Hotjar offers the ability to connect feedback responses submitted through Polls and Incoming Feedback widgets with Recordings.
Connecting Feedback responses with Recordings allows you to connect the dots between what the user said (feedback response) and what they experienced (session recording) while visiting your site.
Understanding your Options
When creating or editing a Poll or an Incoming Feedback widget, you will see the Connect feedback to Hotjar insights configuration with a drop-down menu, beneath the "Thank you message" section.
The drop-down menu will display the following three options to manage this feature:
- Automatically connect respondent feedback
- Ask respondents for consent to connect feedback
- Do not connect respondent feedback
Automatically connect respondent feedback
This is the default setting for all newly created widgets. Hotjar will automatically display a unique Hotjar User ID next to a feedback response, allowing you to search for recorded sessions from that user in your Recordings list.
For example, the image below shows a Poll response that has been given a system-generated Hotjar User ID:
You can then filter by the same Hotjar User ID to see Recordings from that user if available, as seen in the following image:
Hotjar will capture any Feedback responses submitted by a user, regardless of your plan limits. However, Recordings are captured in Snapshots and are also subject to sampling.
It is possible for Hotjar to collect Feedback responses without collecting corresponding Recordings for each respondent if a snapshot isn't running.
Ask respondents for consent to connect feedback
This option allows Hotjar to connect Feedback responses with Recordings only if the user has granted their consent first. Learn more about what it means to grant consent.
What does granting consent allow?
Check out our section about Granting Consent for more information.
When this option is selected, a respondent will see the following message after they submit a response through a Poll or Incoming Feedback widget:
If the user does not grant consent by selecting the X button, 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 as seen below:
If the user grants consent by selecting the checkmark button, the same Hotjar User ID that is assigned to the Feedback response will be assigned to previous and future Recording collected by Hotjar.
This allows you to search for Recordings captured from that user, as mentioned in the section above.
Surveys responses cannot be connected to Recordings
The only feedback tool that doesn’t offer this connection is Surveys. Hotjar doesn't assign a Hotjar User ID to Survey responses, so you will not be able to watch Recordings from specific Survey respondents.
Do not connect respondent feedback
This option prevents Hotjar from connecting Feedback responses with Hotjar insights. Instead, responses from Feedback tools with this setting will display “Anonymous”. The consent message mentioned above will not be displayed when using this setting.
What does granting consent allow?
Granting consent allows you to collect and combine the Feedback responses with:
- Any other feedback 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. It will then be automatically deleted. All Feedback responses 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 Feedback responses with information about behavior. Requests to have data removed by your user can be actioned with our Visitor 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.¨