learning, thinking, blogging.
Track Users Behavior With ClickTale
Some weeks ago we talked about tracking feed subscription with Google Analytics.
Wouldn’t it be nice to view every single mouse gesture of your visitors? Here’s the tool you need.
Clicktale has been opened to public on Monday, and looks very promising to me, as it offers a lot of unusual feature for a web analytics tool
Video
Probably the most impressive feature is the recording of each movement the user made on your page. Each mouse gesture, page scroll, click and input is recorded and can be reviewed as a video.
here’s a quick example from one of my visitors
Impressive, isn’t it? The video was scaled down for youtube and the speed is 2x the real speed, but clicktale allows you to see movies in full size and normal speed.
Attention and Visitors Heatmaps
Heatmaps measuring the attention time and the number of visits received by a section of the page are provided
Click Metrics
Each heatmaps can include different click metrics, including
- click count
- hover count
- hover time
- hesitation (how much time passed between hover and click)
- average hoover order (order the link was hovered by the visitor)
- etc.
User Segmentation
There is a promising beta feature that that uses the data collected to perform user segmentation, allowing you to see visitors with given behaviors, like
- lots of clicks
- lots of mouse gestures
- percent scrolled
- …
or using traditional informations (O.S., browser etc.).
Sounds Great. Is this Free Stuff?
It depends.
The free subscription to clicktale analytics allows you to track up to 100 visits / week for free, if you want more, you have to pay.
100 recording / weeks are not that much, but it’s enought to have a look at how your site is used and how powerful can be ClickTale.
Subscription plans are not cheap, in my opinion:
- $19 / month (100 recordings / day)
- $49 / month (400 / day)
- $99 / month (1000 / day)
I’m happy with the free package ;)
Opportunities
This metrics, the heatmaps and the videos provided by clicktale can add a real value to your analytics tools, offering a new way of looking at your website and a lots of hints about usability, driving attention and in-page optimization.
Adding tools like Clicktale to your “analytics kit” can help you to better undestand how users interact with your site and what section and aspects can be optimized.
The free version can give just a hint of how your website is accessed, but I think it can be really useful for usability and user behavior analysis.
I’m trying to get the most out of this tool, and I believe it can really help me to understand how my sites are used and what catches the user attention and why.
Being new at this type of analysis, I’m still trying to understand what are the main aspect I should consider… If you tried clicktale, or you’re gonna to try it, I’ll be happy to know what your experience is and what metrics you think we should look at…
Let me know in the comments how you think we can get the most out of Clicktale!
| Print article | This entry was posted by francesco mapelli on 2007/08/09 at 12:44 am, and is filed under Uncategorized. Follow any responses to this post through RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site. |
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about 4 years ago
What is the log size provided by Click Tale, I am using GoStats.com , they provide a log size of 1000 visitors. Have not come across a tool with a bigger log size.
about 4 years ago
Mark,
I don’t know ;) … Having the free account I can record a limited number of visits…
Anyway, afaik google analytics has an unlimited number of visitors logged…. Is that what you were asking for?
about 4 years ago
Well, the video is cool … but I think not very useful. I mean, I prefer statistics instead of following the mouse movement of each single user …
Maybe the heatmap gives more information on user preferences. Some months ago I tried a similar tool called crazyegg, it gives the heatmap, but not the videos.
about 4 years ago
Don’t you think that viewing the user visit step-by-step can be used to tweak landing pages and call to action stuff?
Say that you need to optimize a page that sells something… tracking the user behavior and the mouse movements can give you some big hint…
With just a few videos viewed, I found out that my subscribe-to-rss area receive some attention (often hovered or looked at) but does not convert as I much as I want… this says to me that I should change it by adding a clear call to action (“Subscribe now” or something like that)…
about 4 years ago
Yes, it is very useful.
But what worries me is: “how can I find which is the video to look at ?”. Suppose you have 1000 visits per day: is there some information saying that one visit is more meaningful than another ? Or you have to pick randomly some videos ?
about 4 years ago
Stefano,
There are several ways you can use ClickTale to choose which “videos” to watch. You can use the Advanced Search to find visitors with particular behavioral patterns: who visited certain pages, spent a certain amount of time on the site/page, size of screen they used, number of clicks, etc… There are dozens of possible parameters,
Also, you can use the ClickTale API to insert tags into visitor sessions that do things that interest you. For example, add a “Buy” tag to those visitors that purchased an item on your site. Later you can search for the “Buy” tag and watch the sessions of the visitors that purchased items. You can insert tags for any behavior that interest you. For example: tag visitors who started the purchase process, but never finished it. The possibilities are vast.
Tal Schwartz
Co-Founder and CEO
ClickTale
about 4 years ago
Thank you very much Tal. This kind of API features look _very_ interesting to me..
about 4 years ago
Looks very interesting. But I would guess this kind of tracking comes with a downside. Does it slow down the loading much? Or perhaps other downsides?
about 4 years ago
XmasB,
Website visitors do not notice any difference in their browsing since ClickTale is optimized to minimize the use of CPU and bandwidth resources. Visitors download approximately 10K of JavaScript, which remains in their cache and does not need to be downloaded again. Visitors upload approximately 2K of data per page which also does not have a noticeable impact on their browsing.
Tal Schwartz
Co-Founder and CEO
ClickTale
about 4 years ago
Tal,
Thanks for taking the time to join our discussion and for your answers, it’s a pleasure to see how much you care about your users!
about 4 years ago
Nice to see the CEO response. This goes long way in building the trust of users and giving them confidence to use the product.
-Stella Roy
about 4 years ago
when I bought my domain & hosting I received a free CrazyEgg plan…
I think these days I will test it, and also test this ClickTale service :)
about 4 years ago
can it work on SSL encrypted pages though as that is the only way to watch someone’s checkout process….?
about 3 years ago
Nice goodies. Good for those who have websites to monitor the behavior of their readers.
about 3 years ago
This reminds me of CrazyEgg. I believe with you have the first 1,000 or so clicks free than afterwards you have to pay. What I don’t like is the fact that it reported many seemingly false clicks.
about 3 years ago
Quite pricey. I have heard it should be going down in price soon.
about 3 years ago
Viewing every move of a user is the MOST important analytic step in all statistics. If you are really interested what users enjoy, what you need to update and so on, you need to view a user’s movements. Hence you’ll see at some point the “blind areas”, the areas that never get viewed enough, you then know you have to do some tweaking. You’ll see what attracts a user’s attention. Viewing these videos is time consuming, but it sure is worth it, especially for commercial sites.
about 3 years ago
Mirific, you are completely right!!
about 3 years ago
JUst curious, isnt it better if this is for free?
about 3 years ago
Nice goodies.
about 3 years ago
I’ve tried clicktale myself. It’s a great way to see your visitors’ moves, that way you’ll be able to see what’s there to be improved. Other than that, the prices aren’t ‘that’ high. If people with more popular sites would use it, they should be able to pay from advertising earnings and so on. And as well know, quality isn’t free, usually.
about 3 years ago
Information provided by such services is invaluable for optimization but gathering data is easier part in my opinion – what’s hard is actually understanding it and implementing right changes based on analysis.
about 3 years ago
Very interesting but why the price is so high
about 3 years ago
Hi cat,
You can use ClickTale for absolutely FREE for as long as you want and get 400 recorded pageviews per month. You can always upgrade to one of our paid premium subscription and receive even more recordings.
There is no reason not to sign up and try it for yourself.
Tal Schwartz
Co-Founder and CEO
ClickTale
about 2 years ago
Hi, I installed click tale on my site to try it out. We are running an add campaign that when a visitor clicks the link of of Weight Watchers, they go to a special coupon page. this page is hidden from public. What we are really interested in, is from the click at weight watchers to our site how many people continue with the site and actually buy something? I think Tal mentioned something about an API? Does Clicktale have a solution for this?
about 2 years ago
Hi roger,
You can use ClickTale API function called ClickTaleTag to add a tag when a visitor is coming from a certain place or when a certain page of your site is reached. Then you can search for visitors who have both of those tags. See http://forum.clicktale.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=431 on our forum for more information.
Arik Yavilevich
Co-Founder and CTO
ClickTale
about 2 years ago
haha, i love the video.
about 2 years ago
Nice work.
http://www.123aquabot.com/
about 2 years ago
nicely done! thanks for this one.
about 2 years ago
was too excited about the tool until I found out that it’s not free hahaha, but the free 100 logs is pretty good too for starters like me.
about 2 years ago
Well, Google Analytics does this even better now!
about 1 year ago
спасибо хороший сервис ClickTale
about 1 year ago
Сервис интересный, но мне кажется бесполезный.
about 1 year ago
increased spam has caused this form of trouble
about 1 year ago
i belive , these tips will help
about 1 year ago
Hi, my english isn’t the best but I think by regularly visits of your blog it will be better in the next time. You have a good writing style which is easy to understand and can helps people like me to learn english. I will be now a regularly visitor of your blog.
about 1 year ago
I just checked out their prices, and it’s actually gotten quite expensive! I think I will opt out of this one :(
Till then,
Jean
about 1 year ago
This is a great way to analyze your site and see who is clicking it. Thanks for sharing this tool.
about 1 year ago
i use analytics to find click patterns
about 1 year ago
how many of you guys use google analytics for event tracking ??
about 1 year ago
nobody i guess , thats pretty obvious …
about 6 months ago
Click tale is found to be useful since it is more easier to monitor website at affordable price. Also it requires no additional set up for installation.