Microsoft Clarity is positioned as a free tool that allows users to setup heatmaps and user recordings for their websites, but this tool has so more tools and data points to benefit a marketer, web developer or anyone who is interested in learning more about their customers journey and how they can improve their experience.
To setup Microsoft Clarity you can visit their website directly or you can access the account through your Bing Webmaster Account. Once you are at the main page you can chose to login with either a Microsoft Account, Google Account or Facebook Account. This tool is free to setup, but it will require adding a code snippet to the website. If you are currently using Google Tag Manager you can add the code via a custom HTML tag. Depending on what website platform you are using you may have other methods to add this code and Microsoft Clarity includes installation instructions for many of the main Content Management Systems in the “settings” area of their tool. If you ever need to grab the tracking code again in the future, you may also find it under settings.
The two main tools you will be using to make data driven decisions about how your users are interacting with your web pages are the heatmaps and user records. Recordings allows you to watch actual recordings of your users navigating through your website. There are also extensive filter options in case you want to analyze only certain pages, actions or devices which is helpful if you are trying to identify a potential friction point based on previous observations you may have made via your Google Analytics such as high bounce or exit rates. In regards to the heatmaps, these are snapshots of your website with an overlay of your choice to view either scroll depth or click engagement for a specific page. This can be extremely helpful information if you are trying to determine page layout changes that may be needed. Some of our favorite data points though are what you can view on the dashboard such as rage clicks, dead clicks, excessive scrolling and quick backs. These data points in conjunction with the heatmaps and user recordings can be incredibly powerful information to identify friction points that may be preventing your users from completing their user journey to conversion.
This tool gives you additional data points beyond what you can gather in a tool like Google Analytics and helps fill in the gaps of where opportunities are to improve the website experience. That improved experience not only helps improve engagement and conversion rates, but it also benefits your Search Engine Optimization strategy since user experience is important to search engine algorithms. There are of course, other tools on the market that help gather this data, but this is a great free tool to get you started and although there are some draw backs like the ability to delete specific data that is gathered overall we recommend this tool to anyone on a limited budget who is focused on improving their website. Need help with your digital strategy? Contact us for a free consultation.
