Click heat map

The template click heat map and engagement report provide insights into how customers interact with various components of a template such as, link clicks, region clicks, and product clicks. You can not only identify which links users clicked, but also which instance of the link they clicked. For example, if you have used the same link in 3 different places, the header, a button, and the footer, you can see which of the links users clicked.

You can view the click heat map from the Engagement tab of the template editor. You can also access the engagement report from the index screen of the templates page.

Overview

The click heat map is displayed in tabular format and is also overlaid on the template preview.

The click heat map is an aggregate of clicks from all users.
You get color coded insights into which regions of the template customers most interacted with.
The template preview is displayed for the preview user that is selected.
If the template contains conditionally displayed links or recommendations, you must select a preview user for whom these links and recommendations will be displayed.

Engagement report filters

You can use various filters for the engagement report.

Version filter

The engagement report for a template is based on the template version. The statistics for each version are saved separately. Use this filter to select a version and review its engagement report.

For example, if Version 1 of a template was used in older messages and Version 2 of the template was used in more recent messages, then the engagement reports differ for each of the versions.

Metric filter

You can select clicks or unique clicks as the filter metric.

Clicks show the total number of times customers clicked on one of the links in the template.
Unique Clicks show the number of clicks from unique customers.

For example, Jane clicks on Blueshift.com 5 times and John clicks Blueshift.com 3 times. Then clicks for Blueshift.com are 8 and whereas unique clicks are 2.

Time filter

You can filter clicks for a specific time period or for all time. Based on the option you select, you can view how a customer interacted with a template over a specified period of time.

For example, you can view how many times a customer clicked on a specific link in a template in the last one month.

The Engagement report

You can view the following information in the engagement report.

Clicks data

When the metric selected is Clicks, the Clicks show the total number of times customers clicked on one of the links in the template.
When the metric selected is Unique Clicks, the Unique Clicks show the number of clicks from unique customers.
% of total is the percentage of the total clicks in the template that came from the link.
Sends is the total number of customers that the email template has been sent to.
CTR% is the click through rate for the links.
- When the metric selected is Clicks, the CTR% is the Clicks on the link index divided by Sends for the email template (for the given version and time range).
- When the metric selected is Unique Clicks, the CTR% is the Unique clicks on the link index divided by sends for the email template (for the given version and time range).

Link index

A link index is a positive integer that is assigned to each occurrence of an href tag in the template. For example, 1, 2, 3 and so on. The link index helps to uniquely identify an instance of a link even if the URL is exactly the same. When a user clicks a link, the click activity event captures the link index and the associated template version. You can view this information in the campaign activity report or the engagement report.

In the template preview, you can hover over the element to see a link's index and correlate it in the engagement report.

Consider the following points about link indexes:

Link indexes are specific to a template version and are generated in the order in which the system encounters the href tags in the content. So it is possible that the same element, for example a button, might be assigned a different link index in a new version of the template if other href tags are introduced in the template.
If a single link (href tag) is used inside a for loop (for example, a recommendation block), the entire block has the same link index. Clicks data is shown for the entire block instead of each individual product.
In some cases 2 or more different href tags could be used for the same element (for example, a button) in an if-else block. In this case, the link index is different for each href tag. As such, the clicks data shown on the heat map could be different depending on the preview selected.

Example 1: For loop to display recommendations

Consider the following example where you are adding recommendations to your template. The for loop to display the recommendations includes only one href tag. Hence, even though multiple products may be displayed, there is only one click index for all the product URLs displayed, and hence for the entire block.

{% if products %}
    {% for product in products limit:4 offset:0 %}
        <p><img src="{{product.image}}" /></p>
        <p style="margin: 0; font-size: 18px;"><strong>{{product.title}}</strong></p>
        <p style="margin: 0; font-size: 14px;">{{product.price}}</p>
        <p><a href="{{product.url}}"
            target="_blank"
            style="
                display: inline-block;
                color: #ffffff;
                background-color: #3AAEE0;
                border-radius: 4px;
                width: auto;
                border: 1px solid #3AAEE0;
                font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
                text-align: center;
              ">View Details
            </a></p>  
    {% endfor %}
{% endif %}

Example 2: If-else block

Consider the following example where you are using an if-else block to conditionally display the text on the button and direct the user to different URLs based on the user gender. The if-else block includes individual href tags for each URL that the user could be directed to. Hence, even though only one URL is displayed in the email, there is a separate click index for each URL.


<p><img src="https://apparelco.com/images/fall.jpg" /></p>
<p style="margin: 0; font-size: 14px;">Fall Sale - 20% off</p>
{% if {{user.gender}}} == female %}
    <p><a href="https://apparelco.com/womens/accessories"
        target="_blank"
        style="
            display: inline-block;
            color: #ffffff;
            background-color: #3AAEE0;
            border-radius: 4px;
            width: auto;
            border: 1px solid #3AAEE0;
            font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
            text-align: center;
            ">Womens Accessories
        </a></p>
{% else %}
    <p><a href=""https://apparelco.com/mens/accessories""
        target="_blank"
        style="
            display: inline-block;
            color: #ffffff;
            background-color: #3AAEE0;
            border-radius: 4px;
            width: auto;
            border: 1px solid #3AAEE0;
            font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
            text-align: center;
            ">Mens Accessories
        </a></p>
{% endif %}

Aggregate stats according to links

In your template, you might use the same URL in different locations. For example, an image, a button, and a linked keyword in the text. To view the aggregate stats for a URL that is used in multiple locations, select the Aggregate clicks option.

Heat map for conditional links

If the template contains conditionally displayed links, for example, a recommendation block or an if-else code block, you must select a preview user for whom these links will be displayed. If the links are not displayed in the preview, you will not be able to see them in the overlaid heat map.

As a best practice, we recommend that you always check the heat map for multiple users so that you can eliminate the possibility of overlooking conditionally displayed links. You can use the customer selector to search for customers to preview your heat map with. For more information, see Selecting a preview user.

Note: You can still see the links in the tabular aggregate report. Refer to the tabular view to ensure that you are not missing out any important link from the visual heat map.

Export heat map

You can export the heat map as a CSV or an HTML file. Once you've exported the heat map, you can share it with users who do not have access to the Blueshift platform. The HTML file has the same dynamic user interactions as on the Blueshift platform. You can convert it to a PDF by using your browser's native functionality.

A/B Test Email Components

When you run an A/B test on the entire creative, you can test the overall effectiveness of a template. The default A/B test report looks at the total conversion ( e.g. clicks) for the entire creative. However, if you wants to look at the conversion for a specific component, like a recommendation block, then you can use the template click heat map.

For example, let’s say you want to include a “customers who bought X also bought Y” recommendation in your email and you want to figure out what look back period to use for this recommendation so that you get the best engagement. You can create a recommendation scheme, Rec A, with a 30-day look back period and include it in Email template A. Add another scheme, Rec B, with a 90-day look back period and include that in Email template B. Run an A/B test on templates Email A and Email B. Now when you look at the click heat maps for these templates, you will be able to check the click through rates on the recommendation blocks Rec A and Rec B. With this information, you can determine which of the look back periods had a higher engagement.

Click heat map

Comments