# What Is a Heat Map (Email Marketing Definition)

Source: https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/what-is-a-heat-map  
Published: 2026-11-03

> Learn what a heat map is, how the color scale works, and explore 6 types—from website click maps to email marketing heat maps—with real examples.

![What Is a Heat Map? Types, Colors & Examples Explained](https://media.joinbreaker.ai/01M6GC7ESNR3YRN73AXNM0Q1SH.png)

Imagine standing in a store and watching how customers flow through the space. Some hover near the entrance, others walk straight to the register, and a few wander the aisles before leaving empty-handed. Now picture a color-coded map that shows exactly where traffic concentrated - red zones marking the busiest paths, blue zones showing where nobody ventured. That's the essence of a heat map.

Once you understand the concept, you spot it everywhere: website analytics dashboards, email engagement reports, weather forecasts. A heat map is simply data translated into color, letting your brain recognize patterns instantly instead of parsing numbers.

## What Is a Heat Map?

A heat map is a data visualization that uses color gradients - typically scaling from cool to warm - to display the intensity or concentration of a value across a surface. A webpage, an email, a spreadsheet, a geographic region, or a dataset can all become the surface. Warm colors indicate high activity or high values; cool colors indicate low activity or low values.

The term gets applied across many fields, and that matters. A UX researcher, a GIS analyst, a public health official, a spreadsheet user, and an email marketer all say "heat map" but mean something different. This guide walks through every major type, explains how the color system works, and focuses on email marketing heat maps - a tool most guides skip despite its value for measuring subscriber behavior.

## How Heat Maps Work: The Color Logic

Every heat map follows the same foundational principle: color stands in for a number. Instead of forcing you to read spreadsheet cells or data tables, a heat map lets you see patterns at a glance. Your brain processes color differences in milliseconds, which explains why this format has spread from scientific visualization into marketing, design, and business reporting over the last two decades.

![A heat map color scale showing five levels from dark blue to red, representing activity intensity from very low to very high.](https://blogr.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/article-visuals/317/heat-map-color-scale-fml3d1-1.webp)

### Warm Colors = High Values or Activity

Red, orange, and yellow signal "something significant is happening here." On a website click map, red zones mark buttons or links that visitors clicked repeatedly. On a population density map, red highlights the most densely populated areas. In an email, red highlights the subject line or call-to-action button that pulled the most clicks.

### Cool Colors = Low Values or Activity

Blue and green represent low activity or low values. A blue section on a webpage heat map shows an area visitors scrolled past without interacting. Green on a population map marks a sparsely populated rural area. In an email, a cool-colored footer usually means subscribers never scrolled that far.

Here's the standard color scale you'll see across most tools:

<div class="table-wrap" style="overflow-x:auto"><table><thead><tr><th>Color</th><th>Typical Meaning</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Dark blue / Purple</td><td>Very low or no activity</td></tr><tr><td>Green</td><td>Low activity</td></tr><tr><td>Yellow</td><td>Moderate activity</td></tr><tr><td>Orange</td><td>High activity</td></tr><tr><td>Red</td><td>Very high activity</td></tr></tbody></table></div>

One habit prevents most misreadings: check the legend before drawing conclusions, since some tools reverse this palette or use single-color gradients.

## Six Main Types of Heat Maps

"Heat map" is an umbrella term covering several distinct tools with the same visual language but different purposes.

### Website and UX Heat Maps

Website heat maps overlay color on a page screenshot or live rendering to show how visitors actually interact with it. UX researchers and conversion optimization teams use these constantly to reveal gaps between what designers intended and what users do.

Common subtypes include:

- **Click maps** show exactly where visitors clicked, including non-clickable areas - often revealing confusing design choices.
- **Scroll maps** display how far down a page visitors typically scroll before leaving, using color bands to mark drop-off points.
- **Move or hover maps** track mouse movement, which research from the Nielsen Norman Group associates with where visual attention focuses on desktop, since cursor movement typically follows eye movement.
- **Rage-click maps** flag spots where users clicked repeatedly and rapidly out of frustration, usually because something appeared clickable but wasn't, or a page failed to respond.

Popular options include [Hotjar](https://www.hotjar.com/), [Crazy Egg](https://www.crazyegg.com/), and [Microsoft Clarity](https://clarity.microsoft.com/), which stands out for being free. Google Analytics doesn't generate traditional heat maps natively, but it pairs well with these tools to connect behavior data to conversion data.

### Geographic Heat Maps

Geographic heat maps layer color over a physical map to show concentration across a region - population density, disease outbreaks, sales by territory, storm intensity, or real estate prices. [Google Earth](https://earth.google.com/) and GIS platforms like Esri's ArcGIS use this format constantly. These maps are especially common in epidemiology, logistics, and urban planning, where spotting clusters matters more than reading coordinate tables.

### Data or Matrix Heat Maps

This spreadsheet and statistics version applies color shading to grids of numbers so patterns in large datasets stand out visually. You've probably built one using conditional formatting in Excel or Google Sheets to color-code a budget, rubric, or sales report. Data scientists use matrix heat maps in tools like Tableau to visualize correlation tables and large statistical matrices.

### Email Marketing Heat Maps

This type rarely gets discussed despite being invaluable for newsletter creators. An email marketing heat map overlays color on an email template to show exactly where recipients clicked, how far they scrolled, and which sections held attention longest.

This matters because an open rate or click-through percentage only tells you that something happened. A heat map tells you where. Did subscribers click the hero image, or did they skip it and click the text link three paragraphs down? Did anyone reach your secondary call-to-action near the footer, or did engagement drop after the first screen?

Breaker's platform data illustrates why this detail matters. Campaigns average a 63% open rate and a 2.7% click-through rate. A heat map explains the gap between opens and clicks: whether engagement concentrates around one dominant link or spreads across multiple touchpoints. When a newsletter's heat map shows a dead zone around the main call-to-action, that's a design and placement problem a heat map diagnoses immediately - much faster than waiting for an A/B test to surface the same insight.

For a deeper look at connecting engagement patterns to your full customer journey, Breaker's guide to [mapping email touchpoints in B2B funnels](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/map-email-touchpoints-b2b-funnels) shows how individual click and scroll signals fit into broader lifecycle strategy.

### Healthcare Heat Maps

In clinical and public health settings, heat maps visualize disease spread across regions, patient flow and bottlenecks inside hospitals, body temperature distribution in thermal imaging, or genetic expression data in lab research. Public health agencies have used geographic heat maps for decades to track outbreak clusters - a visibility that became especially common during COVID-19 dashboard tracking. The logic stays the same as a website click map: color represents intensity, just applied to medical or epidemiological data instead of user clicks.

### AI-Generated Heat Maps

A newer category has emerged as AI tools integrate into workflows. ChatGPT and similar tools cannot directly render a pixel-level click heatmap of your live website (that requires actual behavioral tracking from installed software), but they can generate heat map-style visualizations from datasets you provide, write ready-to-run code in Python or Excel, and help interpret existing heat maps once you describe what you're seeing. This has become a common workflow for marketers and analysts wanting a faster first pass at pattern-spotting before evaluating dedicated tools.

### Quick Reference Table

<div class="table-wrap" style="overflow-x:auto"><table><thead><tr><th>Heat Map Type</th><th>What It Measures</th><th>Common Tools</th><th>Example Use Case</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Website/UX heat map</td><td>Clicks, scrolls, mouse movement on a webpage</td><td>Hotjar, Crazy Egg, Microsoft Clarity</td><td>Finding why visitors abandon a landing page</td></tr><tr><td>Geographic heat map</td><td>Density or concentration across a physical area</td><td>Google Earth, ArcGIS, Tableau</td><td>Mapping population density or sales by region</td></tr><tr><td>Data/matrix heat map</td><td>Patterns across rows and columns of numbers</td><td>Excel, Google Sheets, Tableau</td><td>Color-coding a budget or correlation table</td></tr><tr><td>Email marketing heat map</td><td>Clicks, scroll depth, and attention inside an email</td><td>Breaker, email heatmap add-ons</td><td>Finding which newsletter section drives the most clicks</td></tr><tr><td>Healthcare heat map</td><td>Disease spread, patient flow, thermal or genetic data</td><td>Public health GIS dashboards, imaging software</td><td>Tracking an outbreak cluster across a county</td></tr><tr><td>AI-generated heat map</td><td>Patterns in a dataset you provide to an AI tool</td><td>ChatGPT, Python libraries (Seaborn, Matplotlib)</td><td>Quickly visualizing survey or sales data</td></tr></tbody></table></div>

## Heat Map vs. Hot Spot Map: The Key Difference

A heat map shows a continuous gradient of intensity across an entire surface, blending smoothly from cool to warm. A hot spot map identifies specific, discrete clusters or points where a value is statistically significant, marked with distinct dots or boundaries rather than a smooth gradient. Think of it this way: a heat map shows the temperature across the whole room, while a hot spot map circles the exact spots catching fire.

![A side-by-side comparison of heat maps and hot spot maps, showing six criteria: visual style, best use, common applications, math method, and typical field.](https://blogr.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/article-visuals/317/heat-map-vs-hot-spot-map-fml3d1-2.webp)

<div class="table-wrap" style="overflow-x:auto"><table><thead><tr><th>Feature</th><th>Heat Map</th><th>Hot Spot Map</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Visual style</td><td>Smooth, continuous color gradient</td><td>Discrete clusters, dots, or zones</td></tr><tr><td>Best for</td><td>Showing overall intensity patterns across a full area</td><td>Pinpointing statistically significant concentration points</td></tr><tr><td>Common use</td><td>Website clicks, email engagement, general density</td><td>Crime cluster analysis, disease outbreak epicenters, retail hotspot targeting</td></tr><tr><td>Underlying math</td><td>Interpolated intensity values</td><td>Statistical clustering (e.g., Getis-Ord Gi* analysis)</td></tr><tr><td>Typical field</td><td>UX, marketing, general data visualization</td><td>GIS, criminology, epidemiology</td></tr></tbody></table></div>

Both are density tools, and the terms often get used interchangeably in casual conversation. For serious geographic or statistical analysis though, a hot spot map is the more precise tool when you need to prove that a cluster is statistically meaningful rather than just visually prominent.

## Email Marketing Heat Maps: A Detailed Look

An email marketing heat map is a visual overlay on an email template showing where subscribers clicked, how far they scrolled, and which sections captured attention before they disengaged.

### What Email Heat Maps Reveal

Email engagement heat maps typically surface patterns like these:

- **Click concentration:** which links, buttons, or images got clicked most, often revealing that a secondary link outperformed the primary call-to-action.
- **Scroll depth:** how far down most recipients read before stopping, telling you whether your most important offer sits too low.
- **Hover and dwell patterns:** where recipients paused, which often correlates with what caught their eye even without a click.
- **Dead zones:** sections like footers or secondary offers that consistently get zero engagement.

### Why Email Heat Maps Drive Engagement and Revenue

Open rate and click-through rate tell you that something worked. A heat map tells you why. If a campaign hits 2.7% click-through rate, a heat map shows whether that came from one button carrying the whole load or from balanced engagement across multiple links - a much healthier pattern. That distinction shapes what you test next: a single-button campaign needs placement and copy work, while a spread-out campaign needs a clearer primary call-to-action.

This granular visibility also pairs powerfully with [dynamic content strategies in email marketing](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/dynamic-content-in-email-marketing-to-boost-engagement). Once you know which template sections reliably pull attention, you can personalize exactly those sections for different segments instead of guessing.

### How Breaker's Analytics Surface Engagement Patterns

Breaker's reporting tracks subscriber-level engagement across every send, making the platform's 63% average open rate and 2.7% average click-through rate meaningful benchmarks rather than vanity numbers. Those figures reflect aggregate performance across real newsletter sends, giving marketers a concrete baseline to measure against. If your campaign heat map shows engagement clustered tightly around one weak link while the rest goes cold, that's a strong signal your layout needs rework before spending more budget. Breaker's analytics tie that attention data directly to your [email service provider setup](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/esp-in-email-marketing), so behavior in a heat map connects back to list segments and overall performance.

This video shows email heat mapping in practice and how marketers use it to improve click performance:

<div class="video-embed" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden"><iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/jXyQW43ECOQ" title="Embedded video" loading="lazy" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0"></iframe></div>

## Real Heat Map Examples

Seeing descriptions is one thing. Here's what each type actually looks like:

- **Website click map:** A SaaS landing page shows a large red cluster around the hero "Start Free Trial" button, a smaller orange cluster around a pricing link in navigation, and cold blue space across the testimonials section - revealing that social proof is being ignored.
- **Geographic heat map:** A metro area shaded from deep blue in outer suburbs to bright red downtown, representing population density and commonly used by city planners and retailers scouting locations.
- **Excel heat map:** A monthly sales spreadsheet where top-performing regions shade dark green and underperforming regions shade red, letting a manager spot problem territories instantly.
- **Email heat map:** A newsletter where the headline and first call-to-action glow red and orange, a mid-email image gets moderate yellow, and footer links sit in cold blue - showing engagement drops sharply after the first screen.

## How to Create a Heat Map

The method depends on the type of heat map you need.

### Using Dedicated Heatmap Software

For websites, purpose-built tools remain the fastest and most accurate:

- [**Hotjar**](https://www.hotjar.com/) offers click, scroll, and move maps with session recordings, popular with small and mid-size marketing teams.
- [**Crazy Egg**](https://www.crazyegg.com/) adds A/B testing alongside heatmaps, useful for ongoing conversion rate optimization.
- [**Microsoft Clarity**](https://clarity.microsoft.com/) is free and includes heatmaps plus session replays, making it a solid starting point for smaller sites or anyone testing the concept first.

### Using Excel or Google Sheets

You don't need special software for basic data heat maps. In both Excel and Google Sheets, select your data range, apply conditional formatting, and choose a color scale rule (typically three colors running from red to yellow to green, or reversed). The spreadsheet automatically shades each cell based on its relative value - no coding required.

### Using AI Tools

ChatGPT cannot install tracking code on your website or generate a live click heatmap (that requires visitor tracking from installed software). It can take a dataset you upload or describe and generate a matrix-style heat map, write ready-to-run Python code using Seaborn or Matplotlib, or help interpret existing heat maps by analyzing patterns you describe. For marketers without a data background, this has become a genuinely useful shortcut for first-pass visualization before committing to a dedicated tool.

### Five Steps to Build Your First Heat Map

1. **Define what you're measuring.** Clicks on a webpage, email engagement, or spreadsheet values each need different setup.
1. **Choose the right tool for that surface.** Website behavior needs dedicated software like Hotjar or Clarity; spreadsheets need conditional formatting; emails need a platform with built-in tracking.
1. **Collect enough data before drawing conclusions.** A single session or handful of opens won't produce reliable patterns; wait for meaningful traffic or send volume.
1. **Read the color scale correctly.** Confirm whether warm means high or low in your specific tool before interpreting anything.
1. **Turn the pattern into a change.** A heat map diagnoses problems; use what it shows to move a button, shorten a page, or reorder an email's sections.

For a fully worked walkthrough, Breaker's [step-by-step guide to creating a heat map](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/creating-a-heat-map) covers tool setup and data interpretation in greater detail.

## Checking Your Website's Heat Map

The fastest way is to sign up for a heatmap tool like Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, or Crazy Egg, install a small tracking snippet in your site's header, and let it collect data for at least a few days to a week before reviewing results.

1. Choose a tool. Microsoft Clarity is free and a solid starting point; Hotjar and Crazy Egg offer paid tiers with advanced filtering and A/B testing.
1. Install the tracking code, usually a short JavaScript snippet pasted into your site header or added through Google Tag Manager.
1. Let the tool collect real visitor sessions. Most platforms recommend waiting for at least a few hundred page visits before drawing conclusions, since small samples produce misleading hot spots.
1. Review click, scroll, and move maps separately. Each answers different questions, so don't rely on just one.
1. Segment by device. Mobile and desktop visitors interact very differently with the same page, and most tools let you filter by device.

For building custom views beyond default heatmap screens, Breaker's explainer on [ad hoc reporting](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/ad-hoc-reporting-definition) pairs well with broader reporting dashboards.

## Heat Map Tools Compared

<div class="table-wrap" style="overflow-x:auto"><table><thead><tr><th>Tool</th><th>Best For</th><th>Pricing Tier</th><th>Key Feature</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Breaker</td><td>Email marketing engagement heat maps and newsletter analytics</td><td>Paid plans with free trial; built for growing senders</td><td>Subscriber-level click and scroll tracking tied directly to campaign performance</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://www.hotjar.com/">Hotjar</a></td><td>Website click, scroll, and move maps</td><td>Free tier available; paid plans scale with traffic</td><td>Session recordings paired with heatmap data</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://www.crazyegg.com/">Crazy Egg</a></td><td>Website heatmaps plus built-in A/B testing</td><td>Paid plans; free trial available</td><td>Snapshot comparisons across page versions</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://clarity.microsoft.com/">Microsoft Clarity</a></td><td>Budget-friendly or first-time website heatmap users</td><td>Completely free</td><td>Unlimited sessions at no cost</td></tr><tr><td><a href="https://www.tableau.com/">Tableau</a></td><td>Data and matrix heat maps for large datasets</td><td>Paid; enterprise-focused pricing</td><td>Advanced statistical visualization</td></tr></tbody></table></div>

![A comparison of five heat map tools—Breaker, Hotjar, Crazy Egg, Microsoft Clarity, and Tableau—showing their best use, pricing tier, and key features.](https://blogr.ams3.digitaloceanspaces.com/article-visuals/317/heat-map-tools-compared-fml3d1-3.webp)

For evaluating a full stack, Breaker's roundup of [email marketing platforms](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/email-marketing-platforms) and [email tracking software comparison](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/email-tracking-software) go deeper into choosing the right combination for your send volume and budget. If newsletters are your focus, the [email tracker guide for newsletter tools](https://joinbreaker.ai/blog-posts/email-tracker-newsletter-tools) narrows the field further.

Among these options, Breaker stands out for teams whose core question is about email engagement rather than general website behavior. Where Hotjar, Crazy Egg, and Clarity answer "what did someone do on my webpage," Breaker answers "what did someone do inside my email" - a distinct dataset that general-purpose tools don't capture. If your main goal is understanding and improving newsletter performance, pairing Breaker's engagement analytics with a lightweight website tool like Microsoft Clarity gives you the fullest picture without overpaying for overlapping features.

This video offers a useful visual walkthrough of what a completed heat map looks like, connecting theory to practice:

<div class="video-embed" style="position:relative;padding-bottom:56.25%;height:0;overflow:hidden"><iframe src="https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/Q3XFj3zJBuE" title="Embedded video" loading="lazy" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;border:0"></iframe></div>

## Frequently Asked Questions

**What is a heat map in healthcare?** In healthcare, heat maps visualize concentration or intensity of medical data across a region or body - disease outbreak clusters across a county, patient flow bottlenecks in a hospital, or thermal imaging results. Public health agencies have used geographic heat maps for decades to track and respond to outbreaks.

**Can ChatGPT create heatmaps?** ChatGPT can generate heat map-style visualizations from data you provide and can write code to build one in Python or Excel, but it cannot create a true website click heatmap because that requires live visitor tracking data from installed analytics software.

**How can I check the heatmap of my website?** Sign up for a tool like Microsoft Clarity, Hotjar, or Crazy Egg, install the provided tracking snippet on your site, let it collect at least a few hundred visits, then review the click, scroll, and move maps separately for the clearest picture.

**Is there a way to create a heat map in Excel?** Yes. Select your data range, go to conditional formatting, and apply a color scale rule. Excel will automatically shade each cell based on its relative value - no coding or add-ins needed.

**What is a heat map in email marketing?** It's a visual overlay on an email template showing where subscribers clicked, how far they scrolled, and which sections drew the most attention, turning raw click-through numbers into a visible map of subscriber behavior.

**What's the difference between a heat map and a hot spot map?** A heat map shows a smooth, continuous gradient of intensity across a full surface, while a hot spot map marks discrete, statistically significant clusters with dots or defined boundaries rather than a blended gradient.

**What do the colors on a heat map mean?** Warm colors like red and orange represent high values or heavy activity, while cool colors like blue and green represent low values or little activity. Always check your specific tool's legend since some use reversed or single-color scales.

**What tools are used to create heat maps?** Common tools include Hotjar, Crazy Egg, and Microsoft Clarity for websites; Excel and Google Sheets for data matrices; Tableau for large statistical datasets; and Breaker for email marketing engagement heat maps.

## Key Takeaways

- A heat map uses color - typically running from cool to warm - to display intensity or concentration of a value across a surface.
- The main types are website/UX heat maps, geographic heat maps, data/matrix heat maps, email marketing heat maps, and healthcare heat maps, with AI-generated heat maps as an emerging category.
- A hot spot map differs by marking discrete, statistically significant clusters rather than a smooth gradient.
- Email marketing heat maps are one of the most underused tools in a marketer's kit, revealing exactly which newsletter sections drive clicks and where engagement drops.
- Breaker's platform benchmarks of 63% average open rate and 2.7% average click-through rate give senders a real baseline to measure their own patterns.
- You can build a basic heat map for free using conditional formatting in Excel or Google Sheets, or using Microsoft Clarity for website tracking.
- Always check the color legend before interpreting any heat map, since warm and cool meanings vary by tool.

If you're ready to see what your own subscriber engagement patterns look like, visit [Breaker](https://joinbreaker.ai) to explore how its analytics turn open and click data into a clear picture of what's actually working in your newsletters.

## Sources

- [Hotjar](https://www.hotjar.com/)
- [Crazy Egg](https://www.crazyegg.com/)
- [Microsoft Clarity](https://clarity.microsoft.com/)
- [Google Earth](https://earth.google.com/)
- [Tableau](https://www.tableau.com/)
- [Nielsen Norman Group](https://www.nngroup.com/)