8 essential digital experience analytics tools

In the previous chapters of this guide, we explored what digital experience analytics (DXA) is and how to implement a strategic optimization framework. Now, let's dive into the key tools, features, and capabilities a great experience analytics platform should have. We’ll also show you how to use the Contentsquare platform to level up your performance.

In this chapter, you’ll learn:

• What core analytics capabilities drive measurable optimization results

• How specific tools and features solve digital experience challenges

• Ways to combine these tools for comprehensive user experience insights

• Practical applications and real-world examples of DXA tools in action

1. Customer journey tracking tools

Journey mapping tools give you an end-to-end overview of how users navigate your website or app, revealing the paths they take, where they drop off, and where they convert. 

These tools help you understand user behavior at every stage of their journey with your product, from entry to exit, so you can optimize navigation paths, reduce areas of user frustration, and build more intuitive digital experiences that align with how customers naturally move through your site.

Use Contentsquare’s customer journey tracking capabilities to

• Visualize user paths: use tools like Journey Analysis to create visual representations of user navigation and identify unexpected detours or looping behaviors

• Pinpoint drop-offs and friction: identify where users abandon key processes, like checkout or form submissions, and prioritize fixes to improve conversions with Funnel Analysis

• Prioritize high-converting paths: understand which journeys lead to the highest conversions or revenue—and then optimize your site to encourage users to follow similar paths—with Advanced Journey Analytics

Contentsquare’s Journey Analysis metrics identify which user journeys lead to the most conversions and revenue

🔍 See it in action: how ŠKODA used Journey Analysis to increase test drive visits by 40%

ŠKODA, one of the oldest car manufacturers in the world, faced a key challenge: boosting online test drive bookings. With most customer research happening online, the team needed to identify and resolve barriers within their digital experience.

Using Contentsquare’s Journey Analysis, the team uncovered two potential barriers:

• Users were looping between the homepage and car pages, indicating confusion about navigation

• The ‘toolkit’ feature, which included a critical Finance Calculator tool, was barely visible, receiving minimal engagement despite its importance in the test drive process

With these customer insights, ŠKODA redesigned their site to include a ‘sticky tools’ navigation bar and improved visibility for key features, resulting in

• A +40% increase in test drive visits

• A +10% increase in visits to the Finance Calculator tool

2. User segmentation tools

Understanding your user journey becomes even more powerful when combined with detailed customer segmentation.

User segmentation tools analyze how distinct user groups engage with your website or app, based on detailed criteria like user behavior (pages viewed, actions taken), demographics (location, language), acquisition channels (social media, email campaigns), or device types (mobile, desktop).

This more granular analysis uncovers segment-specific journey patterns and preferences, helping you build more personalized and relevant experiences.

Use Contentsquare’s user segmentation capabilities to

• Enhance onboarding journeys: segment recent subscribers and analyze their interactions to identify drop-offs or low engagement, then refine strategies to boost retention and ensure a smoother onboarding experience

• Reduce user churn: segment users who canceled subscriptions or abandoned their accounts, and then compare their behavior to that of retained users to identify and proactively address drop-off points

• Combine data sources for advanced segmentation: incorporate data from third-party integrations like Jira or Salesforce to create sophisticated segments for more personalized optimizations 

User segmentation tools let you analyze different user groups based on unique characteristics, behaviors, or third-party data

3. Testing tools

Testing tools let you explore how changes to your website or app impact user behavior and performance. By experimenting with different variations—like different page layouts, CTAs, or designs—you can uncover which ones lead to the most clicks, signups, or sales.

These tools also empower teams to make data-driven decisions (rather than relying on assumptions), ensuring each update meets user expectations and delivers measurable results.

Use Contentsquare’s user testing capabilities to

• Run unmoderated user tests: invite participants, deliver task instructions, and collect feedback automatically, saving time and scaling research across time zones

• Validate creative concepts: test new designs, logos, and messaging with real users, capturing their feedback to ensure alignment with audience preferences

• Check the impact of fixes: conduct follow-up tests to see how users interact with newly updated features or pages, validating whether your changes resolved issues effectively

Get valuable feedback on designs, validate fixes, and optimize the digital experience with Contentsquare’s user testing tools

4. Session replay tools

Session replay tools capture user interactions on your website or app, creating video-like recordings of clicks, scrolls, taps, and mouse movements. These tools provide a detailed, firsthand view of the user experience, helping you identify issues and improve usability.

Session replays are especially valuable for diagnosing friction points, understanding why users abandon processes, and quickly aligning teams on key improvements.

Use Contentsquare’s session replay capabilities to

• Pinpoint frustration indicators: understand how behaviors like rage clicks, u-turns, or excessive scrolling are linked to usability issues or technical errors

• Find hidden reasons behind drop-offs: recreate user sessions to observe specific moments where users abandon key actions—like form submissions or checkout flows—to identify hidden navigation barriers

• Improve cross-team collaboration: share session replays with team members, complete with timestamps and comments, to streamline discussions and accelerate decision-making

Share session replays with timestamps and comments to help teams quickly understand user struggles, align on solutions, and get stakeholder buy-in

💡Pro tip: triage and troubleshoot customer feedback and complaints faster combining Session Replay and Error Analysis.

If you’re investigating feedback from Contentsquare’s Voice of Customer (VoC) tools or contact center tickets, use the Session Replay event stream to skip directly to the moments where errors occurred and see exactly what went wrong. 

Then use the Error Analysis tool to understand how many other users are affected and to what extent, so you can prioritize fixes and improve the experience for everyone.

Combine Session Replay and Error Analysis tools to investigate user feedback and uncover the root causes of frustration

5. Page comparison tools

Page comparison tools show you how individual pages perform against one another, using key metrics like conversion rates, bounce rates, and time on page.

By highlighting performance gaps and trends, these tools help you uncover underperforming pages, understand what drives certain page success, and focus your page optimization efforts where they matter most.

Use Contentsquare’s page comparison capabilities to

• Compare page attractiveness: use our Page Comparator tool to see which pages draw the most views and engagement—or how many users bounce without interaction—to better understand what content best resonates with your audience

• Review customer behavior across devices: turn on Comparison Mode to see how different pages perform on desktop, tablet, and mobile, and adapt layouts accordingly for a more seamless experience

• Establish benchmarks: assess, track, and compare your page KPIs with industry standards and stay a step ahead of competitors with benchmarking tools and features 

Contentsquare’s Page Comparator tracks the performance of your pages across different devices, user segments, and metrics

6. Heatmap tools

Heatmaps are color-coded visualizations of user-friendly ‘maps’ that show where users engage the most (hot) or least (cold) on a webpage. They provide a quick and intuitive overview of on-page behavior.

By aggregating user actions and behavioral data, heatmaps reveal whether visitors are engaging with key content, ignoring important elements, or struggling to navigate your site on desktop or mobile devices. 

These insights help teams optimize layouts, prioritize impactful changes, and deliver seamless digital experiences.

Use Contentsquare’s heatmap capabilities to

• Evaluate content visibility: use scroll heatmaps to determine how far users scroll down your page and ensure important elements, like your USP or CTAs, are seen by the majority of visitors

• Track clicks and navigation focus: see where users click, tap, and hover with click heatmaps and move heatmaps, which highlight overlooked buttons, dead links, and distracting non-clickable areas

• Summarize interaction data at a glance: save time with engagement (or zone-based) heatmaps, which consolidate all user interaction data into a single, easy-to-read view, helping you quickly pinpoint optimization opportunities

From clicks and scrolls to zoning and engagement analysis, Contentsquare’s different heatmap types give you a complete view of how users interact on your website or app

💡Pro Tip: combine heatmaps with user segmentation to see how different audience groups interact with your site—and then tailor optimizations for each segment.

For example, use scroll heatmaps to see how far first-time visitors scroll compared to returning users. If first-time visitors aren’t reaching key content, like your unique selling proposition (USP), you can adjust your layout to make it more prominent. 

Similarly, analyze click heatmaps for mobile users to identify non-clickable elements that may be frustrating or hard to find on smaller screens. 

By segmenting heatmap data by audience type, you can uncover patterns specific to each group and design experiences that resonate with their unique behaviors and needs.

7. Form Analysis 

Forms are critical conversion points in your digital experience, but they often create friction that leads to abandonment. Form analysis tools (like Contentsquare’s 👋) provide detailed insights into how users interact with your forms, helping you optimize these crucial touchpoints for better completion and submission rates.

Use Contentsquare’s form analysis capabilities to

• Identify form pain points: see which specific form fields cause the most hesitation, confusion, or abandonment to reduce drop-offs

• Optimize field order: track how users progress through your forms to determine the most intuitive sequence of fields that maximizes completion rates while minimizing user confusion

• Improve error handling: spot where users encounter errors or repeatedly correct their entries to create more helpful error messages and field descriptions that guide users to successful completion

Use Form Analysis to find out how many users interacted with your form without completing it, or to see which field of your form causes users to drop off

🔍 See it in action: how Hotel Chocolat combined Heatmaps and Form Analysis to optimize the customer experience

Hotel Chocolat, the UK’s premier luxury chocolate brand, faced a challenge: their Contact Us form was confusing, leading to customer complaints and unnecessary form submissions.

Using Contentsquare’s Heatmaps and Form Analysis, the UX team pinpointed areas where users were dropping off or getting frustrated. Based on these actionable insights, they ran a series of A/B tests to improve the form, including

• Enhancing color contrast to make the form easier to read

• Numbering the steps to clarify the order of completion

• Highlighting FAQs more effectively throughout the form

Following these data-driven optimizations, the team saw an immediate decrease in complaints and drop-off rates and a higher click rate through to the relevant FAQs.

8. Performance tracking and reporting tools

Performance tracking and reporting tools monitor the technical health of your website or mobile app, tracking metrics like page load speed, responsiveness, and error rates. These tools ensure that your digital experience is fast, reliable, and seamless.

By identifying performance bottlenecks and analyzing their impact, these tools also help you proactively resolve issues, improve customer satisfaction, and maintain functionality across devices.

Use Contentsquare’s performance tracking capabilities to

• Respond quickly to user pain points: configure real-time alerts with your team’s workflow tools (like Slack or Jira) so you can act on emerging trends or performance issues

• Align cross-functional teams: create KPI-specific views tailored to each team’s goals with customizable dashboards

• Track performance over time: visualize historical customer data and long-term trends to evaluate the effectiveness of improvements and ensure consistent performance across your digital touchpoints

Contentsquare’s experience analytics dashboards are customizable and shareable, making them the single source of truth for every team

Optimize the digital experience with the right tools

Optimizing digital experiences isn’t just about fixing issues—it’s about creating journeys that users love. By using the tools and features discussed in this chapter, you uncover what truly drives engagement and conversions, empowering you to build experiences that delight users and deliver measurable business success.

FAQs about experience analytics tools