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User Guide: Web Analytics

Updated over 2 weeks ago

Make smarter, faster optimization decisions with analytics built for your website

Heatmap Web Analytics gives you razor-sharp clarity into how real people behave on your site. No fluff. No bots. No vanity metrics.

Most analytics platforms include junk traffic by default: non-human sessions, instant bounces, or visits with zero interaction. These can make up 4–12% of total sessions on ecommerce sites, skewing your data and leading to decisions based on noise, not reality. Heatmap filters them out entirely, so every session you see reflects actual shopper behavior.

From uncovering how your most valuable customers engage to surfacing AI-powered insights that guide your next move, Heatmap Web Analytics helps you focus on what really drives growth.


Why Use Heatmap Web Analytics?

Most analytics tools were built for business reporting, not website optimization. They track every transaction or technical event, whether it happened on your site or not. That’s helpful and useful for accounting, but it creates bloated data and unclear decisions when your goal is to improve user experience and conversions.

Heatmap is built for website optimization.

  • We filter out junk traffic like bots, instant bounces, and zero-interaction visits, so you only see data tied to real human behavior.

  • We don’t count off-site transactions (like POS, Shop App, or subscriptions).

  • We do include revenue sources like shipping and tax, because they matter when you’re measuring what customers truly spend.

Our numbers won’t always match Shopify or GA4, and that’s intentional. Read more about how we compare to Shopify here. Heatmap web analytics isn’t meant to replicate financial data. It’s your source of truth for web performance.

Features include:

  • Engaged session tracking based on real user interaction

  • AI Insights that highlight key changes in behavior and performance

  • Trends & highlights that reveal patterns in revenue and behavior

Heatmap gives you analytics built for action, so you can optimize faster, with confidence.

→ Learn more about heatmap’s data definitions and methodology to better understand our data.


Getting Started

How to navigate Heatmap’s Dashboard Overview

There are some key features on the Dashboard Overview to guide your next move for website optimization:

High-Level Performance Snapshot

Get a quick, AI-powered overview and summary of your site’s performance to see how you’re trending and areas that need attention.

Trends

Track key metrics like:

  • Engaged Sessions

  • Website Revenue

  • Website Conversion Rate

  • Revenue per Session (RPS)

  • Website Average Order Value (AOV)

  • Page Views

To monitor performance over time with data specifically intended for website optimization.

AI Insights

Our AI analyzes your site’s performance and surfaces:

  • Opportunities for optimization

  • Uncover issues worth investigating

  • Clear, actionable suggestions on where to focus your optimization efforts

Highlights

See where your most valuable customers are coming from, which pages keep new users engaged, and how AOV is trending, all in one focused view.

How to navigate Heatmap’s Web Analytics Dashboard

There are some key reports within the Web Analytics Dashboard to help you unlock important insights:

Page Performance

Understand how individual pages are performing across key engagement and revenue metrics.

Page URL

View performance metrics (like revenue, sessions, and AOV) broken down by specific page URLs.

Landing Pages

Identify which pages are driving first-time visits and how well they convert.

Traffic Sources

See where your users are coming from (organic, paid, social, etc.) and how each channel performs.

Browser Performance

Spot performance gaps and UX issues tied to specific browsers.

New Users by Source

Understand which channels are bringing in new users and how valuable those users are.

Device Performance

Compare performance between mobile, desktop, and tablet to uncover friction by device.

Time on Page

See how long users stay on key pages to understand engagement and potential drop-off points.

User Flows

Visualize how users move through your site and where they fall off in the journey.

Purchase Flow

Track the steps users take before converting and identify patterns that lead to revenue.

Abandonment Flow

Spot where users drop off in key funnels like checkout, so you can reduce friction and recover lost sales.


Need Help?

If you have questions or run into any issues while using Heatmap, our support team is here to help. Contact us anytime at Support@heatmap.com.

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