In the digital age, understanding the unspoken reactions of users is just as critical as analyzing click-through rates or bounce rates. Neuromarketing insights for websites can provide valuable perspectives for anyone wanting to optimize user experience. Neuromarketing, connecting psychology and marketing, offers a powerful lens to uncover the emotional and cognitive responses that drive user behavior.
By combining facial expression analysis, webcam eye tracking, and task-based evaluation, you can pinpoint UX incidents, quantify confusion, and refine the customer journey to align with user expectations. This blog shows an example project with website analytics using neuromarketing software that go beyond traditional analytics.
Quantify Tasks that Cause Confusion
A compelling finding in neuromarketing research is the direct relation between task failure and negative emotional responses. Our previously peer-reviewed published research showed that complex tasks (e.g. difficult search tasks) elicit more angry expressions. Anger expressions can represent higher confusion or simply higher focus. Also in the current study, when people were unable to perform a certain task on the website, the average anger expression is more than twice as high. In this study with webcam eye-tracking and facial coding, we asked people to imagine a trip to Sweden and browse two different museum websites. In one task they were asked to find the pricing information. When we compare people who could find the pricing information with those who could not, we see a clear difference.
Detailed Qualitative Results Indicate Important Incidents
Since what people are viewing varies from moment to moment, it is not possible to create a heatmap that averages all the fixations, like with images or videos. The gaze data can illustrate relevant exploration and fixation behavior. In addition, qualitative data, the frame-by-frame gaze, and facial coding results, in addition to task completion rates, can indicate critical incidents.
The filter function makes it easy to find relevant activities. For example, by filtering on tasks that did not succeed and look at those users with high responsiveness. Individual tracking then illustrates what went wrong (or right!) just before the task was completed. Not only negative expressions, but also positive peaks can be relevant, since people sometimes show happiness as a sign of frustration or surprise.
Two Example Visualizations with Eye Tracking and Emotion Results
| For example, the participant above (on the left) couldn’t find the pricing. But by looking at the moment where they start showing expressions, you see in the screen recording with eye tracking visualization that they see an error on the website. The person circles back to this and, in the end, does not finish the task. | It is always important to look at the context of what people are looking at. If you have a beautiful visualisation, some surprise can be present due to appreciation. However, when an image is not supposed to attract much attention (for example, a map of a place you intend to visit, see the image on the right). Surprise can also appear when there is too much information to process. |
In general, no expressions when visiting a website is good, this means there is a clear flow, and nothing stands out. For example, when people succeed in the task smoothly, they often use the search bar more to find what they are looking for. But some miss the box because the central image captures their attention and they scroll down right away to visualize it further. You might consider making the search box more prominent, see for example this guide. With FaceReader Online, user testing becomes much easier.
Important Limitations of Online Neuromarketing Web Analytics
- External distractions: Sometimes expressions are not related to what people are viewing, due to e.g. being distracted by something else, being interrupted, or moving something in front of their face.
- Solution: If the eye-tracking data does not signal something relevant, check out another participant.
- Technical Requirements: For FaceReader Online or similar tools to work, you need full control over the website (e.g., loading it in an iframe).
- Solution: Contact us for more information or a possible work-around.
- Participant behavior: Users may not always behave as they normally would if they are instructed to visit your website. They may show social desirability bias, where they put in more effort since they are recorded.
- Solution: neuromarketing tools capture more automatic behavior to reduce this. In addition try to design real-life scenarios.
Best Practices for Conducting Neuromarketing Website Research
To maximize the value of your neuromarketing study, follow these UX research best practices:
- Craft realistic task instructions:
- Use Scenario-based prompts: Frame tasks to reflect real user motivations. For example: “You’re looking for a museum to visit on your trip.”, “Your friend recommended this product, please explore it.”
- Purposeful breakdown: Divide tasks into smaller steps (e.g., “Find the pricing,” “Read the product description,” “Locate the ‘Add to Cart’ button”) to isolate specific pain points.
- Test your target population:
- Test people who would normally visit your website, or who you would like to visit your website. Use your own newsletter or website to find participants, or use a platform like Prolific and select from the prescreening questions.
- Use a filter for segmentation: Separate responses for males females, or different generations, see for example this study on Gen Z.
- Use follow-up surveys for validation
- Use survey questions to verify whether the task was reached or how it was evaluated, such as “did you notice the ad?” or “Would you purchase this product?”
- Use a filter for segmentation: Separate responses from users who would not purchase to identify friction points (e.g., overlooked discounts, slow loading times), or users who would purchase to identify the ideal customer journey.
- Combine quantitative and qualitative data
- Facial expressions + eye tracking + task completion rates + survey responses will give you a complete picture of the user journey.
- Example: Instead of going through 100 open survey responses, single out the users that show frustration during a task and do not complete it; their survey feedback may reveal why (e.g., “The checkout process was confusing”).
How Neuromarketing Benefits your Website
Neuromarketing isn’t just about identifying problems: it’s about optimizing the entire customer journey. Here’s how to gain neuromarketing insights to improve your website or other UX material:
| Benefit | Impact |
| Identify UX Breakdowns | Pinpoint confusing elements (e.g. navigation, pricing, CTAs) before users abandon your site. |
| Reduce Bounce Rates | Address frustration points, improving task completion, and conversion. |
| Streamline the Customer Journey | Align your website with user expectations, reducing cognitive load. |
| Increase Conversions | Optimize pricing pages, product descriptions, and checkout flows based on real user behavior. |
| Validate Desin Choices | Use eye tracking data to find what layout, colors, or features, attract the most attention. |
Ready to Start Getting Neuromarketing Insights?
Tools like Google Analytics can indicate drop-off on your website and tell you what pages people visit. But do you want to discover why people are dropping off, or not clicking on something? Then create a trial and explore our neuromarketing tools to create a website that resonates with your users.
If you want to know what participating in a neuromarketing website study is like. You can also explore the platform like a participant! Click here and browse through the FaceReader Online website while sharing your experience.