Review: Heatmap & user recording software

ClickTale is the most mature service of the bunch. They have taken several steps to set themselves apart:

• A separate side-service only for tracking mobile users
• Integration with partners that lets you dwell into your Optimizely A/B tests or Omniture segments (and cookies)
• Reuse of reports and segments of Google Analytics, Omniture, etc.
• Bounce reports
  • Hard bounces (4 seconds)
  • Soft bounces (the wrong people)

ClickTale argues that “it’s easy to just look at heatmaps and draw conclusions – everybody can do that – the hard thing is analysing the data. This is where ClickTale excells.” When you start a cooperation with ClickTale, trained personnel will assist you in understanding your data.

ClickTale is a full-fledged analytics suite that its competitors aren’t even close to matching. Its palette of features and possibilities is so broad, that you need a dedicated professional to get the most out of what ClickTale provides. If you are just starting out, I wouldn’t even dream of starting with ClickTale.

It wasn’t possible to get an average price out of the marketing staff that agreed to talk to me. I assume ClickTale is not cheap.

Mouseflow

Mouseflow is one of the older players and has a user base to prove it. It is rock solid and works perfectly. Compared to the rest of the bunch, it seems a bit old in its user interface and some the user experience challenges it faces have been solved more smoothly by its younger competitors. Mouseflow has recently relaunched its site with a new, intuitive, smooth, and up-to-date interface.

The lack of funnel analysis, form analytics, and direct user feedback options puts Mouseflow in the back of the race in terms of number of features. Mouseflow recently launched extensive form analysis, that unlike it’s competitors, support live filtering of all forms, back in time, with shortcuts to user recordings that show concrete users dropping out.

However, the service Mouseflow provide is hassle-free, smooth, and always on. It is not as full-fledged as ClickTale, but at the same time not as bloated. It is easier to use than its closest competitors.

Mouseflow is a data company. They are the only service that lets you live filter heat maps and recordings – that is from hundred of thousands of recordings. Where HotJar uses sampling of data to make heat maps seem more alive, Mouseflow has a no-cheating approach that handles impressive amounts of data in real time.

Live filtering of heat maps makes it possible to investigate specific user segments: is the behavior the same when people come from google vs facebook? How is the behavior different between people who bounce and people who are engaged (who view more than one page, who interacts with forms, or who complete a sign up).

Inspectlet

Inspectlet is simple to use. It gets out of the way in order to let the user do what he or she needs. The simple funnel analysis and filtering options is a breeze to use and covered my basic needs.

Navilytics

Setting up Navilytics was easy and painless. Although the user interface isn’t as pretty and polished as its competitors, Navilytics does its job well. Most analytics features are there, but aren’t explained and introduced well. This gets annoying.

As one of the only products in the test, Navilytics features the same confetti segmentation as CrazyEgg does. That’s a major plus. So is the ability to share recordings with your co-workers via a secret URL.

SeeVolution

SeeVolution is a minimal but sleek service that takes a different approach than the rest. As opposed to a backend-style analytics interface of its competitors, all analytics is done directly on your own site.

If you’re logged in to the SeeVolution service, a small marker will appear in the bottom left of your page. When you click it, you can explore heat maps (and layer them on top of each other) as well as see real time analytics. If you’re on a mobile device, the heat map data will filter acoordingly. By far the sleekest interface.

On the downside, the massive client side javascript made my CPU fan go crazy – it could use some tweaking. The SeeVolution only provide heat maps and real time analytics; no visitor replay, campaign tracking, or surveys.

However, the interface and idea is so sleek, that the service is worth mentioning.

Report based services

Report-based heatmap services are cheaper than the always-on kind. Furthermore, you rarely run out of recordings and heatmaps can be saved for later comparison. Ordered by popularity, the report based services are Crazy Egg, Lucky Orange, HotJar, and MouseStats.

Crazy Egg

CrazyEgg is the most widespread service of the bunch due to how long they’ve been in the game. The age of the service has matured it into being rock solid and stable. Its maturity unfortunately also reflects on the user experience, feature palette, and usefulness.

When generating heat maps, you have to set up separate reports for mobile and tablet users. The process is cumbersome. Why not just generate for all devices at once?

CrazyEgg creates heatmaps for you. That’s it. However, the heatmaps they do deliver are top notch. I am especially fond of the confetti map, which lets you visually explore and filter clicks through a large variety of metrics including search terms and google analytics campaign codes.

CrazyEgg does only few things, but do them well. There are several downfalls though: sparse feature palette, no tracking of logged-in pages, and weird differentiation between desktop, tablet, and mobile. I would love to see a CrazyEgg 2.0.

Lucky Orange

Signing up for Lucky Orange is a blast. It’s a smooth proces that even makes you happy.

As soon as you’ve installed the javascript code on your website, you start seeing the dashboard change. A doorbell rings every time a new visitor arrives (you can turn it off). It’s like being in a computer game that you want to keep open in the background as you proceed with other work. If you get stuck, they even have a live chat that will guide on your way to get the most out of the service. It’s a joy. Lucky Orange is full of small details.

Lucky Orange allows watching what your visitors are doing live. On top of that, you can even start a chat with live visitors: either to aid them toward their goal or enquire what went wrong.

Setting up customised pop-up surveys and polls, you can ask your visitors questions. The focus for Lucky Orange seems to be on live interaction rather than being a silent listener.

The downside of Lucky Orange is that it’s report based. You have to know what you’re looking for. To view heatmaps or analyze forms, you have to set up reports. They take a few minutes to render, but once created, they are in the prettier and more useful end of the scale.

Another downside is that, it seems like Lucky Orange haven’t quite broken the mobile vs desktop problem. It seems as if the same heat map graphics are used for both views.

HotJar

HotJar is new on the scene and currently in beta mode. They are advertising heavily for people to sign up for their beta and is gaining momentum all around. As the only heatmap service, HotJar will feature a flat $29 plan with unlimited access. If that holds true, HotJar is going to beat its report-based competitors on price and be the cheapest.

The full-fledged feature suite is parted into two: analysis and feedback. The analysis part includes heat maps, session recording and playback, conversion funnel, and form analysis (not launched at the time of writing). The feedback part includes polls, surveys, and recruitment of user testers

HotJar is report-based and operates with a snapshot concept similar to Crazy Egg and Lucky Orange. Compared to the rest of the field, this is HotJar’s biggest drawback and renders it less useless than the top tiers. To get a heat map, you create a heatmap report, that then collects data from 2000 pageviews. Once recorded, the heatmap is done and archived. That allows for comparison between heat maps snap shots over time.

HotJar is fresh out of the box and even though it is still in beta mode, attention have been paid to usability and user experience. The interface is clear and uncluttered.

The feedback section of HotJar is well executed. You can setup and target user polls and surveys for specific URLs (on a receipt page, perhaps?) and set the prompts to only appear after a delay, on abandonment, or when the user has scrolled halfway down the page.

MouseStats

MouseStats is multiple times cheaper than its report-based competitors, which is its main upside. The feature list is long and you can do most of what its competitors offer. The area statistics feature that lets you compare the performance of two separate areas (i.e. an enclosed area of pixels) on your site in terms of clicks, and attention.

The downside is poor execution in the details. Examples are the scroll heatmaps that do not show percentages and form analytics that aren’t shown visually on top of form fields.

Pricing

Depending on how much traffic you have, different price points will match your site. I have compared prices in three price-points – $20-$30, $50-$75, and $100-$150. Each service have been ordered by the cost per thousand visitor (Cost Per Mille – CPM).

Disclaimer: The limits set on the HotJar service is artificial – they will (once they launch) provide a one-fee service with unlimited recordings. Secondly: If a service charges per pageview and not per visitor, 4 pageviews per visitor is assumed.

Report based: If you only look at price, Crazy Egg looks like the undisputed winner of the report based services, with HotJar coming up right behind them with their fixed $29 unlimited plan and Lucky Orange also being a great contenter. Crazy Egg lacks user recording playback and several other major features, where HotJar excells.

Always on: SeeVolution is the price winner of the always on services, but as with Crazy Egg, lacks playing back user recordings. That leaves Inspectlet as having the best price.

The verdict

Comparing all services, one stand out as being more professional and more mature: ClickTale. If you have got the money and are more than serious about your analytics needs, they seem like the obvious choice.

Lining up the score, the winners are:

Verdict: Report based heatmap services

Even though Lucky Orange is the most smooth, mature and joyful software to use of the report services its price weighs it down. This puts HotJar in front of the report based category, even though its still in beta. Lucky Orange is a strong contender as well since they updated their pricing strategy in March 2015 (prices have been updated in this review). If you are all out of money, go for MouseStats. The report-based approach is not recommended.

Verdict: Always on heatmap services

The winner of the always on category is Mouseflow. Always-on services is recommended.