Available for Recordings and Heatmaps with Observe 
or 
plans. Available for Feedback and Surveys with Ask or plans. See the Hotjar pricing page for plans and pricing.
Session Capture needs to be enabled for User Attributes to send.
User Attributes require a Session to be sent. You can read about enabling Session Capture in our article Configuring Site Settings.
Setting up, disabling, and deleting User Attributes
- How can I check that User Attributes are being sent correctly?
- Can Hotjar help me create or implement User Attributes on my site?
- How can I disable User Attributes?
- Can I delete User Attributes on my site?
- I have a single page app. Do I need to make an Identify API call on every route?
- Can I send User Attributes data to Hotjar directly from Google Analytics or another platform?
- Is there a limit to the number of attributes we can send to Hotjar?
Surveys and Feedback widgets
- I’ve enabled User Attributes, why can’t I trigger Surveys/Feedback based on them?
- Why can’t I see User Attributes in Survey or Feedback response results?
- Why is my Survey or Feedback widget, that is targeting specific User Attributes, not receiving responses?
Recordings
- Do User Attributes inside Recordings get updated?
- Why can't I see any Recordings when I filter by my User Attribute?
- Can I use User Attributes for targeting users with Recordings?
Privacy
- How do User Attributes affect user privacy?
- I’ve sent Personally-Identifying Information about anonymous users (using null value User IDs) to Hotjar. What can I do?
How can I check that User Attributes are being sent correctly?
Your User Attributes page in-app allows you to see what attributes have been sent to Hotjar, and what value types each attribute has. If you’re familiar with using your web browser’s developer tools, you can also confirm User Attributes are being successfully sent and received by Hotjar by following the steps below.
Enable Hotjar debug logs in your browser console.
Open the page where you want to test the User Attributes and add the ?hjDebug=1 parameter to the end of the URL. Here are a couple of examples of what it might look like:
https://www.example.com/?hjDebug=1
OR
https://www.example.com/?utm_1234&hjDebug=1
Open your browser console.
If you're not familiar with your browser developer tools, or the console, check this guide to learn how to open your browser console.
Send the attribute manually.
To send a User Attribute manually, add the Identify API code in your browser console and press Enter or Return on your keyboard. If the Identify API call was successful, you'll see a confirmation log similar to this:
We also recommend that you go through the steps that your user would, to ensure that the Identify API call is being sent organically on each page. If the API call is sent automatically, then you'll know that your code is implemented successfully.
If the same Identify API call is detected when sent manually, but not automatically when testing the user journey, then you may need to revisit your code and ensure that the Identify API code is being added to all the pages you plan to track.
Can Hotjar help me create or implement User Attributes on my site?
Since sending attributes using the Identify API relies heavily on custom code, it is not something that Hotjar support can assist with. Our recommendation is to send the Identify API Reference to your web developer and have them implement the feature on your site.
How can I disable User Attributes?
When disabling User Attributes, any Hotjar tools relying on User Attributes for targeting and triggering will be disabled. You'll need to change the targeting settings of any affected tools to start triggering again without depending on User Attributes.
To prevent User Attributes from being sent in the future, we recommend removing the code relating to User Attributes from your site. After deletion, previously collected User Attributes will still exist but no longer be updated or added to new users to your site.
Disabling User Attributes requires Admin-level permissions.
Visit your User Attributes settings page.
Select the site you would like to disable User Attributes on and click Disable User Attributes.
Clicking the button will block further calls to the API.
If Hotjar hasn't received any User Attribute data, you won't see the Disable User Attributes button.
Suppose your site shows that User Attributes is enabled, but you don't see a button to Disable it. In that case, this could mean that your team never sent data to Hotjar using the Identify API. Hotjar can only collect User Attribute data after the Identify API code has been successfully implemented.
Can I delete User Attributes on my site?
User Attributes can be deleted from the User Attributes management page by clicking on the trash can icon to the right of the attribute. Only team members with 'Admin' permissions or higher can delete User Attributes.
Be sure to remove any deleted User Attributes from all Identify API calls
Deleting a User Attribute will not remove it from any existing sessions or responses containing it. The attribute will only be removed from filtering and targeting. Remember to remove the deleted User Attribute from all Identify API calls, otherwise, it will reappear in the list.
I have a single page app. Do I need to make an Identify API call on every route?
We recommend calling the Identify API on every route. This is because Hotjar treats every URL change as a new page, whether or not the browser window has loaded a new document. Our Surveys and Feedback tools rely on the call being made after the URL change.
Ensure that the Identify API call happens after your router has changed the URL. Making the API call before the router has finished changing routes may mean that Hotjar observed the API call on the previous URL. This would prevent targeting rules applying correctly.
Can I send User Attributes data to Hotjar directly from Google Analytics or another platform?
Currently, we don't have an integration with Google Analytics that allows you to send User Attributes to Hotjar. We do have an integration with Segment, which allows you to install Hotjar and send customer data over Hotjar's Identify API without additional code. See our Using Hotjar with Segment article for more details. You can also send User Attributes to Hotjar via Google Tag Manager, visit our How to Send User Attributes with Google Tag Manager article for the steps on setting this up.
Is there a limit to the number of attributes we can send to Hotjar?
Yes, you can send up to 100 unique user attributes on any Hotjar site, with any number of users able to be associated with those attributes.
I’ve enabled User Attributes, why can’t I trigger Surveys/Feedback based on them?
For any page where you’d like to trigger a Survey or Feedback widget based on User Attributes, this will require a call to the Identify API. When the triggering isn’t happening, this is most often due to User Attributes only being set on specific pages. We recommend making a call to the Identify API on every page of your site to reliably trigger a Survey or Feedback widget based on User Attributes.
Why can’t I see User Attributes in Survey or Feedback response results?
Currently, User Attributes are only visible in on-site Survey responses when they’re downloaded and aren’t visible on the Survey page in-app. For Feedback widgets, User Attributes aren’t yet visible in-app and are not yet included within Feedback response downloads.
You must be on an Ask Business or Scale plan in order for User Attributes to be included in your Survey data exports. If you're on Ask Basic and upgrade to Ask Business or Scale after you've already collected responses, the attributes won't be associated to those prior responses retroactively. Survey responses received after the upgrade to Ask Business or Scale will have attributes associated to them.
Link Survey responses that are downloaded will not include responses as this type of survey is hosted by Hotjar, meaning your User Attribute code won’t be present on the Link Survey page.
Why is my Survey or Feedback widget, that is targeting specific User Attributes, not receiving responses?
If your Survey or Feedback widget has been active for a few days and you’ve not received responses it’s worth checking the following:
-
The Identify API code is being fired on every page.
User Attributes should be sent to Hotjar on every page that you would like to track.
-
User Attributes are firing on the page where you want the Survey or Feedback widget to appear.
It will not work if the code is fired on a previous page, because as soon as the page changes or a redirect occurs, the code will be forgotten and the targeting evaluation will restart.
-
The User Attributes that you're sending have matching types and values.
The available types of attributes you can send include Strings (text characters), Numbers, Dates, Booleans (true/false).
-
Attributes with a Number type only include numeric characters.
If you're sending an attribute with a Number type, but the value includes non-numeric characters, the Identify API call will fail.
The sequence involved when a Survey or Feedback widget with User Attribute targeting is active is:
- Check to see if the URL matches.
- Listen for an Identify API call (this is what sends Hotjar User Attributes).
- The API call will trigger a check to see if Hotjar needs to show a Survey or Feedback widget.
- If an attribute matches the target criteria, it will show. (For Surveys, you should keep in mind the Survey's persistence/behavior settings).
- If the targeting also relies on a JavaScript event, Hotjar will wait for the event to fire before displaying the Survey or Feedback widget.
- Once the page changes, the Survey or Feedback widget will go away, and the cycle starts again.
Do User Attributes inside Recordings get updated?
User Attributes are associated with a recording at the time of processing. They will reflect the value passed to Hotjar prior to the user's session ending. They are not updated after processing.
Practically speaking, this means that if a user's attributes are updated, an older recording will reflect different values than the newer one. Let's say a customer placed purchases on both their first and second visits to your site. On both occasions, you tracked them spending 100. You have a total_customer_value attribute tracking their total value to the company. The first session will show their total value of 100. The second will show their total value as 200.
Why can't I see any Recordings when I filter by my User Attribute?
Check to see if you are trying to send an email address or other personally identifiable information (PII) to Hotjar without a User ID. If so, these calls will be blocked and the call will fail. To solve this, be sure that you only ever send PII to Hotjar when it's being associated with a unique User ID (defined in your API call).
Can I use User Attributes for targeting users with Recordings?
Currently, it's not possible to target Recordings based on User Attributes. You can target based on URLs and Events only.
How do User Attributes affect user privacy?
Hotjar requires that in using User Attributes, you abide by our terms and conditions, acceptable use policy, and accept the conditions of our data processing agreement.
User Attributes are designed to explicitly allow you to perform lookup and deletion requests, allowing you to manage user data management requests, in line with privacy legislation requirements. They do rely on you passing a user ID that can be used for user lookup, so only pass personally-identifying information if you have a user ID.
I’ve sent Personally-Identifying Information about anonymous users (using null value User IDs) to Hotjar. What can I do?
Don't do this. No, seriously, do not do this!
If you have sent User Attributes to Hotjar on a null value, Hotjar has no way of attributing this information to a unique individual via User Lookup unless they consent to connect Feedback responses with their email address. This is not an effective way of making sure all users who you have collected personal information about can be retrieved and deleted.
Do not send PII as User Attributes unless you have a User ID. We cannot do anything to lookup and remove this data if you do it. You would need to lookup and delete each user's data individually, or delete the site in Hotjar.