Hotjar assigns all users a unique identifier called a Hotjar User ID within Recordings when they visit your website, allowing you to find Recordings from a specific user, while still allowing the user to remain otherwise anonymous.
If consent is granted by the user, Surveys and Incoming Feedback will show you their Hotjar User ID, making it easier to compare feedback to behavior. When this is done, the Hotjar User ID is useful for identifying the corresponding Recordings to Feedback responses.
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. On Business plans, internal user IDs can instead be passed to Hotjar via our User Attributes feature
- 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 users by default. Customizing these IDs is not possible.
Finding a Recording for a Feedback response
Copy a Hotjar User ID from either a Survey or Incoming Feedback response.
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 only be passed to Hotjar using our User Attributes feature. When this is done, the Hotjar ID for a user is associated with your internal user ID, meaning your internal user ID may be connected with multiple Hotjar IDs. When User Attributes are enabled, you are able to filter Recordings by both User ID, and Hotjar ID, as well as perform user lookup and deletion requests by User ID.
You can learn more about Hotjar’s approach to privacy on this blog post by our CEO.
Hotjar User ID troubleshooting
There are various cases where Hotjar does not collect Recording data from all users. In short, you may find someone has submitted responses but was not captured in a Recording for technical reasons such as privacy software blocking Recordings. Alternatively, if your site's traffic exceeds your daily Recording limits, your user may have not been Recorded, even though they submitted Incoming Feedback, which has no daily limit.
For Basic plan users, another case where this can happen is when a Recording Snapshot has finished, and no subsequent Recordings have been captured. To ensure Hotjar User IDs for users who have granted consent can be found in Recordings, make sure you have active snapshots running.