Form Analytics

Form Analytics provides an in-depth view of your visitors’ interactions with your web forms. Unlike other analytics packages, ClickTale’s Form Analytics displays which fields the form is being dropped at, which fields take the most time to complete and more

If you are experiencing issues with playback or analytics of your form pages, please refer to the Troubleshooting:Form Pages article.

Generating the Form Analytics Report
To access your Form Analytics (FA), select “Form Analytics” in the left hand menu and click “Form Analytics”.

The Form Analytics Report is displayed in a 2-pane window, as shown below. This allows for setting or changing the report parameters and generating the result in the same window.



The top pane is the "Form Analytics Settings Pane", allowing you to define and modify the settings of the report. The pane below that displays the actual Form Analytics report.

=The Form Analytics Settings Pane=

=The Form Analytics Suite= The Form Analytics suite consists of 5 reports: Conversion report, Drop report, Time report, Blank field report, and Refill report. Once you generate a report, all 5 types are available for each specific form.

Conversion Report
The Conversion Report is an overview of the manner in which visitors interact with the form. This report helps you understand whether detected conversion issues have to do with the design of your forms or not. The form divides the visitors into 4 groups: - Visitors who landed on the page - this is the total number of visitors who landed on the page (based on the recording parameters of your ClickTale account and on the date/version defined for the report). Next to the visitors who landed on the page, you see the percentage and number of visitors who left without interacting with the form. These are visitors who left the page before filling any of the form fields.

A large number of visitors who leave the form without interacting may indicate one of the following: - Visitors do not expect to see a form on that page. - The form seems intimidating and visitors prefer not to even start filling it. - There is a problem with the form/page - it could indicate that the form is not displayed correctly, so visitors are not able to interact with it.

- Visitors interacted - this is the number of visitors who interacted with the form, i.e. filled at least one of the form fields. Next to the visitors who interacted with the form, you can see the percentage and the number of visitors who interacted with the form but did not submit it. These are visitors who completed some (or all) of the form fields, but never clicked the 'submit' button. To find out in detail where visitors left the form, use the Drop report which provides metrics for each of the form fields.

- Visitors tried to submit – this is the number of visitors who clicked on the final button of the form (usually named 'Submit'). Not all the visitors who clicked the ‘submit’ button have necessarily succeeded in submitting the form. Very often the form is not actually submitted, because of a validation of specific fields performed by the form- logic itself. Next to the visitors who tried to submit the form, you can see the percentage and the number of visitors who tried, but failed to submit. These are usually visitors who either left fields that were defined as mandatory blank, or who did not pass one of the validation checks performed by the form.

A large number of visitors who tried but failed to submit may indicate one of the following: - There is a problem with the submit button. - There is a technical problem with the form set up – for example: fields that are defined as mandatory can not be filled. - There is an issue with the wording of the form – visitors do not understand specific fields, enter the wrong information, and therefore fail the validation.

- Visitors successfully submitted – this is the number of converted visitors. Those who submitted the form successfully. 

Drop Report
The Drop report displays how many of the visitors dropped at each of the form fields. The report lists all form fields and details, for each, the number of visitors who dropped at it, i.e. all the visitors for whom the specific field was the first they did not complete.

A field that has a high drop rate may indicate that: The fields are not clear – visitors do not understand what information they are required to enter/choose Visitors are not comfortable sharing the information requested in the particular field There are too many fields in the form, and visitors get discouraged while filling out the form. There is a technical issue with the field itself - users may be trying to enter information but cannot, and then drop the form. 

Time Report
The Time Report displays the average time visitors interacted with each of the form fields. It is essentially the period between landing on the specific field and the landing on the next field. The report lists all the form fields and details for each how long visitors interacted with it.

A field that requires a long time to complete may indicate that: Visitors are not quite clear what the field requires them to do. Visitors are not comfortable providing the information requested in the field (and are contemplating whether to provide it or not) The field requires information that users do not have available immediately 

Blank Field Report
The Blank Field Report displays how frequently visitors leave each of the fields in the form blank when submitting the form.

A field that was left blank may indicate that: Visitors do not understand what information they are required to provide. Visitors do not think the information requested in the fields is important. Visitors do not wish to reveal the information requested in the field.

Fields that are left blank are often considered by visitors to be unimportant or confusing. Removing unimportant fields or clarifying confusing questions can shorten your form and increase its conversion rate. 

Refill Report
The Refill report displays which fields visitors had to refill when the form fails to submit (i.e. the form did not pass client-side validation).

Please note that a field is considered to be refilled only if it is refilled without reloading the page, and only after a ‘submit’ attempt was recorded for the form.

A field that is often refilled may indicate that: There is an error in the field The explanation as to what type of information required is not clear enough The explanation of the format of the information required is not clear enough. 

At the top of the Form Analytics report page you will find a quick summary of all the different report types.

Multiple Forms on a Page
When multiple forms are detected on the same page, they are each shown in a separate tab on the FA report.

Click a tab to see the FA reports for the form selected.

The forms must be properly defined in HTML to be recognized by ClickTale.

=Best Practices for Form Analytics=

The aims of a form on a web page may be diverse - you may wish to collect information from your visitors, the form may be necessary for registration or identification when logging in, but in every case when using a form on a web page the aim is to have the highest possible conversion rate. Conversion as defined when using a form is the successful submission of it. In order to maximize the conversion of your form, you should build it based on the established best practice principles (on which there are many articles and books available). The Form Analytics report helps you verify that the form indeed adheres to the guidelines provided, as well as he enables you to spot areas where it can be improved.

Best practices for form design - and how to use Form Analytics to verify your form is optimized

If you are not sure your form is optimized, try different wording, design, and set ups. Check the conversion of each of the versions using the 'Conversion Report', drill down to find exactly what works or doesn't work in each version by using all the other reports, and keep changing and improving, until you find the exact set up that really works for your visitors.
 * 1) Keep the form as short as possible - it is a well documented fact that visitors dislike long forms, and are not always happy to provide information. To help you find fields you may want to consider dropping from your form use the  'Blank Report' - fields that visitors leave blank are fields they may be uncomfortable answering.
 * 2) Keep the form simple - explain next to each field exactly what information you wish the visitor to enter. If the fields in the form are not clear, visitors may be confused as to what information they are supposed to provide. This may cause them to leave the form in the middle, or provide you with information that is not what you were looking for. To help you find fields that are not clear to visitors, use the 'Time Report' - if there are fields that take visitors significantly longer to complete, that may indicate the field is not clear.
 * 3) Clearly indicate if a field is mandatory, or has specific completion requirements - if visitors do not understand that a certain field is mandatory, and find out only when trying to submit the form, they may get frustrated. The same applies to fields with specific requirements, such as a password that can only include specific characters, or a phone number that can only include digits. To help you find fields that require a specific input but may not be clear enough, use the 'Refill Report' which indicates which fields visitors had to go back and refill after failing to submit.
 * 4) Ask only for information you really need - some of the questions you are asking may scare visitors who do not wish to provide that information. To help you find fields that visitors are not comfortable with, use the 'Dropped Report'. If many visitors drop the form at a specific point, you may want to reconsider including the specific fields in your report.
 * 5) Design - the design of the form is very important to help visitors complete it successfully. There are many guidelines for designing online forms, for example you should make sure that the instructions are visually linked to the relevant field, that all the fields are aligned, that the submit button is also aligned and visible, and many more. To make sure your form is well designed you may want to look at the different Heatmaps provided by ClickTale.
 * 6) Finally - test, change and optimize!