Welcome to this lesson of our Growth Hacking Academy, where we’ll tackle Hotjar. What it is and what it’s for, how to use it effectively, what its main features are, what it costs, and whether there are solid alternatives.
We’re confident you’ve wondered, or that you’ll find the subject interesting — it’s no accident that the rapid spread of this growth hacking tool has been much discussed lately.
In this lesson we’ll clear up every doubt about Hotjar, so let’s not waste time — here we go!
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What is Hotjar?
Hotjar is an all-in-one visual analytics platform that lets you understand and monitor what users do inside a website. By combining analytics and feedback features, the tool gives digital marketers and growth hackers useful insights on which to base — and over time refine — their digital strategy.
That information includes:
Analytics
- session recordings and their average duration;
- traffic sources;
- bounce rate;
- eye-tracking heatmaps of clicks and actions taken;
- pages visited, time on page and exit points;
- reports on the conversion funnel.
Feedback
- feedback from polls;
- incoming feedback;
- surveys;
- and plenty more.
Note: what is visual analytics? Visual analysis is a field of enquiry focused on analytical reasoning about data presented through interactive visual interfaces.
Image from Hotjar.com
What is Hotjar for?
Thanks to its many features, beyond defining and monitoring your digital strategy the Hotjar tool proves particularly useful for:
- running A/B tests;
- analysing forms;
- improving the conversion funnel;
- optimizing web pages and landing pages for conversion;
- improving user experience and engagement;
- building a customer journey that increases lead generation and sales.
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Why should you use Hotjar?
Let’s go through the advantages and disadvantages of using Hotjar.
Advantages
Five good reasons to use the Hotjar tool:
- although the technology behind it is advanced and precise, the tool is available in a free basic version. There’s also a paid “pro” version, at a reasonable price;
- it’s easy to set up and use, even for people with no technical background;
- customer support is easy to reach and quick to reply;
- a simple editor lets you build powerful responsive surveys;
- it captures data and insights the free version of Google Analytics can’t give you.
Disadvantages
Hotjar, like Google Analytics, is an excellent tool for understanding user behaviour — but it complements rather than replaces it.
Unlike Google Analytics, Hotjar can give you richer qualitative data about “in-page” visits. On the other hand, its analytical capture of data covers smaller numbers and is slightly less precise.
Even so, its use is widely recommended, including for complex sites such as ecommerce stores.
How does Hotjar work?
Having covered what Hotjar is, let’s look at exactly how it works.
Like Google Analytics and other web analytics software, capturing data requires installing a “tracking code” — the Hotjar tracking code — on every page of the website. To work, the code loads a JavaScript file that from then on records the various interactions and sends the data to the server, where it’s processed and returned as reports.
The first step, though, is registering on the platform and creating a free Hotjar account.
How to create a Hotjar account
The steps to create an account:
- go to the Hotjar site (here) and enter your first and last name and an email address in the form, or register with your Google account;
- click “let’s get started”;
Image from Hotjar.com
- enter a password and accept the terms of use;
- state your role and the name of your organisation and click “next”;
- enter the URL of the site you want to use the tool on and specify its type;
- click “start using Hotjar” to finish registering.
How to install the Hotjar tracking code
The guided installation generates the tracking code.
Once the system has given you the Hotjar tracking code, the next step is putting it on every page of the site. The code can be added by hand directly on your site (if you don’t know how, ask a developer for help), through Google Tag Manager or another tag management system, or through the Hotjar plugin for WordPress (video tutorial).
For manual installation, here are the details from the Hotjar install guide documentation (here it is):
- check whether your platform is compatible with Hotjar;
- go to your “sites list” and click the “tracking code” button for the site you want to track;
- click “copy to clipboard” on the right;
- paste the code into the “head” section of your website;
- tick “add the tracking code to your site template” so that every page is tracked;
- after a few minutes, check from the site dashboard that the code was installed correctly.
How to use Hotjar
Once you’ve logged in for the first time (or logged in again later) you’re shown the dashboard.
On the left of the interface are the various reports, while at the top right there’s an indicator showing whether your IP address is blocked and whether the tracking code is working.
Hotjar reports
On the right you see recent activity, from which a click takes you straight to the relevant reports.
The main reports the Hotjar tool offers are Analytics and Feedback.
Image from Hotjar.com
Analytics
Here are Hotjar’s analytics reports:
Heatmaps
A heatmap is a graphical representation of data in which individual values for user interactions (mouse movements, clicks, scrolling, taps and so on) are shown in colour. Red marks the hot points or areas — the ones with most interaction — followed by yellow and blue (cold points, where users paid least attention).
From the site dashboard you can click “Heatmaps” to reach the relevant board and see the ones you have. From the “view heatmaps” dropdown on the right you can pause, share, duplicate, edit, delete or view them.
Image from Hotjar.com
Once a heatmap is open, options appear at the top of the page: viewing on desktop or device, the type of heatmap, and downloading it as a .jpeg.
Image from Hotjar.com
There are several types of heatmap in Hotjar:
- Click heatmaps: show where users are clicking on the page, which calls to action (CTAs) get clicked most, which products get clicked most, which links are followed most, and which media held their interest. Hover over a particular point on the map and the relevant data appears.
Image from Hotjar.com
- Move heatmaps: show the points on the page where users moved the mouse without necessarily clicking.
Image from Hotjar
- Scroll maps: show how far down a page a user scrolled. Here the red area means that section was seen by every user, while the blue was seen by fewer than 25%. This map is therefore particularly useful for SEO and SEM.
Image from Hotjar.com
Visitor recordings
This report has several features, listed below. For fuller information see the Hotjar documentation (here).
- Session replay: lets you see how visitors actually behave on your site. You’ll see recordings of where users clicked, where they moved the mouse, their scrolling, and the paths they followed during their sessions.
- Tag recordings: allows recordings to be labelled automatically.
- View user actions and take notes: a short text shows the actions users took, along with information such as user and time, plus notes on possible actions to take.
- Share recordings with anyone: a button lets you share recordings easily.
- Easily filter your recordings: filters let you narrow the information you care about by content, exit pages and UTM source.
- Suppress keystrokes and text: this feature masks sensitive information if a user enters it.
Image from Hotjar.com
Conversion funnel
This Hotjar report shows whether visitors to your site or store found what they were looking for, and on which pages and at which steps of the conversion funnel they abandoned the site.
That naturally opens up great opportunities for A/B testing and for improving the conversion rate (CR).
Image from Hotjar.com
Form analysis
Another useful report, showing how forms are used.
It yields useful information: which fields visitors left blank, which fields take too long, which fields were filled in again, why users abandoned the form and the page, and plenty more.
The information Hotjar gathers here is then used to put in place actions that raise the form’s completion rate.
Image from Hotjar.com
Feedback
Here are Hotjar’s feedback reports:
Feedback from polls
One way to improve a website’s performance and its user experience (UX) is understanding what users want and giving it to them before they’ve even said it.
To that end, Hotjar’s ability to create polls with targeted questions aimed at a specific group of users, on desktop and mobile alike, proves useful. The feedback from their answers appears in the relevant report.
Useful resources:
Hotjar polls documentation (here)
Which questions to ask (here)
Incoming feedback
This feature lets visitors leave instant visual feedback on a site or web application easily.
The report therefore gives useful information for understanding what users genuinely like or dislike, opening up new opportunities for improvement.
Image from Hotjar.com
Surveys
Another useful Hotjar feature lets you build customised surveys through a simple editor and gather feedback in real time from desktop and mobile alike.
Surveys can then be shared by web link or email, or you can invite users to answer or object before they leave the page or the site.
Among the features on offer:
- building cross-device surveys that are easy to use;
- using multiple questions including the Net Promoter Score (NPS);
- inviting visitors to take part easily;
- viewing the results for each question.
Useful resources:
Documentation (here)
The ultimate guide to survey questions – with 50+ examples (here)
Recruit test users
Hotjar can also be used to profile and recruit users for tests and research directly from your site.
Just as easily you can see participants’ demographic information and customise the widgets.
What does Hotjar cost?
Hotjar offers different plans depending on whether the user is an individual or student, a company or a web agency.
Hotjar Free is the cheapest option but carries significant limits. Hotjar Pro or Plus is aimed at professionals who need more room to move, while the agency plan is the most complete.
The latter two come with a monthly or annual subscription ranging from $40 to $289 a month for the personal and business plans, while the agency plan requires you to get in touch.
The subscription plans include a 15-day trial.
Image from Hotjar.com
Alternatives to Hotjar
The market offers solid alternatives to Hotjar with similar features, such as those shown below:
- Mouseflow (go to site)
- Inspectlet (go to site)
- Crazy Egg (go to site)
Image from whitesharkmedia.com
Conclusion
By now you’ll have a clearer idea of what Hotjar is, how it works and how you can use it for your website or store.
This lesson has given you a grounding in one of the most widely used growth hacking tools — though what may still be unclear is how to fit the tool into your growth hacking strategy.
So we’d suggest going back to the earlier lessons of our Academy and staying with us: in the lessons ahead we’ll go deeper into growth hacking topics and tools.
Stay tuned to your favourite Growth Hacking Academy!
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