Mouse Hovering and Heat Mapping
I came across this killing the click article two weeks ago. The gist of the article is that heat-mapping metrics seek to eliminate engagement rates measured in clicks. Attribution by source is difficult enough (last click attribution etc). There is nothing wrong with banners; at least Google provides exposure to conversions reports that allow you to how impressions and clicks contributed to a conversion. Moat now claims that people looking at ads is a viable metric without providing any measurable action.
Engagement is not a conversion; throughout the article conversions are never mentioned. For all online marketing campaign there needs to be some sort of measurable action. Heat-mapping is simply a metric with a Cost-Per-Engagement (CPE) pricing model.
Heat-mapping doesn’t distinguish between interest and disinterest, and likely counts a lot of false positives. While hovering is a way to detect links, this strategy does not work with banner ads, as everyone knows ads have links. The heat mapping metric is only a valid metric when you are looking to discern call to action effectiveness, for example click here or learn more. The article does not provide any insights on how mouse hovering will work on Smartphones or Tablets.
Why introduce a new metric that doesn’t scale to the fastest growing devices?
Heat-mapping is not a new technology, we’ve been using various tools to track heat maps for several years. Just because you add color to a map doesn’t make new technology.
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