When to use Pages vs URL in Heatmaps

When configuring a Heatmap, you have the option to search either a Page or URL. Depending on what you want to analyze, you will need to decide how to power your Heatmap: Page or URL?

Check out these common use cases below as you begin configuring your Heatmap!

Pages

My organization has predefined Pages or has Pages defined by Fullstory’s machine learning algorithm.

When you have Pages already predefined, this means everyone in your organization is speaking the same language and using the same page definitions.

I know the names of Pages that I want to search for.

Unlike URLs, Pages are able to be named, which makes it easier to search for what you’re looking for.  

I want to analyze a group of URLs. 

Pages can group together multiple URLs which you typically analyze as one page group. For example, all product detail pages, blog articles, or account pages with a unique customer ID in the URL. This means your Heatmap can be general across that page type for aggregate, faster learnings. 

I want to track user engagement on one landing page from multiple marketing campaigns.

Use a defined Page to analyze all user engagement from multiple marketing campaigns. Why? Pages ignore any query parameters on the URL. Meaning, if you have multiple marketing campaigns with query parameters such as www.example.com/promo?utm_source=google and www.example.com/promo?utm_source=facebook, you can analyze all user engagement data by searching a defined Page as www.example.com/promo. 

I want to search for newly defined Pages in Heatmaps.

Great! Newly defined pages are available to search and analyze in Heatmaps. It’s important to know that newly defined pages are not retroactive. Meaning, they may not hold much data, initially. 

URL

I want to do a quick analysis on a page that has not been defined. 

Searching with URLs is the easiest and quickest way to conduct ad hoc searches for specific page data when the URL has not been defined.

I have newly defined Pages, but I need to analyze the retroactive data. 

In this case, a URL search can surface historical data, given newly defined Pages are not retroactive. 

I want to analyze a certain query parameter of a page. 

Search the full URL to specify a certain query parameter, such as a specific marketing campaign, a search keyword, or a filter setting that’s reflected in the URL.

I need to analyze one very specific page on my website, such as a specific blog page or product detail page. 

A URL search will make your analysis more specific and granular than your current page definition. 

I want to track user engagement of only users that visit my website from a specific place during a marketing campaign. 

To do this, search the full URL, such as, www.example.com/promo?utm_source=facebook. This would result in a Heatmap showing only users that came to my webpage from Facebook.