS company’s landing page is getting a lot of visitor traffic. However, when you take a deeper dive using scroll maps, you see that users are only browsing the top half of your landing page. The CTA button toward the bottom isn’t getting clicked, meaning you’re not getting the conversions you want. The scroll map is your first clue that your CTA needs to be moved further up where users will easily see it.
Feature 3: Movemaps
Move heatmaps track a user’s mouse movements across an interface. Like clickmaps, movemaps show you areas where users pause, move their mouse, or hover most frequently using color gradients.
Even if someone isn’t clicking on an element of your page or app screen, it doesn’t mean they’re not focused on it. Movemaps show you what your users are interested in and what grabs their attention. They can also tell you more about how users navigate without clicks, and it can suggest where you might want to place clickable elements.
Use move heatmaps with a user journey tool like Sprig Replays to dig deeper into user behavior. The combination of these tools can show you exactly how a user is navigating and what they’re interacting with.
Feature 4: Segment heatmaps
Segment heatmaps, as their name suggests, help you look at user behavior by audience. User behavior can differ by age, location, interests, income level, device, and more. By analyzing user segments separately, you can see which user segments are more inclined to use specific product features. This is helpful for crafting more closely targeted marketing campaigns when you launch new features.
To use segment heatmaps effectively, it’s best to define the segments you want to look at first. Make a list of groups you want to learn more about and what defines them. These groups should align with the goals for your business. Then you’ll want to identify the metrics you want to track. Are you trying to see if your target audience is enticed by a CTA or if they navigate to a specific feature? This will help you narrow down which type of segment heatmap, click, scroll, or move, you should use.
Finally, you’ll want to review your segmented heatmap data for patterns and trends. Using segment heatmaps is easy with Sprig Heatmaps. Multiple filtering options allow you to segment your data by time period, location, and other user attributes. You can even configure Sprig to trigger your heatmaps based on specific user attributes and actions.
Feature 5: Real-time heatmaps
Many heatmaps work by aggregating data over a specific period. However, there are real-time heatmaps that provide instant feedback as users engage with your site or product. Real-time heatmaps can help you fix issues quickly and address challenges promptly.
If your team is debuting a new product feature, for example, you can see how it’s performing and being received during the launch. Imagine your users are engaging with your new feature until they reach a certain page, where they pause or bounce. You might look for bugs or clear up confusing content on this page to fix the problem.
Feature 6: Dynamic content heatmaps
What about dynamic and interactive content like pop-ups, dropdown menus, or sliders? Some heatmap tools can’t capture clicks, scrolls, or movements over dynamic content. That’s where dynamic heatmaps come in. These advanced heatmaps show both where users are looking on your site and which elements they’re interacting with all in the same place.
Feature 7: Integration with other tools
These heatmap features offer great insight into the user experience alone. But when integrated with other analytics tools, the data you retrieve and evaluate can tell you much more. The more data you have from different sources, the richer and more detailed your insights will be.
At Sprig, we know how powerful collaboration between the right tools can be. That’s why our Heatmaps feature can be leveraged alongside many data source and destination platforms, including:
- Amplitude. Use this product analytics platform with Sprig, so you can see how user behavior drives product performance.
- Segment. Send Segment events and attributes to analyze Heatmaps data for your different target audiences.
- Mixpanel. Use Sprig insights in conjunction with this product analytics platform for one holistic user experience picture.
Feature 8: Privacy and compliance features
Heatmaps can contain sensitive information like location data and personal details. Take the following steps to protect your users’ privacy and ensure your company is compliant:
- Be aware of data privacy and protection regulations that apply to you, such as GDPR and CCPA.
- Mask, anonymize, or re-identify any personally identifiable information (PII) in heatmap data.
- Make sure your product’s privacy policy is updated to include any heatmap software you use. You must specify what data you collect, how you use it, and whether you share it with other businesses.
- If your users are able to opt out of tracking, make sure you mention that as well.
- Always obtain user content before you begin tracking with heatmaps.
Privacy regulations are continually evolving, and it’s your responsibility as a product owner to adhere to the law. Sprig Heatmaps help streamline this process for you with custom privacy settings. This allows you to protect personal user information and sensitive data without compromising the valuable insights you gain from viewing heatmap activity.
Feature 9: Conversion funnel heatmaps
Conversion funnel heatmaps, also called conversion rate heatmaps, help you better understand what’s driving conversions in your product or on your page. Like a click map, conversion funnel heatmaps show you where your users are clicking, but they go a step further by showing clicks that were most likely to lead to a conversion.
Depending on the conversion funnel heatmap software you choose, you can view and analyze conversion goals like:
- URLs clicked
- Text or elements clicked
- Signups registered
Create heatmap segments for each stage of your conversion funnel within your product. Analyze your heatmap data within each segment and identify barriers to conversion and drop-off points.
With this data, you can see what content is encouraging your users to convert and where your users are dropping off. When paired with another tool like Sprig’s in-product surveys, you can gain a deeper understanding of what your users want and how to eliminate any obstacles holding them back.
Feature 10: Form analytics heatmaps
Form optimization improves response rate and ensures the information you receive is valuable and actionable. To ensure your forms are working the way they should, utilize form analytics heatmaps.
Form analytics heatmaps can track:
- Form fields that receive the most interactions or clicks
- Areas where users hesitate or pause when filling out the form
- Drop-off points within the form
Based on your heatmap data, you may decide to break down complex questions into shorter, more focused questions to improve completion rate. Or, you might add more detailed instructions to reduce confusion or hesitation.
Feature 11: Mobile heatmaps
Mobile heatmaps track user behavior on devices like phones and tablets. This separate data source is necessary because the desktop user experience and the mobile user experience can vary greatly. Design, content, navigation, links, and dynamic content are often different. User attributes like location, age, and income level differ between desktop and mobile, too.
If you want to optimize for mobile, it’s crucial that you understand mobile-specific user behavior. Use mobile heatmaps to examine mobile-specific UX like:
- User interactions with menus, buttons and links due to screen size and touch input
- Content visibility and placement
- Mobile load times
Use mobile heatmaps to improve accessibility, customize the mobile user experience, and innovate mobile-specific designs for your product.
Take advantage of the advanced features heatmaps offer
Drill down into heatmaps for a fundamental understanding of the user experience. Get deep and narrow looks into each of your audiences with heatmaps tailored to specific goals, like improving conversion rates or the number of responses on a form.
Remember: heatmaps are just one tool in your toolbox. Heatmap software like Sprig that integrates with other tools provides perspective-shifting views into your audience, delivering insights that create a better product experience for your users.
With Sprig, you’ll find and fix pain points, gauge impact, and instantly analyze heatmap data, thanks to AI that does the analysis for you so you can stay focused on the user experience. Get started with Sprig.