Hotjar assigns all visitor a unique identifier called a Hotjar User ID within Recordings when they visit your website. If consent is granted by the visitor, Polls and Incoming Feedback will show you their Hotjar User ID, making it easier to compare feedback to behavior.
The Hotjar User ID is useful for identifying the corresponding Recordings to Feedback responses, however, it is not meant to aid in troubleshooting or tracking an individual visitor. The Hotjar User ID will persist until a visitor clears their browser's cookies.
The Hotjar User ID is not transferred across devices and is only associated with Hotjar. It should not be confused with internal user IDs from your site.
- Finding a Recording for a Feedback response
- How do I connect my internal user ID and Hotjar ID?
- User ID troubleshooting
Hotjar User IDs are assigned automatically
This is to ensure the anonymity of visitors by default. Customizing these IDs is not possible.
Finding a Recording for a Feedback response
Copy a Hotjar User ID from either a Poll or Incoming Feedback.
Click into the Recordings tab in the Hotjar dashboard.
Paste the Hotjar User ID in the Recording filter to narrow down the corresponding Recordings.
You can learn more about the Hotjar User ID and other filters within our Recording Filters article.
How do I connect my internal user ID and Hotjar User ID?
Your internal User IDs can be passed to Hotjar using our User Attributes feature. You can use this feature to target Polls and Incoming Feedback with User Attributes. In the future, you will also be able to filter and segment Recordings by User Attributes. You can read more about our progress on this in our Product Roadmap.
You can learn more about Hotjar’s approach to privacy on this blog post by our CEO.
Hotjar User ID troubleshooting
If you're unable to find corresponding Recordings for any Feedback responses, remember that if a Recording snapshot is not collecting data in the same session, any responses at that time will not have a corresponding Recording. There are various cases where Hotjar does not collect Recording data from all visitors. Occasionally you may find someone has submitted responses but was not captured in a Recording.
Another case where this can happen is when a Recording snapshot has finished. To ensure Hotjar User IDs for visitors who have granted consent can be found in Recordings, make sure you have active snapshots running.