This 2024, heat mapping tools are essential. Visitors to your website come for different reasons. Knowing how to improve their experience on your site will boost the optimization and management of your content, leading to a more rewarding experience for them and higher revenues for you.
So, how do you find out exactly what our visitors are looking at on your website and where they’re spending the most time? What do they skip past and not look at at all? How can we improve their experience?
Heat mapping tools have the ability to monitor activity on your site and will give you a very good indication of the strengths and weaknesses of your content, especially with the different campaigns you are running.
A great heat mapping tool will give you all the info you need to improve your the user experience on your website. They will also give you invaluable data for optimizing and streamlining your funnel to boost your sales and improve your profits.
Today, we’re looking at 11 of the best heat mapping tools available, including key features, pros and cons, pricing and user reviews. Read on to find out why they’re so useful and which one will be the best for your website!
Okay, let’s get started!
This is a quick overview of the G2 rating, our P2P rating and the pricing for the best heat mapping tools. For a detailed review of each of tool, continue scrolling.
Best Heat Mapping Tools | G2 Rating | Pricing | P2P Rating |
Mouseflow | 4.7/5 stars |
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Crazy Egg | 4.2/5 stars |
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Clicktale | 4.4/5 stars |
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Hotjar | 4.4/5 stars |
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Browsee | 4.9/ 5 stars |
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SessionCam | 4.7/5 stars |
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Lucky Orange | 4.3/ 5 stars |
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Inspectlet | 4.2/ 5 stars |
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FullStory | 4.5/ 5 stars |
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SmartLook | 4.7/5 stars |
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Ptengine | 4.7/5 stars |
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Heat mapping tools monitor the effectiveness of your site content. It’s like having a coach watching every move on your site and giving you feedback on your content’s strengths and weaknesses.
This is achieved by seeing how visitors interact with your site. You will be able to monitor mouse movements and clicks as well as see how far a visitor scrolls down on a specific page.
User visits are recorded and can be played back to examine interactions. Data from monitoring your site visits will allow you to restructure your content, remove and add content, add lead-ons to entice visitors to extend their time on your site and much, much more.
A tally is recorded of all page views, and you can see exactly how many clicks a link or button gets. The data you get from your heatmap tool will allow you to better understand how your site layout affects visits to your site.
With this, you can improve on the user experience that allows you to funnel interactions into conversions.
Knowing when users leave your site is important, and your heat mapping tool will provide this data.
You will be able to use this data to contain and eliminate dropout points, which will translate to longer visits and higher conversions.
Check out this great video by MeMedia for more insight into heat mapping and how it works:
Summary: The Importance of Heat Mapping Tools
Heat mapping tools determine how effective your website content is by checking how and where visitors interact with your website. These tools reveal user mouse movements, clicks and the distance scrolled for every page. They also identify where users leave pages. This information helps you identify effective ways to increase engagement and conversions.
To evaluate the best heat mapping tools consider features like confetti reports, mouse movements, scroll maps, session recording, events, form analytics, error analytics and A/B testing.
Data visualization is what heat mapping is all about. The heat signature from the content and movements on your site will give you an instant picture of your site performance.
With this visualization, you will be able to optimize visits to your site and improve on how your content is presented, which will increase your conversion rate.
Evaluating heat mapping tools depends on how you want to monitor your website traffic. Several different tools will make website analysis and management much easier, but you must decide what tools are best for you.
Here is a rundown of what you can expect from good heat mapping tools and the insights you can gain from them:
These reports are static images of your site interface, with colour-coding to indicate the areas that get the most clicks. It’s much like thermal weather report images, where you can see the hot and cold areas.
Statistics are sometimes better viewed as an image than a table or graph. Confetti reports add color to visually illustrate your interaction statistics and give you a clearer picture of what is happening on your website.
Tracking of mouse movements appears as lines across your site interface. With this, you will be to gauge movements and compare them to the confetti reports.
These maps are color coded to display how far down your page users scroll. The top will be red, indicating high volume, and as you go down the page, the color changes to blue, representing low volume.
Every visit to your site is recorded, and the mouse cursor is followed in the recording. You will see all the clicks and pick up user frustration points where they will continuously click on a button or link. The recording also times each session so you can see how long users are active on your site and where they are when they leave.
User sessions can be consolidated using events as a trigger. Instead of viewing every session, you can view sessions from a specific event that can be a designated button that is clicked to activate the event. From that one event, you can see the interaction of users from that point onwards.
Here you can see how users respond to sign-up pages and the completion of forms. You will be able to monitor any sticking points on the form. Users will begin completing a form and, at a point, will abandon the exercise, and you will be able to see where on the form this happens.
Users may encounter errors on your site, and if you know about them, you can fix them. Error analytics help to monitor and maintain how your site is working to ensure it has a clean bill of health.
Allows you to test two versions of the same page to see which one attracts more traffic. Most heatmap tools have this feature. Editors are necessary to create the different versions, and visual editors that work with drag and drop are preferred.
Summary: How to Evaluate Heat Mapping Tools
Now that we have covered what heat mapping tools are and how they will help you improve the user experience on your website, let’s look at the best heat mappings tools available:
Mouseflow is a behavioural analytic tool that offers a range of insights, including mouse movements, clicks, and scrolling. With Mouseflow, you will be able to see reports (heat maps) on how visitors funnel through the content on your site.
Rating: G2 – 4.7 out of 5 stars from 170 reviews.
Website: https://mouseflow.com/
With the use of visual reports and individual session recordings, you will get to know your website users. Their sessions will reveal the shortcomings of your content setup, and you will be able to make data-backed changes with confidence. It’s all about looking after your user experience and improving it as you go.
The plans are capped for pageviews, snapshots, recordings and storage time. Edits and A/B testing are unlimited.
Rating: G2 – 4.2 out of 5 stars from 97 reviews.
Website: https://www.crazyegg.com/
Clicktale is an indispensable heat mapping tool for large businesses but will work just as well for smaller businesses. It takes analytics up a notch by combining human and machine intelligence into the tools. Their analytics is a little more detailed and comprehensive than other tools, which allows you to fine tune your website precisely.
Rating: G2 – 4.4 out of 5 stars from 7 reviews
Website: https://contentsquare.com/clicktale/
Hotjar works great in helping you understand your user/visitor experiences on your website. Relevant data is at your fingertips. Although the dashboard looks rather simplistic, the data you receive focuses on the important issues that make your website a pleasure to visit.
Rating: G2 -4.4 out of 5 stars from 212 reviews.
Website: https://www.hotjar.com/
Browsee uses AI to improve user experience and includes all the bells and whistles expected from a great heat mapping tool. It has a user board that tags individual users for insights. The user board also allows you to aggregate user engagement for a broader picture. It is best suited for small to medium businesses and small teams as well as individuals.
Rating: G2 – 4,9 out of 5 stars from 5 reviews.
Website: https://browsee.io/
With its machine learning intelligence, SessionCam can use its struggle detection algorithm to consider hundreds of different signals from your users that pinpoint areas of struggle. This will show up in the heatmaps that cover clicks and scroll depth. Their research on struggle identification and control helps to improve user conversions and general site experience. SessionCam is ideal for all business types and sizes.
Rating: Capterra – 4.7 out of 6 stars from 6 reviews.
Website: https://sessioncam.com/
A feather in their cap is the fact that Lucky Orange created the world’s first fully-integrated heatmaps, which can be viewed in real-time while visitors’ browse your site. Lucky Orange prides itself as a conversion optimization specialist. It starts off with you knowing how many visitors are on your site at any given moment, and you also see how they found you.
Ratings: G2 – 4.3 out of 5 stars from 18 reviews.
Website: https://www.luckyorange.com/
Inspectlet is a well-rounded conversion optimization software that focuses on eye-tracking heatmaps among the conventional heatmap types. This is based on research that links eye movements to the mouse cursor. Their software tracks user activity and provides heatmaps of all interactions. Sessions are recorded and specific data like duration and navigation path can be viewed. Inspectlet is a good choice for individuals, small and medium businesses.
Rating: G2 – 4.2 out of 5 stars from 24 reviews.
Website: https://www.inspectlet.com
There is an added dimension to FullStory’s ability to read user behaviour. Their software digs deeper into why users drop out or express frustration. They use intelligent analysis to offer reasons why users fail to covert. And through their detailed reports, they provide beneficial insight into a solution that will increase the conversion rate.
Rating: G2 – 4.5 out of 5 stars from 144 reviews.
Website: https://www.fullstory.com/
SmartLook concentrates on website analytics on mobile apps and desktops. Their primary concern is the user experience, specifically on mobile apps and websites. 30 different filters help break down data and identify specific factors useful in translating user behaviour. SmartLook thrives on understanding people and finding solutions that will lead to conversions. Their software is geared to do just that.
Rating: G2 – 4.7 out of 5 stars from 624 reviews.
Website: https://www.smartlook.com/
Ptengine takes analytics to new heights. They want to show you exactly why users leave your site, and they do this through powerful analytics and a great understanding of marketing. Their task is to personalize user experiences, and they do this through a website content editor, triggers, inline pop-ups, sticky bars, surveys and a welcome mat. They also provide easy to use pre-built templates and can segment users and automate triggers. Understanding users or site visitors is paramount to conversions and repeat business.
Rating: Capterra – 4.7 from 3 reviews.
Website: https://www.ptengine.com/
Heat mapping is an extremely useful tool to streamline your site and boost your conversions. Understanding your site visitors and improving their experience is key to upping your conversion rate.
All the heat mapping tools we have reviewed here are great options. However, two stood out to us as being particularly useful and effective tools. Here are our two top picks:
Top pick #1: Mouseflow because of its range of heat maps and real-time viewing ability. Tracking user interactions and behavior seems to be a walk in the park for them, which counts at the end of the day. Seeing how users react to sign-ups and forms is another plus point. All around, Mouseflow have their ducks in a row.
Top pick #2: SmartLook because of its reach into the mobile app sector, a huge market. Their detailed analytics on user behavior is top-notch. Their focus on understanding users to better deliver solutions to improve conversion rates is exactly what heat mapping tools should do.
Capterra: Heatmap Software Reviews
G2 Crowd: Heat Mapping Software Reviews
Hubspot: How To Analyze Your Websites Heat Map
Research Gate: UX Heatmaps: Mapping User Experience on Visual Interfaces
Find a heat mapping tool you feel will fit your needs and your budget and trial it out to see how it works for you. Most platforms will provide you with tutorials and demos to get you started. Check out our review of the best heat mapping tools to use in 2024 to find the best option for you.
You're so right; so many people browse sites looking at prices, but the trick is to capture them on your site and get them to switch to taking an action. This can be achieved with analytics, heat mapping tools and a very attractive funnel that makes your mind up for you. Check out the full review for more info on how heat mapping can help you turn traffic into conversions.
Heat maps allow you to see the traffic flow on your website, and they pinpoint high traffic areas and problem areas. This allows you to modify your site and remove the clutter, so users have an enjoyable experience. This translates to higher conversions and revenue. Check out the full review for more info on why heat maps are so valuable.