Hotjar, a local company, is showing the world how it is done when it comes to running an international analytics start-up business. Founded by David Darmanin, 36, in two years, Hotjar has garnered over 190,000 clients from 190 countries, including Nintendo, IKEA, Panasonic, Columbia and T-Mobile.

Currently one of the fastest-growing analytics startups worldwide, with a nine per cent growth rate registered on a monthly basis as at April 2017, the company offers an all-in-one analytics and feedback solution that allows website owners to discover exactly how their visitors are using their website.

Some may ask, ‘Doesn’t Google Analytics already provide this information?’ Well the answer is ‘not really’.

Hotjar is a tool that complements Google Analytics by going into more detail, not just about the quantity of traffic on a website, but also on the quality of the traffic. Basically, while Google Analytics shows you where your visitors are going on your site, Hotjar actually shows you what they’re doing and thinking.

For the techies out there, it uses the following tools to reveal valuable information about a user’s online behaviour:

■ Heat-maps – A visual representation of users’ clicks, taps and scrolling behaviour on the site.

■ Visitor recordings – The actual movements of users on the site.

■ Conversion funnels - Indications of which page and at which step most visitors are leaving the site.

■ Form analytics - Revelations on why some visitors abandon a form and page, which fields take too long to fill and which are left blank.

Hotjar also offers opportunities to collect valuable feedback from a website’s users via:

■ Feedback polls – The opportunity to target questions to specific visitors anywhere on the web and mobile site.

Surveys – Facility to collect responses in real-time from any device even to visitors just before they leave the site.

Recruiting of testers – Helping to recruit the best participants for user research and testing directly from the site.

This year, Hotjar will be hosting the international Xawards in Malta, on May 11 and 12 at Villa Rosa, St Julian’s. The event aims to recognise the best web and native digital experiences at the ‘early start-up’ stage.

Over 640 start-up teams from 63 countries have submitted their application for the Hotjar Xawards. Apart from over €30,000 worth of cash prizes for the winners, 10 finalist teams will also benefit from a fully funded trip to Malta to attend the event.

The two-day event is jam-packed with insightful talks from key speakers including Ryan Singer, in charge of product strategy, from world-renowned company Basecamp, Bob Jelica, director at Footbal Addicts (previously agile coach at Spotify), Sergei Anikin, VP Engineering at Pipedrive, Alex Theuma, founder of Saastock, and members from the Hotjar founding team. The talks will cover a number of key subjects ranging from marketing, funding, pricing and execution.

The event will then culminate with the final pitches by the finalists, followed by the awards ceremony and after-party featuring an exclusive performance by local group The Travellers, all to be held on Friday evening.

The event is exclusively restricted to the finalists and speakers. However, Hotjar will be giving the opportunity to three local start-up teams (or aspiring ones) to join the finalists and attend the entire two-day international event.

This is a golden opportunity for attendees to network with some of the best digital start-up talent from all over the world.

For more information and updates on the Hotjar Xawards, log on to http://xawards.hotjar.com .