Comparing the Best Heatmap Tools

Heatmap Tools Definition: What is Heatmap Software?

Heatmap tools are applications that primarily allow companies to track the behavioural patterns of visitors to their website or online store. It is also possible to capture the interaction with software or specific documents, photos, infographics, or other content. Heatmap generators are now particularly offered online or in the cloud.

Such programs allow officials to easily visualize how users interact with a web presence or another digital product. The information captured by heatmap tools helps them understand issues related to their digital offering and optimize it for a better experience, more engagement, and safer conversions.

Heatmap tools primarily work on a visual level rather than being number-based like typical tracking software. They provide – as the name suggests – primarily heatmaps. These are interaction maps that mark areas that users have used more or less intensively in varying shades of color.

Why Should Companies Use Heatmap Tools?

The increasingly digitalized world offers companies a multitude of opportunities to market their products. On the other hand, developers are constantly developing new solutions that contribute to the unstoppable progress of digitalization.

Both successful offering or the marketing-based communication of goods or services on the net, as well as the creation of digital applications itself, are associated with very detailed processes. Very often, minimal alignment features – such as layout, design, or functionality – have relatively large effects.

For example, simply moving a call-to-action button on a landing page can lead to a significant increase in the conversion rate. There is also the chance to obtain a more user-friendly application by specifically reducing the central interface segments of software.

One of the great advantages of digital space: causes leading to these and similar effects can be recorded very accurately with the help of specific tools. The classics are (especially for web analytics) tracking applications. They provide an overview of traffic, clicks, dwell times, access sources, and other rather number-based insights.

The evaluation of corresponding data is important but sometimes also complicated. Normally, they are visually processed in the form of a report to ensure optimal further processing by the team.

On the other hand, heatmap software follows a visual approach. Data resulting from such applications are directly presented as a map with color gradations and are thus much more easily accessible. In addition, actual behaviors can be represented using a heatmap tool. For determining specific handling patterns, a lot of interpretation is always required in number-based trackers. This makes them relatively error-prone in this context.

Furthermore, it should be noted that competition in the digital space is steadily growing. In view of this, companies should use all opportunities available to them to improve their marketing, advertising, sales and/or their digital products. The use of heatmap software can be an important factor in staying in the market in the long term.

How do Heatmap Tools Work?

Heatmap tools enable the creation of heatmaps. But how exactly does this work and how do heatmaps ultimately work? First of all, the chosen software must be connected to the web presence or the digital product for which a heatmap is to be created.

Most of the applications on the market are website heatmap software. With modern tools, not much more is needed to couple it than inserting the URL of the page to be examined into a corresponding field and starting the desired tracking. Software heatmap tools, on the other hand, are integrated into the code of the respective program or simply run over the application to be tested.

Heatmaps help companies in determining user behavior. This in turn provides them with important insights for optimizing their digital presence or their digital products. Using heatmaps, they can, for example, see which areas of a website are used particularly intensively and which are not. If no one or only a few people of the respective target group click on the most important page element, this suggests that a new layout may be needed to increase engagement.

Moreover, different types of heatmaps can help understand different elements of a website or software and their use. A click map, for example, shows the most frequently clicked links or buttons, while a scroll map shows how far users scroll down on a specific page or within an application. There are also error click maps that show where an error may occur in the backend after a click. Also popular are so-called dead click maps that show which elements users mistakenly consider clickable.

How a heatmap is created depends entirely on its type at the base. As already mentioned, there are several types of maps. But these can generally be divided into three categories: interaction, attention and geo heatmaps.

• Interaction heatmaps measure different types of engagement and record interactions between users and webpages or systems. The focus is on clicks, scrolls, mouse movements and more.

• Attention heatmaps are more complex to set up. They require additional hardware. Here, how users view web pages or software is monitored. Attention heatmaps usually result from eye tracking measures or are created with corresponding software.

• Geo heatmaps are primarily generated using IP address ranges and the location function of mobile devices. They can show particularly at which or for which locations and their conditions digital applications should be suitable.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of Heatmap Tools?

Heatmap tools can offer companies various and sometimes very convincing advantages. Some of the central advantages were already mentioned incidentally above. In the following we will detail why you should use a heatmap program.

• Heatmaps provide an immediate overview of important performance parameters: Unlike many other analysis methods, heatmaps can immediately highlight the main problems or potentials of a web presence or software. Thus, they enable a quick problem solution or opportunity utilization. They immediately show whether important buttons are being clicked, which content parts (potential) customers are looking at particularly intensively or which features of an application are used most frequently. In short, heatmaps show responsible parties at a glance what is working and what needs work.

• Heatmaps are relatively easy to understand due to their visual, holistic approach: Although heatmaps are based on data just like classical numerical analytics, they have a clear advantage over these. A conventional spreadsheet might tell officials that certain links have a surprisingly low click rate or that a single page has a drastically higher bounce rate than the rest of the website. However, the numbers from the table do not convey why. If the same data are viewed in a properly configured heatmap, users can quickly recognize important relationships through the visual overview.

• Heatmaps make it easier to learn from the target group and provide suitable offers for these individuals: Today, in a business context, it's more important than ever to learn from your own target customers and serve them accordingly. Heatmaps help companies understand what their audience is doing when it reacts to a web design, a marketing campaign, or the features of software. The navigation and interaction patterns of real users that a heatmap depicts is direct, unfiltered feedback. From corresponding insights, companies can very accurately derive what their (potential) customers expect and what they don't.

• Heatmap tools support other programs in the analytics software stack: Undoubtedly, heatmaps are unique and provide answers that no other tool can provide. This does not mean, however, that they are the general solution for every monitoring context. They actually play their strengths especially when they work with other tools. For example, insights from classic monitoring solutions can be brilliantly backed up and expanded by them. Ideally, heatmap software significantly contributes to more holistic and efficient analytics processes.

• Heatmap tools help companies make informed decisions that improve the bottom line: Heatmaps assist managers in making better decisions, ultimately increasing the engagement and conversions of their target customers. In the end, heatmaps are all about improving the bottom line of a web presence or digital product and increasing sales as a result.

Like any software, heatmap tools also have not only advantages. The following factors most often cause difficulties or pose risks to users.

• Heatmap software is critical in terms of data protection: Just like with the use of other analytics tools, a variety of personal information is processed with heatmap business solutions. This naturally brings data protection into the picture. If a software or its provider does not handle corresponding information in compliance with the GDPR, this can cause significant problems for the using company. It is safest for those responsible to use a tool for heatmaps from Germany or at least from the EU.

• A heatmap tool is quickly seen as a solution for everything: Heatmaps, if the tool used is set correctly, are relatively easy to read and can undoubtedly be very meaningful. Both lead to the facts of such a solution being considered quickly. This is a mistake, because heatmaps cannot serve many important metrics at all or not efficiently. If it comes to the appropriate emphasis of elementary economic values, such as the conversion rate, other tools must be used.

• Heatmap programs can have difficulties with modern dynamic applications: Nowadays, websites or programs or apps are usually no longer static constructs. They function on a wide variety of devices and offer a wide range of dynamic interaction possibilities. Responsive design, animations, slide-out panels, expanding menus and/or modal dialogues are the norm. Individual heatmap software can cope with such dynamics more or less well.

How to Choose a Suitable Heatmap Tool?

There are certain factors that interested parties should always take into account when looking for a suitable heatmap tool. The most important look-out-for's are summarized below.

Determine requirements

Should it be found out why (potential) customers are abandoning their shopping carts? Is it necessary to record which designs of a landing page lead to more leads? Or is it about showing which segments of a software users interact with particularly intensively? To answer these and similar questions with the help of a heatmap tool, interested parties must first clarify how and how well the possible solutions cope with corresponding requirements. For example, there is indeed heatmap software that is better suited for design matters than others. Some providers also focus more on marketing purposes or only allow attention heatmaps. In addition, there are special solutions for software heatmaps.

Setup and user-friendliness

One of the biggest challenges with any new tool are the first steps. This is especially true for people who are less technically savvy. Not everyone who runs a website has development knowledge to add additional tools (the situation is of course different for developer companies for digital products). Companies that cannot readily rely on corresponding personnel resources are well advised to look for a heatmap tool that is easy to use for everyone. High-quality results should still be provided. It is of course also the case that even businesses that have developers or generally technically fit employees in their ranks can benefit from simple setup processes and good usability. If a heatmap tool is quickly ready for use and can be used uncomplicatedly, the chances are generally very good that those responsible will fully exploit the possibilities of the solution. The most user-friendly heatmap tools offer a completely coding-free installation and numerous simple integration options. They can thus be connected completely simply with WordPress, Shopify, other CMS or directly with websites or software.

Clarify customization options

Not everyone wants to analyze the exact same data for each heatmap. Interested parties should choose a tool that gives them the freedom and flexibility to change settings and parameters when setting up a new heatmap. For example, should desktop visitors, tablet visitors and mobile visitors on a website be tested? The best heatmap tools provide numerous settings for such devices and separate reports that can be individually tailored to the requirements of the respective page. The same applies to mobile apps and other software to be examined. Different types of visual reports One of the main advantages of a heatmap compared to other analysis tools is the way the data is displayed. A heatmap is a visual representation of user patterns on websites or in online shops or in software solutions. In addition to heatmaps for different analysis focuses, some tools offer additional visual reports. Those who want to analyze the captured data multidimensionally should rely on an application that can also convert the numbers behind the heatmap into diagrams or can be connected with tools that can do this.

Additional conversion tools

In addition to the various heatmaps and reports, heatmap tools can also provide helpful tools for promoting conversions. Solutions for A/B tests are particularly often included. More comprehensive heatmap tools also have integrated website editors. With these, users can change page elements directly without programming or design knowledge.

What Do Heatmap Tools Cost?

When looking for a suitable tool for creating heatmaps, price is of course always an important factor in decision-making.

The market even offers useful heatmap freeware. With these solutions, heatmap creation is possible for free – but they usually can't do much more than just that. Anyone who uses software for heatmaps free should not expect extended reports, additional conversion tools or other extras. For creating simple maps, however, free heatmap tools are definitely usable. Open source heatmap solutions offer the most freedom, but usually require broader development knowledge to fully take advantage of them.

For all those who want more than simple heatmaps and do not want or need to extensively individualize their heatmap software, there are various paid offers. Some bundles cost several thousand euros per year. However, for most companies it is sufficient to rely on a solution for around 20 euros per month.