Bench 13: Analytics and behaviour tools
The instruments of the bench: analytics set up to answer buying questions, heatmaps and recordings read properly, and surveys that ask at the right moment.
The bench guide
Working guides on this bench
Analytics and behaviour tools A One-Page Dashboard for a One-Person Business A dashboard for one person should fit one page, hold fewer than a dozen numbers, and exist to trigger decisions. If a number has no action attached, it is decoration and it comes off. Analytics and behaviour tools Analytics Setup That Answers Questions Instead of Collecting Numbers Set analytics up backwards: list the decisions you face, name the counts each decision needs, then configure only those events and reports. Everything else is storage you will never open. Analytics and behaviour tools Choosing Behaviour Tools: Recordings, Heatmaps, Surveys Compared Recordings, heatmaps and surveys answer different questions at different costs. Choose by the question you have now, install one at a time, and retire tools whose questions you have stopped asking. Analytics and behaviour tools Consent, Privacy and Measurement That Still Works Honest measurement and lawful consent are the same project: ask properly, respect the answer, design reports that survive a share of visitors being unmeasured, and never let a banner break the visit it protects. Analytics and behaviour tools From Data to Decision: A Weekly Thirty-Minute Routine Thirty minutes, same time each week: dashboard glance, one funnel step investigated, one instrument consulted, one decision written down. The routine, not the toolset, is what turns measurement into optimisation. Analytics and behaviour tools Funnel Reports: Building the View You Will Actually Use A funnel report earns its opening when it matches your real steps, splits by device, and compares whole periods. Build it once, save it, and read step rates in order instead of admiring the total. Analytics and behaviour tools Session Recordings and Heatmaps: Watching Without Guessing Recordings show sequence and struggle; heatmaps show where attention pooled and died. Used after the funnel has chosen a page, and read as counts of patterns, they explain what a rate never can. Analytics and behaviour tools Short Surveys and On-Site Questions That People Answer People answer short, well-timed, specific questions and ignore long, vague ones. Ask one question at the moment it is natural, offer answers in the visitor's language, and treat every reply as a lead, not a vote. Analytics and behaviour tools The Five Reports Worth Opening Every Month Five reports cover most monthly decisions for a small business: the funnel, sources, devices, top landing pages, and site search or top products. Opened in the same order, they turn analytics from a maze into a review. Analytics and behaviour tools The Post-Purchase Survey: Asking at the Moment of Truth Immediately after buying, a customer can tell you what nearly stopped them, in words you could not invent. One or two questions on the confirmation, read monthly, become the business's hesitation ranking. Analytics and behaviour tools Tracking Traps: Double Counts, Test Orders and Other Lies The most damaging analytics failures are quiet: conversions counted twice, test orders inside revenue, consent losses mistaken for traffic falls. Learn the traps, verify on a rhythm, and distrust any sudden perfection.