Hotjar Surveys allow you to ask your site visitors an unlimited number of questions, from an unlimited number of respondents. Surveys can be displayed in a few different ways - these are found in the Location step during the setup process.
The first two options are referred to as On-site Surveys because they appear within your webpage(s):
- Popover - Appears as a small widget, allowing your users to interact with other content on the same page.
- Full screen - Appears as an overlay in the middle of the page. Your page's background content is greyed out, making the survey is the main focus.
Additionally, we have an Off-site Survey option:
- External Link - Appears as a stand-alone page that exists outside of your website. Hotjar will generate the unique Survey page URL after the External Link survey is created.
You can send External Link Surveys to users via targeted email messages, without the need for a user to be on your site to receive the questions. Optionally, you can also set up a pop-up invite to direct users on your site to the External Link Survey page.
Once you're ready to create a Survey, head over to our article on How to Create Your First Survey for a detailed guide on how to set one up. Or, continue to any of the sections below to learn more about Hotjar Surveys!
- Popover Surveys
- Full screen Surveys
- External Link Surveys
- Customizing your Survey
- Types of Questions You Can Ask Your Visitors
Need help setting up a Survey?
For a step by step guide on setting up your Survey, head to How to Create your First Survey.
Popover Surveys
Surveys are initially displayed differently based on the user's device. Here are some examples of how a Popover Survey will appear to a user:
Once you set up a Popover Survey, your visitors are shown the question in a widget which pops out from the bottom of the page. This allows the user two options:
- Answer your question and hit Next: Hotjar Surveys allow you to ask multiple questions within the same Survey in order. Every time a question is answered and submitted, responses are sent to Hotjar's servers. This maximizes the number of replies you receive as the visitor does not need to answer all the questions for the Survey to send the responses.
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Minimize the Survey: Visitors may not have an interest in answering the question you ask them. Or, they might want to answer your question later on. For this reason, they can minimize a Popover Survey so it won't distract them. They can expand it later if they wish, to answer the Survey questions when convenient.
When minimized by a user, a Survey will stay minimized
Hotjar sets a cookie on their browser to remember this setting. This means the Survey will load as minimized immediately if they navigate to another page where the same Survey is set to show. Learn more about the cookies we store.
Full screen Surveys
Full screen surveys have the same functionality as Popover surveys. However, the difference is that a Full screen survey appears as an overlay in the middle of the targeted page, rather than as a widget. This option is great when you want to get your users' full attention on a page.
Full screen survey example on a desktop device
Full screen survey example on a mobile device
External Link Surveys
Once you set up an External Link Survey, Hotjar will generate a unique URL that you can send to visitors, hosting the Survey on Hotjar's servers. When a user clicks the link, they are shown the Survey questions in the order that they have been configured.
External Link Surveys do not have an option to collapse or close since they are displayed on a dedicated page.
The questions appear one at a time. Each response is sent to Hotjar servers every time a question is answered. This is done to maximize the number of replies you receive. If the user does not answer all the questions for the Survey and leaves the Survey page early, Hotjar stores the responses provided before the Survey page was abandoned.
External Link Survey invites
Even though users view External Link Surveys on a dedicated page, you have the option to display a "Survey invite" on your website. The invite prompts your users to participate in the Survey and directs them to the External Link Survey page if they accept the invite.
Customizing your Survey
You're able to customize where on your page a Popover Survey will appear, what conditions trigger your Popover or Full screen Survey, and how persistently it appears to your users.
You also have a number of options available to you in customizing the appearance of each kind of Survey. These options include: choosing the user interface language, background color, and position on-page (Popover and Full screen only). You can also remove Hotjar branding and change the button color if you're on a Business plan. In addition, a custom logo can be added to External Link Surveys to accommodate your site branding.
Example of an External Link Survey
Types of questions you can ask your visitors
Hotjar Surveys support the following question types:
- Long text answers - Displays a multi-line text box for the user to type in.
- Short text answers - Displays a single-line text field for the user to type in.
- Email (with validation) - Only accepts __@__.__ format. The validation checks the email address format but doesn't check to determine if the email address given is connected to an active inbox.
- Yes/No - 'Yes' and 'No' appear as radio buttons for the user to choose from.
- Radio buttons - allows free-form comments and randomization of answers options.
- Checkboxes - allows free-form comments and randomization of answers options.
- 1-5 and/or 1-7 Rating Scale - A custom question appears over a rating scale, allowing users to select a number 1-5 or 1-7.
- Net Promoter Score®
- Statement - Displays custom text without providing a response field. Statements contain a title field and an optional description field.
The responses collected can be viewed in either a typical table format or in a Results view which summarizes the results for you for quick insights.