What You Need to Know About Heatmaps April 18, 2018, | Posted by Erin

One of the go-to metrics for email success is open rate, but logically speaking, consumers merely opening the emails you send doesn’t tell the whole story. Even when paired with click-through rates, there’s a major aspect of the effectiveness question that email marketers can miss. Enter heatmaps. As we at Site Impact know, heatmaps can be a valuable tool for understanding what factors in an email campaign are driving success, as well as those that are bringing an otherwise good campaign down. By understanding this technology, you can consider a new tool that could really improve your marketing effectiveness.

First of all, we should explain what a heatmap is. In the most basic terms, a heatmap provides a quick visual reference for how consumers engage with content--in this case, in an email. Color layers above content highlight which parts of a marketing creative and which parts of content users spend and spent the most time engaging with and looking at--as well as what and where clicks occur. In short, heatmaps close the knowledge gap, letting marketers find out which aspects of the email campaign are floundering, as well as which are successful--which allows them to then go on and tweak. Most commonly, heatmaps are employed during A/B testing at the early stage of campaign deployment and development, but they can absolutely be used throughout the lifecycle of the campaign.

Heatmaps can also provide opportunities for brands and marketers alike to get some information. Since heatmaps allow marketers to see clicks, it enables them to attribute conversions to certain links, devices, or campaigns. With that knowledge, marketers can adjust their strategies and spend to focus on the tactic that is working best for them. For example, if more than one campaign shows a majority of clicks are coming from mobile rather than desktop email, gearing future campaigns towards mobile-first would enhance them and increase future ROI. In addition, heatmaps can inform whether or not brands and marketers should use certain tactics; response to those tactics in creative and content development can make those choices easier, and help fine-tune things. Incremental changes lead to long-term success, and that’s true in email as well as in other areas of life and marketing.

Heatmaps are a great tool to help marketers understand how recipients engage with the emails they open, almost reaching the level of reading their minds as they look at the marketing message. By looking at where consumers click, what they spend the most time looking at, and what device they’re using to open the email, brands and marketers can learn what consumers want, how they respond, and how to get the message across to them the most effectively. While here at Site Impact, we know that conversions and opens are prime metrics for understand email marketing effectiveness, there are so many tools to choose from to drill down to not just the basic levels of understanding consumer behavior, but also the deeper engagement that recipients have with creative and content. Contact us today to find out what else we can tell you about getting into your recipients’ heads.