How to set up a Crazy Egg Snapshot the right way

Heatmap: aggregated click density overlaid on a screenshot of your page. Best for 'is the CTA where users expect it?' and 'what gets the most clicks above the fold?'

Scrollmap: how far down the page users scroll, with brightness fading as fewer users reach each row. Best for 'does anyone reach the testimonials?' and 'where does drop-off happen on a long landing page?' The 50% line is the most important data point — content below it reaches half your traffic at most.

Confetti: every individual click rendered as a dot, segmentable by referrer, search term, browser, device, country, or 17 other dimensions. Best for 'do paid-traffic users click differently than organic?' and 'is mobile behavior different from desktop?' This is the highest-signal report for CRO and the most underused.

Overlay: numerical click counts on each element. Best for 'how many clicks did the secondary CTA actually get?' Useful for ranking elements by attention even when the heatmap is too dense to read.

List: every clickable element ranked by clicks. Best for 'which links did users actually use?' Surfaces dead links (zero clicks despite prominent placement) and surprise winners (high clicks on de-emphasized elements).

Decision rule: always start with Heatmap + Scrollmap for the broad view. Then open Confetti and segment by traffic source — this is where 80% of the real insights are. Use Overlay and List to validate quantitatively.

In the left sidebar, click Snapshots → + New Snapshot.

Name the Snapshot clearly: 'Pricing page — desktop + mobile — May 2026'. Future-you will thank present-you. Default names ('Snapshot 7') are how Snapshots get orphaned in 60 days.

Pick a Site (your tracked domain). Then enter the page URL. Crazy Egg offers three matching modes: Exact URL (single page like /pricing), URL contains (pattern like /products/ to capture all product pages), and Regex (advanced).

Avoid blank or 'all pages' targeting — Crazy Egg doesn't merge clicks across templates well, and you'll get a Heatmap overlaid on whichever screenshot it grabbed, which usually isn't representative.

For dynamic URLs (e.g., /products/[id]) where the layout is identical but the URL changes per product, use 'URL contains /products/' — Crazy Egg overlays clicks on a representative product page screenshot. Make sure the screenshot it picks is a high-traffic SKU, not an edge case.

Query parameter handling: by default Crazy Egg ignores query params (so /pricing?utm_source=google and /pricing are merged). If you want to separate paid traffic on the same URL, use Regex matching or the Confetti report's referrer segment instead.

Set Sample Size: pick by page views captured (e.g., stop after 5,000 page views) OR by time (e.g., run for 30 days) OR both (whichever comes first).

Minimum statistical sample: 100 page views for directional patterns, 500-1,000 for confident decisions. Below 100, you're reading noise — the Heatmap looks smooth but clusters around random outliers.

Recommended defaults: for high-traffic pages, cap at 5,000-10,000 page views over 14 days. For low-traffic pages, cap by time (30 days) and accept whatever sample you get.

Don't run open-ended (no end condition). After 3-6 months the Snapshot mixes data from a layout that's since been redesigned with current-layout data. Always set an end condition — you can always start a new Snapshot.

Device targeting: select Desktop, Tablet, Mobile, or All. ALWAYS create separate Snapshots per device. Merging device data produces a Heatmap overlaid on a single screenshot that represents no real layout.

After creating the Snapshot, visit the target page in a clean incognito browser. Click around for 30 seconds. Scroll to the bottom.

Go to Snapshots → click your Snapshot → check the page-views counter at the top. It should show 1+ page view within 5-15 minutes.

If it stays at 0 after 24 hours: (a) URL pattern doesn't match the live URL (check trailing slashes, query params, case sensitivity); (b) device filter excludes your test device; (c) the page isn't being tracked at all — re-verify in DevTools (CE2 in Console).

On Basic, all Snapshots share the 30K page-view monthly pool. If you've set up 10 Snapshots on different pages, each gets a fraction of the pool. Reduce to 3-4 critical Snapshots until you upgrade.

For high-traffic pages, Snapshots populate to readable density within 24-72 hours. For long-tail pages (<10 visits/day), expect 7-30 days to collect a usable sample.

Open Heatmap first. Scan for the brightest clusters. Ask: 'is this where I wanted attention?' If yes — your UI is doing its job. If no — note the surprise and move to Confetti.

Open Confetti. Use the segmentation dropdown to filter by Referrer. Compare paid traffic (Google CPC, Facebook) to organic and direct. If the click patterns differ significantly, your landing page is matching one audience and missing the other.

Segment Confetti by Search Term (organic) or Campaign (paid). Sometimes the highest-converting keyword lands users on a page where their question isn't answered — they click around looking for it, eventually bounce.

Segment Confetti by Country or Operating System. Region-specific friction (currency, language, GDPR banner blocking the CTA) shows up here.

Open Scrollmap. Find the 50% line. If your hero converts above the 50% line, the long body is dead weight — consider trimming. If your offer is below the 50% line, only 50% of users see it — move it up or shorten the page.

Open List report last. Look for: zero-click links (dead UI elements taking up space), and surprise high-click elements (something unintentional drawing attention you should make more prominent).

Before shipping a UI change, freeze the existing Snapshot: open it → Pause. This becomes your "before" baseline.

After shipping, create a new Snapshot with the same URL + device targeting. Name it 'Pricing page — desktop — POST-redesign — May 2026'.

After 1-2 weeks (or your end-condition page-view threshold, whichever comes first), open both Snapshots side by side in two browser tabs.

Compare: did clicks move toward the new CTA? Did Scrollmap depth improve? Did the dead-link list shrink? Did the highest Confetti density shift to the elements you wanted?

If yes, ship the next iteration. If no, the change didn't work as intended — open Recordings (next tutorial) to figure out why.

Archive Snapshots older than 6 months or post-redesign. Stale Snapshots clutter the dashboard and tempt you to read data from a layout that no longer exists.

Top 5 = homepage, top 2 paid landing pages, your highest-traffic product/pricing page, and checkout.

Don't snapshot blog posts, /about, /contact, or internal app pages unless you have a specific conversion question for that page. Most teams burn 60% of their page-view budget on pages where no purchase decision happens.

For ecommerce, prioritize: product detail pages (PDPs) for top 5 SKUs, cart page, and checkout steps. Skip homepage if direct traffic is low.

For SaaS, prioritize: pricing, top 2 feature pages, signup, and demo-request pages.

Review the 5 pages quarterly. As traffic shifts (new ad campaign, seasonal product launch), rotate Snapshots to match where the page views actually are.

After the first 60 days, you'll have shipped 3-5 fixes on the top 5 pages. That's where 80% of CRO leverage comes from at small-to-mid scale.