Replacing lost Google Analytics Reports – In-page Analytics Substitute

Theo Bennett - February 4, 2021

Google is constantly updating Google Analytics and while most are great incremental updates or game changing announcements like GA4; some are not as warmly received. Take the deprecation announcement in 2017 of the in-page analytics report (previously the Site Overlay report). This trusty report would show you click and conversion data overlayed against the actual pages of your site served in the GA interface. Due to ever-changing browser security issues, this report just didn’t work properly and Google created the Page Analytics Extension for Chrome. That said, this extension also does not always work, and it was also deprecated later in 2017. (The extension is still available, just not supported or improved.)

A viable alternative to this kind of User Experience report is heatmapping. Heatmapping reports show not just clicks but where the user is engaged or hovering on your site. There have always been separate heatmapping tools; including Crazy Egg and Hotjar which we have recommended in the past. Those are both good tools that you should review; however, we also have a new player to the market: Clarity Analytics from Microsoft.

While Clarity analytics does offer much more than just heatmapping (session recording is a big draw as well); one reason to consider Clarity over other offerings is:

1. Clarity is free
2. Clarity offers unlimited sessions unlike most, if not all, other providers.

How do I deploy Clarity Analytics?

1. Go to the clarity website
2. Sign up and add a project
3. Deploy the code snippet you receive via Google Tag Manager (GTM)

It will take a few days to gather enough data, but once you do, not only will you have heatmapping and session recording but some other interesting metrics like “Rage Clicks”.

How can I get help?

If you are not using GTM; you should be, reach out to us to learn why or to get help. MoreVisibility is a Google certified partner for GA, GTM, Google Optimize and Google Data Studio. If you need help deploying this or any other solutions related to these tools, or would like to learn about custom training, call us now at 800-787-0497 or fill out a contact form today.