![Heatmap CUX](/uploads/HM_1_2dff0037fc.png)

## Find high-activity areas
Heatmaps make it easy to find sections of your website that show the highest activity in terms of cursor movement and mouse clicks. These areas will usually be marked in red or dark orange.

Once you spot those areas, make sure to evaluate whether the content that’s placed there is actually among the most important information or CTAs for a given page. Sometimes due to design flaws, flashy images, or interactive elements, visitors are not looking where they should, which results in a suboptimal conversion rate.

A good practice is to design a page in a way that puts the most focus on the crucial elements, like:

- The description of the offer
- Product images
- Main CTA


All the secondary content should draw proportionally less attention.

## Find non-clickable elements that get clicks

Static rectangles that look like buttons, underlined text that’s not a link, small images that you can’t enlarge… sounds familiar, right? This kind of UX happens all around the web and since tracking software like Google Analytics does not really report clicks on non-clickable elements, it’s difficult to know when exactly users are getting frustrated.

That’s where heatmaps come into play with their click-map reports, which collect data about any click, no matter if the element is a link or not. An important analysis you should do is to check whether non-clickable elements actually get clicks.

If that’s the case, then you have a decision to make:

1. Change the design, so an element doesn’t look clickable anymore.
2. Enable a user to click an element and provide the expected functionality, like a modal with more information on a subject or a feature for enlarging images.
3. Simply remove an element, so it no longer confuses the user.


Either way, you will improve your UX, and consequently the conversion rate. A less frustrated user is more likely to make a purchase.

 

## Improve clarity by removing unnecessary content
There is a never-ending debate out there whether web pages should be long or short. The best answer here is that a page should be as long as necessary, but at the same time, it just has to be engaging.

How to find the sweet spot? I don’t think that a perfect process exists here, but heatmaps can definitely help you get more insights about page length and content.

First, look at a scroll heatmap and check how many visitors reach the bottom part of a page. If it’s a low number, then you should probably reduce the amount of content or rewrite the copy, change images, or design, to keep users engaged.

Another aspect is analyzing the interactions with certain elements of the page:

1. Does the product video get any views?
2. Do the users click on the accordion to learn more?
3. Do the product description tabs get any clicks?
4. Which CTAs are ignored?
5. Does anyone browse through the testimonials?


The answers to these questions will help you get the gist of what is important for the visitors, and what is not. You can go ahead and test removing the content which belongs to the latter category. It will improve the clarity of the page.

 

## Detect and eliminate distractions
There is a special category of website content: distractions. All the elements that get more exposure and interactions than they should, belong to this category.

The human eye is naturally drawn to movement. We just can’t help but look at a moving carousel or auto-played video. As long as an interactive element on a page is a crucial piece of content that convinces a user to convert, this is okay. But if you promote some niche products with a highly visible banner or a carousel, then it simply distracts the visitor and takes his focus away from the most important action.

Heatmaps are great for detecting distractions. You can find the areas that get a lot of cursor movement or clicks but are not necessarily helpful in explaining your offer or enticing the visitor to buy.

Every interaction or decision a user has to make on a website costs him energy. The less energy the user has, the more likely he is to abandon the page without converting.

Make sure you don’t distract the user with unnecessary information, or at least don’t display it in a highly visible, interactive format.

 
## Conclusion
One thing I know for sure is that heatmaps are not a magical cure for all the conversion problems. It’s just one of many [UX research methods](https://www.nngroup.com/articles/which-ux-research-methods/), but it’s simplicity and low barrier to entry make it worthwhile.

Heatmaps can surely help you discover conversion issues on certain pages. But remember that you need good decision-making and excellent execution in terms of design & coding in order to implement necessary fixes, which can eventually lead to a higher conversion rate.

_

**Damian Rams** – web analytics and conversion optimization consultant. He implements Google Analytics, [GoogleTag Manager](https://www.damianrams.pl/google-tag-manager/), and other analytics tools. He helps companies analyze data and use it for improving the conversion rate. He ran a blog about web analytics and CRO.


If you have any questions, doubts, would like to implement analytics or solve a problem on your website (or maybe you just want to say “hi” 😉) – drop a line at [paulina@cux.io](mailto:paulina@cux.io). We will be more than happy to hear from you ❤️ And if you would like to receive newest information about our product, sign up for [the CUX newsletter](https://share.hsforms.com/1zmJkyNsvRPSLaAgf-pYNWA2pu7b).

4 ways to increase conversion with heatmaps

Conversion-increase-with-heatmaps

Heatmaps are a fantastic way to locate UX issues on your website. You can discover great opportunities to grow your conversion rate without breaking the bank since this research method is relatively inexpensive, both money- and time-wise. In this article, I’ll show you four types of conversion issues that you can uncover with the help of heatmapping software. 
(Guest post with Damian Rams)

![Create and analyze event based conversion](/uploads/pic1_3_2fec45fb0f.png)

Most probably, when it comes to conversion funnels, everything has already been said. But yet in the era of ubiquitous pop-ups, animations and hoovers, analyzing conversions based only on URLs is simply insufficient. There is also growing dissonance on the market between the implementation of complex analyses using artificial intelligence, machine learning and so-called _half-baked analytics_ (that will implement anything that’s currently trendy). 

So how do we detect actual customer problems, and more importantly, how do we draw the right conclusions for our business? The answer is comprehensive conversion analysis, based on events and user visits. Sounds complicated? Well, it’s not. 

The most popular and widespread way of measuring conversion used to be analysis based on URLs (because not everyone can afford to script each potential event on the page). However, let’s face the truth – neither single numbers (indicators) nor qualitative analysis of sessions alone will give us the full picture, or provide specific, ready to implement solutions. [Conversion Waterfalls](https://cux.io/blog/product/conversion-waterfall-the-new-quality-of-measuring-the-conversion-rate/) come to the rescue here.

![Conversion Waterfall cux.io](/uploads/f3_6f6d246a5d.jpeg)

They are nothing but extended conversion funnels that allow you to measure what has been missing so far, between page reloads – button clicks, user behavior while filling out forms, opening or closing all kinds of context windows. True, such conversion measurement has been possible for a while now, even with Google Analytics. However, it used to require a lot of IT engagement, development and technical knowledge. The challenge of implementing analytics based on “small data” is to use solutions that are mindful about the methodology. In the case of Conversion Waterfalls, the auto-capture function (the event’s self-capture by the application) replaces IT and allows the analyst to provide the application with access paths to the elements and set the funnel.

Based on individual events, we can build very extensive funnels that take into consideration all types of events that our customer encounters along the way to buy. You think: This is great! I get accurate information on where users drop out, I know what drops we are dealing with and how this relates to the remaining steps on the path. However, even such an accurate analysis will not provide us with solutions and will not bring the answer to the most important questions.  E.g. why are we seeing a drop of users at this specific point? Therefore, in the case of Waterfall Conversion, this is not the end of the process. When such a “why?” question appears, by using Waterfalls we can immediately see what exactly happened to the user and why he did not perform the desired action.

Based on the observations of sometimes even several recordings, it will become clear whether the users did not notice the button, the description of the field raised their doubts, something (e.g. pop-up) appeared on their screen, which distracted their attention or something else caused the fact that they didn’t move to the next step on the path. 

Visit recordings analyses are the easiest way to find ready to be applied, quick wins almost immediately. The implementation of this solution allows you to improve your conversion results on a day to day basis. Imagine a situation, where you start a marketing campaign that should generate a significant number of new baskets, but after the first day, you realize that sales instead of growing – drop. You check your campaign – everything works as it should. You move on to analyzing what clients’ paths looked like for this campaign. To your surprise, the browser did not keep the page’s cookies, so, as a consequence, the customers got a different offer on the landing page and a different one in the basket. Next step? You are able to react properly, without waiting for the end of the campaign and save a significant portion of your budget.

With this approach, remember that all Waterfall analytics is retroactive, so you don’t have to be sure from the beginning what you want to research and set data collection for a specific scenario. You can always change the perspective or context if a new hypothesis appears based on user behavior. All you need to do is simply set up a new Waterfall saying: I check, **I don’t guess**!

![Keep calm and analyze your data](/uploads/keep_calm_and_analyze_your_data_1500_1500_black_white_700x607_8b8380d428.jpeg)

If you have any questions, doubts, would like to implement analytics or solve a problem on your website (or maybe you just want to say “hi” 😉) – drop a line at [paulina@cux.io](mailto:paulina@cux.io). We will be more than happy to hear from you ❤️ And if you would like to receive newest information about our product, sign up for [the CUX newsletter](https://share.hsforms.com/1zmJkyNsvRPSLaAgf-pYNWA2pu7b).

How-to-create-analyze-event-based-conversion.png

Have you ever wondered if your analytical tools setup will allow you to draw the right conclusions for your business? Have you ever looked at a bunch of data sets and had no idea what it means? Don’t worry, you’re not alone. These are frequent dilemmas, and ever since the development of digital products has been unstoppable, the various analytics products that are available on the market are just trying to keep up.

How to create and analyze event-based conversion?

Analytics and indicators that are important for a particular business, can be a difficult and intimidating topic. This problem occurs especially when we don’t know exactly what to monitor, we have no reference point and we don’t know the market standards.

## A single indicator doesn’t show the whole story

The truth is that talking about indicators with people from the industry or following reports might be a trap for your business. On the one hand, knowledge of what they look like somewhere else, will give you a broader view and references for your results. On the other hand, you should remember that sticking to these averages may not contribute to the spectacular, long-term success of your business. Maintaining a satisfactory level of conversion may not always go hand in hand with a similar level of customer satisfaction. [Customer feedback](https://www.liveagent.com/ticketing-software/) is a great example of this kind of trap. You can’t make decisions about changing the direction of development based on a single opinion.

## Let’s leave sales for a moment and take a closer look at customer experience

IKEA brings forward a cool example of strong customer experience alertness. A landmark analytics study for this European furniture giant, was the idea to juxtapose their sensational sales results with the actual, everyday reality of IKEA stores. Long queues, irritated, tired customers, people experiencing many unpleasant situations, those were some of your typical images in many IKEA branches. Seeing this, opened the decision makers’ eyes – these great sales results won’t actually do IKEA any good long term. IKEA doesn’t want its brand to be associated with queuing torment. Everything that IKEA stands for, as a brand, is to, not only provide people furniture and interior design accessories, but also bring joy and entertainment in their lives during a weekend trip with family. A long and arduous process of change has started at IKEA.

A big trap in analytics is excessive focus on individual indicators. We should focus instead on placing them in the context of, primarily, the behavior of our customers and users. If sales increase because of great marketing, chances are this will be temporary. Whether or not we use this situation to improve our services for the future, depends on us.

IKEA’s case is very complex. Their online sales results collide with offline observations. Fortunately, things are a bit simpler in the world of digital products. Colliding sales data with user behavior can take place naturally, step by step, with no need to create external reports. How? We will try to explain this further.

## Customers don’t like to buy via mobile?

We often hear that customers of various online stores don’t buy products on mobile devices; they only browse them and make the right purchases on the computer. Yes, this is happening, but not because they want to. They are simply used to do this, because websites aren’t responsive enough for mobile shopping. Surely, you’ve experienced the need to postpone shopping to when you get home, even though you wanted to buy the item then and there.

![Wolfgang Digital's KPI Report 2019](/uploads/11_700x317_a4ad767ab6.png)

This case can also be associated with social selling in Poland. Let’s imagine that we are marketing our product on social media, maybe even in cooperation with an influencer. There is hype, the internet is buzzing about our product and our conversion is growing. Success! Our goal has been achieved.

Now, let’s reverse the situation and look closer from the user’s perspective. The user sees something he likes, feels that he wants to have it, and in addition it’s promoted by someone he admires. So, he clicks… and this is where the plot thickens. He is redirected to the home page, instead of the particular product. Not ideal, but the adrenaline is still working. He decides to search for this product, a few minutes later succeeds! He checks the price, size, it’s all correct. He clicks and is redirected to the payment page, that doesn’t even have a mobile version! Everything is messed up: it is difficult to enter data, not to mention process the payment, so he decides to move his purchase to the computer. Everything ends well, if he has immediate access to the computer. But this scenario won’t happen every time – and remember: every additional minute to make a decision lowers the chances of buying.

## How to turn bad indicators into success?
Last year, we decided to do a Black Friday promotion at cux.io.

![CUX Black Friday 2019](/uploads/BF_250x139_1c2a3bfc0c.png)

In addition to the obvious desire to boost sales, we used this opportunity of increased website traffic to analyze the behavior of potential customers and improve the registration page. Sales increased, but not enough for us to be 100% satisfied. Additionally, we noticed that the bounce rate on the registration page was much higher than we would like it to be.

### Was the campaign finally worth it?

Totally. We gained new customers, which was our main goal! But we also used it to completely change the registration page and improve the UX of our site visitors. This campaign was probably even more valuable when it comes to the long-term relationship with our customers.

In each of these cases, you can see that you don’t need to do much to change your relationship with customers. They show us what they need, what they go missing. The key is to combine this information and not to analyze the conversion rate as a standalone indicator, but in the context of observing why users drop off. Such observations can be made using [conversion waterfalls](https://cux.io/blog/conversion-waterfall-the-new-quality-of-measuring-the-conversion-rate/). A conversion waterfall is an extensive sales funnel, which gives you the possibility of seeing the percentage of customers that have resigned from purchasing your product / service and then – watching specific recordings of visits where this situation took place. From here, you’re only one step away from making decisions and implementing changes that will positively affect not only your statistics, but also the users’ experience.

![Digital customer journey](/uploads/CINCH_CUSTOMER_JOURNEY_700x405_ea98cf3f05.png)

## How to start using analytics?
The recipe for building a basic analytical strategy is very simple and can bring spectacular results.

### Step by step, all you have to do is:

#### 1. Take a closer look at the numbers
Indicators in tools such as Google Analytics should be a warning signal, a hint where to look for a problem and for the possibility of improvement.

#### 2. Determine the real cause of the problem by observing user behavior
Observation of users’ behavior allows us to see whether users get to those places on our website that we want them to, whether they are lost or have problems with filling the form or noticing CTA.

#### 3. Analyze feedback from users collected in conversations, emails, CRM or social media.
We usually don’t need additional surveys for this. Users are happy to exchange opinions and recommendations on their favorite tools, and their opinions on competing solutions will also tell us a lot.

#### 4. Verify this with our roadmap and business plans.
This additional feature will not increase sales, as developers of SaaS seem to often think. If any business solution is not favorable for us at the moment, we should verify our roadmap, set priorities from scratch and then make a decision.

#### 5. Implement the solution 🙂
Remember that sometimes the solutions defined in this way are so simple that from the moment you observe the problem to noticing the positive effects of the implemented changes, 24 hours is enough.

If you have any questions, doubts, would like to implement analytics or solve a problem on your website (or maybe you just want to say “hi” 😉) – drop a line at [paulina@cux.io](mailto:paulina@cux.io). We will be more than happy to hear from you ❤️ And if you would like to receive newest information about our product, sign up for [the CUX newsletter](https://share.hsforms.com/1zmJkyNsvRPSLaAgf-pYNWA2pu7b).

High-conversio-rate-mean-great-customer-experience.png

Usually, great sales results are an opportunity to celebrate – finally, our efforts have paid off and there is nothing to worry about! But what if this success is just the result of a temporary need or trend and doesn’t contribute to building a sustainable, long term business at all? It is much easier to build a positive relationship with customers while they are around, rather than feverishly search for solutions, once they’ve magically disappeared.