Heatmaps
See where visitors click, how far down each page they scroll and where their attention goes, per device, over a picture of the page.
A heatmap lays what visitors do over a picture of the page: where they click, how far down they scroll, and which parts they spend time looking at. Where session replay shows one visit, a heatmap shows everyone's visits together.
Open Page Heatmaps in the dashboard, go from a page on the Pages report to its heatmap, or select Heatmap while watching a replay to open the heatmap of the page on screen. Heatmaps are included on plans with session replay.
What feeds it
Each heatmap draws on something the widget records, so switch these on first:
| Heatmap | Needs | Where |
|---|
| Click | Click Tracking | Tracking Config → Auto-Tracking |
| Scroll and Attention | Scroll Tracking | Tracking Config → Auto-Tracking |
| The picture of the page | Session recording | Tracking Config → Recording |
The picture is taken from a recorded visit, once the visitor has scrolled three quarters of the way down or stayed 20 seconds, so that content revealed by scrolling is in it. Until a recorded visit gets that far, the heatmap is drawn without a background. Every number is still real; only the picture is missing.
Reading a heatmap
Pick the page from the menu in the toolbar, then a device and a heatmap.
- Desktop, Tablet and Mobile are always kept apart, because the same page is laid out differently on each. Tablet is a window 641 to 1024 pixels wide; mobile is anything narrower. The page menu shows how many views each device has, so you can see which one has the data.
- Click shows where visitors click. The Elements panel beside it ranks the most-clicked elements, with the same numbers as the markers on the map, and whether each one is above or below the fold. Hover a row to find it on the page.
- Scroll shows how many visitors reached each part of the page. The Depth panel lists, for each band, the share of visitors who got that far (Reach), how many stopped there (Drop) and the average time spent on it.
- Attention shows where visitors spent their time. Only active time counts: after 30 seconds without scrolling, clicking or typing the clock stops, unless audible video or audio is playing.
- Opacity fades the heat so you can read the page underneath.
- View replays opens the recordings for the same device, to watch the visits behind the heat.
The bar under the picture shows the page views behind the map, how far visitors got on average and their average time on the page.
When to trust it
- Low sample appears when a device has fewer than 10 page views in the date range. Widen the range before reading anything into it.
- Snapshot height differs means the page has changed length since its picture was taken, so the heat may sit over the wrong content.
- Clicks predate position tracking counts clicks recorded before the widget saved where on the page they landed. They're in the totals but can't be drawn.
Heatmaps follow the date range at the top of the dashboard. A page redesign halfway through a range mixes two layouts, so start the range after the change.
Privacy
The page picture comes from a recording, so it follows the same privacy rules as session replay: form fields are masked, and elements you mark as private are masked or left out. In consent mode, nothing is recorded until the visitor accepts.