Hotjar offers the ability to connect responses submitted through on-site Surveys and Feedback widgets with Recordings. You can then connect the dots between what the user said (their response) and what they experienced (session recording) while visiting your site.
This article describes the three options for managing this feature.
External Link Survey responses cannot be connected to Recordings
Connecting Survey responses with Recordings is only possible when using a Popover or Full Screen Survey. This functionality is not possible for External Link Survey responses.
Options for connecting responses with recordings
Inside the Survey or Feedback widget settings and beneath the "Thank you message" in the Questions section, you'll find the Connect feedback to Hotjar insights drop-down menu.
This drop-down menu displays the three options for managing this feature:
Automatically connect respondent feedback
This is the default setting for all newly created widgets. If a recording is available for a user's session, then the Play recording icon will be enabled and you can click on it to see the specific Recording where the response was submitted.
The Play recording icon is visible on:
- Feedback cards
- Feedback table views
- Survey response table views
- Survey response modals
Why is the play recording icon greyed out?
The play recording icon will be greyed out and the recording unavailable in the following cases:
- A recording wasn't captured for the respondent's session.
- The user's session is still open and a recording hasn't yet been generated.
- A different option was selected for this feature, such as Ask respondents for consent to connect feedback, and the user doesn't give consent.
- The recording is older than 365 days and falls within the data retention policy.
Since Recordings may not track all your users, you might find that some feedback responses do not have any corresponding session recordings.
Accessing responses directly from recordings
When viewing the playback of a session recording, you may see feedback widget icons that indicate the user submitted a Feedback or NPS® Survey response:
If the response was connected to Recordings, you can hover over the icon and it will display a link to where you can view the specific response that was submitted. However, if the response was not connected to Recordings, you will see the icon in your Recordings playback, but you will not have a clickable link to view the response.
Ask respondents for consent to connect feedback
This second option connects feedback responses with recordings only if the user has granted their consent first. Users will see the following message after they submit a response through a Survey or Feedback widget:
If the user does not grant consent
- Their response will still be submitted, but no Hotjar User ID or searchable recording associated with the user’s visit will be collected. Instead, the response will show as an Anonymous user.
If the user grants consent
- The same Hotjar User ID that is assigned to the response will be assigned to previous and future recordings. This enables you to search for recordings of that user by applying a Hotjar User ID filter.
Granting consent allows you to collect and combine responses with:
- Any other responses previously submitted from the same device
- Location (limited to the country)
- Language used
- Device and browser used
- Custom attributes (e.g. products or services being using)
- Behavior and interactions on the page(s) visited
All behavior and interaction data collected will be retained for no longer than one year and will then be automatically deleted. All response data submitted is stored in accordance with our Data Retention Policy.
The right for the user to withdraw this consent is present at any time. From the date when the withdraw of consent occurs, we will no longer combine responses with information about behavior. Requests to have data removed by your user can be actioned with our User Lookup tool. Any data collected and combined from the date when consent was granted until the date of withdrawal would have been lawfully processed. The legal basis for processing this data, which might include personal data, if any provided, is Article 6(1)(a) EU General Data Protection Regulation.
Do not connect respondent feedback
This final option prevents Hotjar from connecting responses with other Hotjar insights. It will also mean that User Attributes won't be sent with on-site Survey responses. Instead, responses from Surveys and Feedback with this setting will display Anonymous instead of a Hotjar User ID. The consent message mentioned above will not be displayed in the Feedback widget when using this setting.