Definition

Visual representation of user behavior showing where people click, scroll, and hover, typically revealing that nobody reads your carefully crafted copy. The marketing equivalent of finding out which parts of your outfit actually get noticed.

Example Usage

The heatmap revealed users completely ignore our value proposition and spend 80% of their time clicking the decorative image that isn't even a button.

Origin

Data visualization technique adapted to web analytics in the mid-2000s from geographic and scientific mapping applications

Fun Fact

Eye-tracking heatmaps show people follow F-shaped patterns when reading web content, proving web design is just accommodating collective ADD.

Source: User experience (UX) research and web analytics visualization standards

Related Terms

Advanced

demand-side platform

Software that allows advertisers to automatically purchase ad inventory across multiple exchanges and networks through a single interface, because manually buying ads on ten thousand websites would require immortality. Abbreviated as DSP by people who enjoy acronyms.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

account-based marketing

A targeted B2B strategy that treats individual high-value accounts as markets of one, essentially putting all your eggs in a few carefully selected baskets. It's the sniper rifle approach versus the shotgun spray of traditional marketing.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

hero content

High-production-value flagship content designed to make a big splash and attract massive attention, typically created infrequently. Your marketing team's Avengers movie, budget included.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

clickthrough

The holy grail metric of digital advertising that measures whether anyone actually bothered to click on your carefully crafted ad instead of scrolling past it in disgust. It's the moment when a user's curiosity (or accidental thumb slip) converts an impression into an action, causing marketers everywhere to briefly celebrate before realizing the bounce rate is 98%. Ad agencies live and die by clickthrough rates, which explains why banner ads have become increasingly desperate and annoying.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

affiliate marketing

A performance-based model where third parties earn commissions for driving sales, creating an army of motivated salespeople who work for free until they succeed. It's outsourcing your sales force to anyone with a website and no shame.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

sales qualified lead

A prospect who's been vetted by marketing, kicked over to sales, and deemed worthy of actual human attention rather than automated email sequences. Abbreviated as SQL, which confusingly has nothing to do with databases.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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