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

Beginner

inbound marketing

Attracting customers through valuable content and experiences rather than interrupting them with ads, based on the revolutionary concept that people prefer being helpful to being sold to. It's content marketing with better branding, coined by HubSpot to sell software.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
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display advertising

Visual banner ads served across websites and apps, ranging from tasteful rectangles to screen-dominating monstrosities that make you question humanity. The descendants of magazine ads, but with the added benefit of following you everywhere online.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Intermediate

Persona

A fictional character representing your ideal customer, complete with a stock photo name and backstory more detailed than most Netflix characters. Marketing teams create them to feel like they understand their audience, then ignore them completely when making actual decisions.

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ascription

In data analytics and sociology, the act of assigning credit, blame, or characteristics to a person or thing based on analysis rather than self-identification. Marketers use this to decide who deserves credit for a conversion, while sociologists use it to study how society boxes people into categories they didn't choose. Both involve making assumptions that may or may not reflect reality.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

brand voice

The distinctive personality and emotional tone a brand uses in all communications, from tweets to customer service emails. It's what makes Wendy's roast people on Twitter while your bank sounds like a lawyer wrote everything—which they probably did.

📣 Marketing / Advertising
Beginner

segmented

The art of slicing your audience into neat little boxes so you can target them with laser precision. Marketers love this term because it makes dividing people into demographics sound scientific rather than slightly creepy. Think of it as organizing humans like a well-arranged charcuterie board.

📣 Marketing / Advertising

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