Microsoft Clarity the alternative to Google Analytics

Google has been at the top of the list of ways to track a website's statistics with Analytics for years. Employers assume you manage Google Analytics and it is the standard by which other tools are looked up to. Microsoft has now launched Clarity. Is this the program that will cause a stir?

Microsoft has years of experience with Bing in the world of search engines, despite a (much) smaller market share it is still not to be ignored as a valuable party. Also with Bing you can make sure that you come out on top in the organic search results. And you can even advertise on the same search terms at often lower costs.

Microsoft Clarity mainly focuses on website statistics, what happens on your website? Which pages perform best? And how do your visitors interact with your website? These are questions that are addressed in Microsoft Clarity and also expand on Google Analytics. And did we mention that the tool is free to use? Regardless of the number of visitors.

Speed

Speed of tools for collecting website data has always been a tricky issue. The javascript that is required in almost all cases can cause your website to slow down noticeably. This is one of the components that Microsoft has put first, to ensure that the impact of the data collection is minimal.

Unfortunately I can't give you exact figures on this yet, since Clarity was recently launched we are still in the testing phase with it. Experiences of our customershosting and our own experience will learn more in time.

AVG proof

Another item that is important in today's privacy world is the privacy of a tool. For almost all websites it is required to show a cookie notification to visitors. As soon as you show advertisements or other things to visitors you need to pay even more attention to this. With Microsoft Clarity they have taken into account the AVG law within Europe and the law from California. This means that in practice you still need to show a notification. But no extra agreements have to be made.

Session timeline

In the session timeline function you can easily see which steps a visitor has made on your website. In the timeline you can see in a visual way exactly which steps a visitor takes. And how a visitor looks around on your website.

You'll also see several unique features in here, one funny part is tracking "Rage Clicks". Or the clicks a user makes on, for example, an image they think is a hyperlink. There is also a metric for excessive scrolling and more. So you can better understand what the visitor expects from your website and how a visitor can be frustrated on your website. To perhaps take this into the next design update to improve.

Heatmap

What is perhaps most interesting to keep track of with Microsoft Clarity is the heatmap that is active by default. Previously with other tools this was always a functionality that you had to pay a premium for. With Microsoft Clarity, this is now available to everyone and at no cost. Something that is of course always positive to shake up monopolies.

A heatmap is simply keeping track in a visual way of where your visitors are clicking, hovering and performing actions. You then see this reflected in the heatmap through a kind of weather forecast model. A red storm is where the visitors click the most.

Designed for developers and non-developers

A common complaint with Google Analytics is that it is not exactly beginner friendly. With its in depth reports in sometimes illogical locations, it is often difficult or cumbersome to get the information you are looking for. A point that Microsoft Clarity aims to improve upon.

With its user-friendly interface and easily understandable terms, it is easy for anyone to understand what the particular statistics are about. And with the heatmap you can visually show everyone how visitors navigate and interact on your website. This is an invaluable addition for end-of-month reports to clients and employers. After all, visual talk is easier than showing a list of data in, say, Excel.

It will also be easier than ever for developers to find and fix bugs and user interface errors. Using the session timeline in combination with the heatmap, you can immediately see where you are losing visitors and what exactly is going wrong. This has many advantages over just receiving a cryptic email with a screenshot and the sentence "It's not working!". Can you now see the entire timeline and session like this and determine the error.

Are you going to switch to Microsoft Clarity with your main projects? Personally, I'm going to use it on a few in my portfolio and see how this pans out. We are of course curious about your optics! So share it with us.

More information and image credit: https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/october-2020/Microsoft-Clarity-is-now-Generally-Available