Hot Jar Heat Maps

 Hotjar Heat Maps

Google Analytics is the largest analytics tool in the world, currently occupying 35% of the market share (Web Analytics Market Share, n.d.). While competitors exist, Google Analytics is an incredibly powerful tool and remains a monster in the data world. And, why not use Google Analytics? The base product is free, and it allows data to become more accessible. In response, many brands have turned to creating analytics tools that integrate with Google Analytics. The example that I chose is one that I think is interesting, dynamic, and very helpful to find out the “why” for data collected through Google Analytics--Hotjar, a heat mapping tool.  

What is a Heat Map? 

Heat Maps are a way to visualize data. Heat maps are used across a variety of fields, including in the science and health care professions as a way to make data easier to read.  Heat maps are becoming more popular in web analytics as analyzing websites has become even more granular. A heat map in web analytics uses color to represent where a page is receiving the most attention (What is a heat map, n.d.). In the image below, you can see that the left hand side of the Google search results receives the majority of attention through clicks. 

What are the Benefits of Heat Mapping? 

Heat mapping allows for its users to quickly see where on their website they are gaining the most clicks and where on the page people are hovering their cursor. This can allow for designers to change where clickable links are located in order to drive traffic where they want it to most. Users can determine what images on their website perform best, and can even A/B test to see what works best for their particular site.  It’s also an inexpensive way to gain this insight-many heat mapping services offer free trials or low cost contracts (Davies, n.d.). 

What is Hotjar? 

Hotjar was founded in 2014, and is being used by brands around the world. Brands like Hubspot Academy, Air Canada, Adobe, and Survey Monkey all have implemented Hotjar to improve their website experiences, boost sign ups, and make more conversions (How Hotjar, n.d.). Hotjar is a heat mapping tool that allows a user to see where people are clicking on their page, where the user is scrolling to and stopping, and where they are hovering their cursor. This allows the user to gain valuable insight into where website visitors are dropping off the site (Heatmap Analytics, n.d.). To set up, you simply create an account and copy the code into your website. Now you’re quickly and easily tracking with Hotjar! 

How Does it Support Google Analytics? 

On Hotjar’s website, they clearly state that their program is not meant to be used as a replacement for Google Analytics. Instead, the programs are meant to be used alongside one another. Hotjar can offer additional insight into why things are happening on your website. While Google Analytics offers insight about when things are occurring, the addition of Hotjar can show website owners and analysts the why (Hotjar vs. Google Analytics, n.d.). 

Hotjar can easily be incorporated with Google Tag Manager. While Google Tag Manager is separate from Google Analytics, it works with Google Analytics. By using Google Tag Manager, you can insert your Hotjar user id and begin tracking with Hotjar through Google Tag Manager (How to implement, 2021). These two programs work easily together. 

In addition to setting up Google Analytics on my Blogger site, I also incorporated Hotjar. While there aren’t many places on my Blogger site to click, I am excited to learn more about this type of analytics and think it may be useful at my current position. To set up, I created a free Hotjar account, then added the code into the Blogger site. Hotjar then gave me confirmation that it was set up properly. I will share more data in the coming weeks in future posts about the type of data that I collect. Additionally, I plan to use Hotjar with Google Tag Manager to collect data that way as well.

Conclusion

By utilizing services that incorporate with Google Analytics, you can unlock the full potential of Google Analytics. Services like Hotjar allow additional data and data visualization to be collected so that you can identify problem areas on your website and make design changes to better serve your website visitors. Ideally, this will lead to more conversions and a better experience for website visitors. While I don’t think that any program will likely ever come along that will knock Google Analytics from its seat as top analytics tool in the world, I do find it very impressive and interesting that people keep coming up with new products to work with Google Analytics to improve the program. As a visual species, programs like Hotjar only improve upon what Google Analytics offers, bringing useful data to the forefront. 

References: 

Davies, J. (n.d.). 9 reasons Heatmap analysis is an essential part of modern web design. Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.digital22.com/insights/9-reasons-heatmap-analysis-is-an-essential-part-of-modern-web-design

Heatmap analytics. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.hotjar.com/heatmap-analytics/

Hotjar vs Google ANALYTICS? Why you need both. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.hotjar.com/blog/hotjar-vs-google-analytics/

How HubSpot Academy Used HOTJAR polls to boost signups by 10%. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.hotjar.com/customers/hubspot-academy/

How to Implement hotjar in Google Analytics? (2021, January 15). Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://thenextscoop.com/implement-hotjar-google-analytics/#:~:text=What%20is%20Hotjar%3F,behavior%20coming%20onto%20the%20website.&text=Hotjar's%20analysis%20is%20done%20via,surveys%20and%20recruit%20user%20testers.

Web analytics market SHARE Report: Competitor ANALYSIS: Google Analytics, Google Universal Analytics, Google global Site Tag. (n.d.). Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/web-analytics--1

What is a heat map, how to generate one, example and case studies. (2020, May 14). Retrieved February 08, 2021, from https://www.crazyegg.com/blog/understanding-using-heatmaps-studies/