Visitor Recordings Feature

See What Your Visitors Do on Your Page

Visitor Recordings enables you to actually see what your users are doing on your website. You can view an actual video of what a visitor did on your  website during his session – where he clicked, how he watched the content, what his actions were. In order to give you a better overview of this feature, we divided the article into the following sections:

 

  1. Overview & Main Table of Session Recordings
    1. General Structure View
    2. Available Filters
  2. Actions & Mass-actions for Session Recordings
  3. Feature Specific Settings
    1. Pages to Be Recorded
    2. Conditions to Be Recorded
  4. Detail View of a Session Recording
    1. Info of a Session Recording
    2. Visitor Actions Shown
    3. Notes for a Session Recording

In the top right-hand corner of the page (under your account picture), you will find the date selector.

Click on this to expand the calendar. You can then choose a specific time range or even a day for which you want to view your data. It is important to manage the displayment of data to certain dates or periods in which you ran potential campaigns or took other measures, in order to measure how successful these actions were for future planning. 

Some General Hints 

  • Many of  the  present elements contain options to hover information or further actions. Just let your cursor run over various elements and discover how much data is actually packed into a tile.
  • Almost all views and some single elements have a little "i" icon in the upper right corner, giving you yet more information about the view/element. Just move your cursor there and you will see more information.

 

This main view represents the core of the platform. In comparison to other features of the application, this view contains a lot of information and might seem complicated at the first glance, but it is nothing of the sort. What it provides is a very powerful overview of all the tools and information you need in order to navigate through your visitor session recordings.

Important Hints: 

  • In order for the functionalities to appear you need to install the tracking code correctly  to be able to record your visitor sessions.
  • You can always pause/continue the recording of new visitor sessions by clicking on the large radio button in the upper right corner of the view.

The first screenshot above gives you a solid overview of the main elements in this view. 

Each row of the table presents a session recording of one of your visitors with all its info and actions. The main table is structured with the following columns:

  1. Recording ID & DateIn this column you see the Recording ID and the Dateand Time of the any given recording.
  2. Recording Duration: this column is represented by the "clock" icon. Here you can see the duration of the recording.
  3. Pages: Here you are shown the amount of pages of your website that the visitor visited during the session recording. If you click on the green stack icon right next to the number,  it will display in  more detail (exact URL, date/time/duration) about each page visited.
  4. Visitor Details: In this column you can see if the recording has been done by a New or Returning visitor. Additionaly, you can check the Visitor's aproximate Location.
  5. ReferrerShows you the URL from which the visitor has accessed your website.
  6. Recording Details: Here you can observe the following: type of device, operating system and browser was used to acccess your website. Move your cursor across the icons in order to see more information.
  7. Actions: this column consists of two symbols:
    1. View Session Recording Icon:  If you click on the icon, you will be forwarded to the actual video of the visitor recording.
    2. Three Vertical Dots Icon: clicking on this icon will reveal 5 actions available for this recording : Star Recording, Add a note, Mark as unseen, Copy recording link, Delete Recording. 

 

 

This category mostly contains filters that refer to attributes of the visitor or the visitor recording session itself. The following general filters are available for you:

  • Countries: Look for session recordings done by visitors from a certain country
  • Operating System (OS): Filter visitor recordings who used a certain operating system
  • Browsers: Search for visitor session recordings that used a certain browser for browsing your website
  • Devices: Filter visitor recordings who used a certain device
  • Visitor Type: Filter for "New"or "Returning" visitor session recordings
  • Watched: Search for all visitor session recordings you already watched
  • Starred: Look for all visitor session recordings you already starred
  • Contains Page: Search for visitor session recordings that do contain certain URL elements (i.e. "/en").
  • Does Not Contain Page: filter session recordings for URLs that do not contain certain URL elements (i.e. "/prodcut-x").
  • Entry Page: the page that visitors first entered/saw when visiting your website. See how they reacted on being confronted first with your content.
  • Exit Page: search for pages on which your visitors exited your website while browsing it. 
  • Duration: Look for visitor session recordings that have a certain range of duration.
  • Page Count: Look for visitor session recordings that have a certain range of pages visited during the session.
  • Funnel Filter: search for recordings where your visitors dropped out at a certain level of a funnel.

 

Interval Filters

This filter category offers the option to view your recordings in a certain period of time. The filters range from the current day right up to the instalation date of the aplication.

This filter comes in very handy when trying to see the traffic registered on your website within a specific period of time.

In the above screenshot you see the important fields for this section marked.

  •  By checking the marked box  the menu opens up with the actions specifically available for each visitor session recording:
    • All: see all session recordings.
    • Seen: view only the previously seen recordings.
    • Unseen: view only unseen recordings.
    • Starred: see only the starred recordings.
    • Unstarred:  view the unstarred recordings.
  • Once you select one of the above filters a second button will appear. The "Select an Action" button will alow you to star/unstar recordings, mark as seen or unseen or delete recordings.

 

Now you are familiar with the look and feel of this page, let's delve a little deeper into all of the different sections available to you. This is highly intutitive and interactive. For ease, I have numbered the different features and explained each below: 

  1. Recording ID & Date: There is a lot of information packed into this little section, which includes the Recording ID, the date, and even the time of the recording. We will look at this in greater detail in the Recording View later.
  2. Clock Icon: The clock icon indicates the total length of time the visitor was on your site, and therefore is also the length of the recording. 
  3. Visited Pages: On the left of this column there is a "stacked page" icon with a number. This indicates the total number of pages the user visited during their session. The icons to the right (looking like little doors) indicate the pages your visitor entered and exited from. 
  4. Visitor Details: This column will tell you at a glance what country your visitor is is in, and also whether they are a New Visitor or a Returning Visitor.
  5. Referrer: This column will show you from where on the internet your visitor has joined your site. In the example shown, Direct Visit indicates that the customer has gone straight to your site - maybe they have it saved or have simply typed your site address directly into the address bar. The other examples show that the visitor has entered via another address - possibly from search engine results or from clicking a link in another website. 
  6. Recording Details: In this section, icons will show you which device, operating system and browser your visitor is using during their session. So, using the top row as an example, this visitor is using: Device: Desktop, Operating System: Windows 10, Browser: Chrome.
  7. Actions: This final colum offers you the ability to add notes, share the recording and mark it as a favorite among others. We will look into this in a little more detail next. 

 

The sections we have just seen are mainly for information purposes with the exception of  Actions. As the name would suggest, this is a section you can use to tailor things a little more.

An Important Note Upfront: All actions may be limited based on your role and website permissions. Please check with your website admin if you are unable to select an option. 

  1. Mark as Favorite: If you click here, a star will be added to the Recording ID & Date column so you can easily see the recordings you wish to go back to.
  2. Add a Note: If there is something you have found particularly insightful during this recording and want to take note, you are able to do so here. Clicking on this option will open a separate text bubble on the screen for you to add a note to that recording. 
  3. Mark as Watched: Watching many recordings (and not necessarily in order) can get confusing - so if you have finished watching one and done all you need to for now, just click here and select Mark as Watched. If at some point, you want to add it to a list to go back and view it again, simply select the Actions tab and select Mark as Unwatched.
  4. Copy Recording's Link: If you need to share a recording with a colleague or perhaps putting together a document with a selection of your VisitorRecordings, simply click on the Copy Recording's Link button and the link will automatically be copied to your clipboard. 
  5. Delete Recording: In the event that you wish to delete a Visitor Recording, you are able to do so by clicking Delete Recording. As a safety measure, a box will open to ask if you are sure you want to delete. This cannot be undone. Please note: this action can only be preformed by someone with admin or owner access permissions. 

 

Now we have seen what all the different buttons do, it is time for the best bit! The recording view itself.

The Visitor Recording takes up most of the screen so you are able to see it in detail. Let's go through the functions which make up the rest of this page. There are two views to choose from within this section. (A: Recording Details& B: Visitor's Actions). 

A. Recording Details: Within the Recording Details view, you will see all of the information from the dashboard in one place for each recording - such as RecordingDate and Time, Visitor Type and Device/Browser Used

  1. Recording ID: We saw the Recording ID in an earlier slide. Here, it is visible at the top of the screen and in the bottom right. The Recording ID is unique to this visit and is anonymized
  2. Recording User ID: This is another anonymized unique visitor ID but is this time unique to the visitor rather than the recording
  3. Add a Note (Optional): Although you may add a note to a recording in the main dashboard, this box allows you write a note directly into the recording as you are viewing. *Important Note: Remember that use of this function will depend on your website permissions
  4. Copy Link to Recording: As with the Add a Note option, you are also able to copy the link from within the recording view without having to go in and out of it
  5. Delete Recording: Deleting a recording is also available from within this view, but please remember, if you choose to delete the recording, this cannot beundone. And, as with other functions, you will need the relevant website permissions
  6. Favorite: Yep, you guessed it! Give this button a click from within the Recording View as well as the dashboard view and it will add it to your favorites - marked with a star
  7. Previous Recording & Next Recording: Easily toggle between recordings without having to go back to the dashboard view
  8. The Video Control Bar: This bar allows you to do many things. In the bottom left, you can "play" and "pause". You will also see here, the "Time" counter. On the right hand side, if you hit the 1x button, you can forward the video playback to up to 8x speed!

Saving the best for last - the two furthest functions on the Video Control Bar are "Skip Inactivity" and "Expand Screen" So, if you have a long video to watch, try using the "Skip Inactivity" button to ensure you are just seeing the important stuff! Likewise with "Expand Screen", if you already have everything set up as needed, just click here and all else will disappear - allowing you to view the recording in full screen. 

 

B. Visitor's Actions: This bit is genius! Depending on the information you need from watching a Visitor Recording, you could find this completely indespensible! 

Visitor's Actions allows you to see every single action taken by the visitor. By "Scroll" "Mouse Position", "Focus"...you name it! This is particularly helpful if you are, say, trying to identify a bug on your site and need to understand exactly where the issue is. 


In this view, you still have the "Visitor Recording" screen on the left. The only difference is that the screen which opens on the right shows you all of the "movements" which make up the visit. Second by second. So, you can pause the video where needed and find the exact visitor action which corresponds with what you are looking for.