By Kelvin Sim
Introduction
Conversion Rate Optimisation (CRO) tools allow you to undertake qualitative research and retrieve insightful information regarding online visitors in forms of visual data reports.
In our last blog post – How To Use Crazy Egg To Enhance Your Conversion Rate Optimisation Activities Part 1, we ran through how to setup a CRO tool called Crazy Egg. In this blog post we will discuss how you can use Crazy Egg’s visual data reports to enhance your CRO activities.
Crazy Egg’s Visual Data Report
Crazy Egg will provide you the following eye-tracking visuals:
- Heat maps
- Scroll maps
- Overlay
- Confetti
These visual data reports can help you understand your users’ interests, interactions and behaviour that will assist your CRO activities and increase your website’s conversion rates.
To locate these visual data reports:
- Login to your Crazy Egg account
- Click ‘Snapshots’ on the left menu tab
- Click your Snapshot campaign
- Click any of the 4 visual data reports
From there you will be able to gain insight on your users’ behaviour. In the next section we will run through each of the visual data reports.
Heat maps
A heat map uses a ‘warm-to-cool’ colour spectrum to display your web page’s analytics. It provides you a visual overview of where your visitors click on your web page. The areas where your users click most the brighter the will be – creating what is known as ‘hotspots.’
Heat maps reveal which web page elements are attractive to users and receive the most attention and which elements are being ignored. Therefore, providing you an insight into what your visitors are searching for.
For example, in the screenshot above, the heat map indicates the first image on the left received more clicks than the rest of the other elements of the web page. You can deduce that your visitors are interested in the first image on the left and may indicate they found this image relevant to their search.
On the flip side, you can also determine elements of your web page that users are not interested in and tailor your CRO activities to relocate, remove or edit web page elements.
Scroll maps
A scroll map is another type of visual data report by Crazy Egg that shows you how far users scroll down a web page. These visual data reports uses a colour coded gradient to display where your users spend most of their visiting time.
Unlike heat maps which only shows areas of your web page that receives the most interactions, scroll maps reveals areas where users spend most of their time.
The whiter the area appears the more attention and time your users have spent in this specific section. And vice versa, the bluer the area appears the less attention and time your users have spent, thus typically indicates disinterest and your users have scrolled pass these areas.
For example, in the screenshot above, the scroll map displayed a white area in the middle of the web page. This means users are spending more time in this specific section and may indicate that users found the content in this section more relevant to their search. Vice versa, the blue area towards the end of the web page may indicate content that is less irrelevant to users’ searches.
This is important in determining the placement of your web content and allows you to consider what areas contain the type of content that will engage with your users.
Confetti
The confetti visual data reports are very similar to heat maps, in that it shows you specifically where your users click. However, confetti provide a more in-depth overview in comparison to heat maps in that it reveals individual colour-coded clicks based on a variety of metrics. By default these colours represent the referral sources or where your users came from.
For example, in the screenshot below, red represent represents users’ clicks that came directly to your web page by entering your URL while orange represent users that was redirected from Google.com. From this, you will be able to see how effective your other digital marketing efforts contribute to how users interact on your webpage. If there are less orange clicks then red, it could indicate that these users arrived to your landing page based on your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) elements or Google Ads campaign and was not able to find what they were looking for.
This can help you learn more about where your visitors come from, and how user behaviour varies by referral source. Furthermore, referral sources are just the beginning! Using the drop-down list in the upper left corner, you can select from a variety of options to colour-code your clicks.
You can choose to view clicks by:
- New vs. Returning
- Referrer
- Search Terms
- Search Engine
- Country
- Device Type
- Operating System
- Browser
- Day of Week
- Time of Day
- Time to Click
- Window Width
This colour-code filter will provide you with a much thorough and precise analysis on your users clicks. The insights you receive from these colour-coded filters will assist your CRO activities by depending on the type of conversion goals you have configured for your website.
Overlay
The Overlay report provides a quantifiable breakdown of clicks on your web page. While heat maps and scroll maps show data on different sections of your web page, the overlay report provides insight on the specific web page elements.
In this report, each clickable element has a (+) marker that’s colour-coded by the number of clicks it received
This colour scheme is similar to the one used in other reports. Where by a blue (+) marker indicates that an element received few clicks, while a red marker indicates that it received a lot.
For example, in the screenshot above, the numbers indicate that 109 or 14.3% of all clicks was directed at the search bar. If a large portion of your users are clicking your search bar, it may indicate that they did not find what they were looking for and continued their search through this web page element. This may or may not be a negative insight but if the search bar appears to attract a large amount of attention, we may recommend that you make the search bar more prominent.
By clicking ‘more’ you are able to gain a more comprehensive understanding based on a variety of metrics. These metrics are exactly the same as those available in the confetti visual data reports.
You can organise your data into the following views:
- New vs. Returning
- Referrer
- Search Terms
- Search Engine
- Country
- Device Type
- Operating System
- Browser
- Day of Week
- Time of Day
- Time to Click
- Window Width
It also lets you see which elements on the page were clicked on even though they weren’t actually linked to anything. While the confetti visual data report reveals in-depth information on where user clicks, Crazy Egg’s overlay report will have you take into account web page elements that will drive the most engagement.
Crazy Egg & CRO
CRO is the systematic process of making improvements to your website with the objective of increasing your conversion goals. As we have previously mentioned in a recent blog post – How To Conduct Effective Conversion Rate Optimisation To Grow Your Business, converting in this context refers to the action you want your visitors to take while they are on your website
This could be purchasing a product via your Ecommerce website, a subscription to an online service tool or a form submission.
Therefore, CRO involves understanding what your visitors on your website are looking for, their journey as they navigate through your website and the actions they take during their visit. More importantly, CRO also involves understanding what deterrents exists on your website to prevent them from completing your website goals.
This is where Crazy Egg’s visual data reports play an imperative role. Whether you choose to utilise a heat map to understand which areas users engage most or a scroll map to determine which section of your web page user spent most of their time, these visual data reports will provide you with a rich and insightful understanding of your users’ behaviour.
As you continue to analyse your user behaviour with these visual data reports, you will be able to identify behaviour patterns and modify web page elements that will encourage users to perform a desired action and boost your conversion rates.
Conclusion
CRO tools such as Crazy Egg can provide you with a comprehensive visual overview of how users navigate, interact and engage with certain areas and elements of your web page. This will allow you to assess your users’ journey and coordinate your CRO activities to encourage users to perform desired actions depending on the conversion goal you have configured for your website. This will boost your overall conversion rates and will allow your business to grow.
