Session replay

Solve user frustrations with our session recording tool

Watch user sessions to learn what helps and hurts. Zero in on unhappy users to recover conversions.
session replay hero image
"Far better than the competition. It's light, it has all of the features you want and it just works."
V
Vladimir D
G2
Marketing & Growth Consultant
A set of abstract screens with play buttons showing examples of tags on user recordings such as form-interaction, UTM source, and friction score.
See beyond the sea of data

Engagement metrics tells you what — a session recording tool tells you why.

As soon as you click ‘record,’ Mouseflow’s session recording tool begins tracking your users (anonymously). We record 100% of users by default, unlike others who sample data.

Dive into red-flag metrics by watching actual user journeys. Solve what you know is broken, not what you guess.

Give your users the experience they deserve nowSee beyond the sea of data
A table of recordings filtered after the friction score "very unhappy" showcasing that if a user recording scores significantly above the average of a website this is marked with tags and sad emojis.
A session recording tool that tells you where to look

Auto-scored recordings spotlight grumpy users.

If your session recording tool leaves you with thousands of videos, where does that leave you?

Mouseflow’s Friction Score highlights frustrated users so you can spend time optimizing what matters.

Get your Friction Score nowA session recording tool that tells you where to look
Privately & securely record users on your website

It’s like a security camera, but much more intelligent.

User screen and session recording gives you a wealth of information on how people interact with and navigate your site — and it protects privacy in line with CCPA and GDPR.

And you can trust your session recordings — and all your Mouseflow data — is robustly secured.

Watch how your users navigate your site nowPrivately & securely record users on your website
A dropdown showing the different filter-options you have to filter through all your user recordings. Here's the list of filters: entry page, page visited, exit page, tag, variable, device, operating system, browser, screen resolution, friction score, friction event, duration, number of page views, and session ID.
Add context with session replay

Always have an answer to, “OK, but why?”

Tags, variables, filters, cohorts — layer session recordings from custom-defined groups to uncover source-specific insights. Add undeniable visual evidence to A/B test winners.

Easily share session recordings with other teams to highlight the problem that needs solving. Go from bug to solution quickly and efficiently.

See how your users interact with your site nowAdd context with session replay

Questions you can answer with session recordings

How do I know if there is something broken on my site?

Watch sessions to verify if your visitors are getting to where they want.

Are my visitors experiencing any frustration?

Visualize where your visitors are getting stuck on your page.

Are my visitors following the path I designed for them?

Watch how your visitors consume your content and spot nuances in their behavior to adapt the site's journey for them

Why are people not purchasing?

Spot unresponsive elements otherwise invisible for traditional analytics preventing your visitors from converting

Is there a way to improve how much time they spend on my page?

Find out what's their intent, even if they don't take any action, and adjust your content to convince them.

People don't interact with my chatbot. What's going on?

Watch how your chatbot looks for your different users' screen resolution and uncover issues with display and frustrating experiences

How can I find a problem a user reported on my website if I cannot reproduce it?

Use session replays to find exactly what caused the issue. Share the recording with your support and development team to fix the issue faster.

How can I contest chargebacks?

Use session replays as evidence to demonstrate intent behind the transaction.

Frequently asked questions

More questions? We have answers.

A website “session” refers to the duration of interaction a user has within a website, within a certain window of time. The session can include multiple pages, events, purchases, and inputs. A session continues to be measured as the same session until the user is inactive for a period of time, typically 30 minutes. A session can also end at a specified time, like the end of a day. The start of a new session can also be a session-ending occurrence, such as if a user enters a website by clicking a paid search ad, clicks around, leaves, then enters again — this time by clicking an organic search result. 

So, a session recording is when software is used to track that user’s activity during that session. Clicks, scrolls, hovers, and other mouse data is tracked. So are keyboard inputs (except for anonymized forms) and navigation, documenting users as they fill out forms or search bars and navigate to different pages. 

Also referred to as session replay, session recording is a prolific practice in marketing, product management, UX design and research, conversion optimization, data analysis, and other areas of business. 

A common analogy for session recording is closed-circuit TV security systems found in most retail and commercial spaces. While those cameras can’t tell you a person’s name, address, or other identifying information, it can give you an idea of where they came from, what they do in the store, and more. 

For an interactive explanation of session recording, check out our live mouse tracking demo.

Session recording tools can be set to anonymize sensitive visitor data. Mouseflow’s default settings adhere to GDPR and CCPA guidelines and allow even further protection, such as blocking form field inputs. 

So, can you tell that a user came from California or Florida or Germany? Yes. But can you tell their exact IP address or personal identifying information? No. 

Can you record user engagements with forms and other interactive elements? Yes. But you can opt for seeing “**********” instead of a user’s Social Security number, for instance, to proactively protect user privacy. 

With session recording tools like Mouseflow, sensitive visitor information is either not collected based on default or customizable settings, or it can be anonymized to various degrees to suit the privacy needs of your users and industry. 

Health and finance websites can enable high levels of recording privacy in order to align with HIPAA and protect things like bank account numbers. Yet, entertainment and ecommerce websites can loosen the reins of privacy and anonymity since they’ll typically only collect non-sensitive information.

Ours can! Mouseflow’s session replay software is purpose built for optimization-hungry users that regularly deploy tactics such as A/B testing. As long as you can install Mouseflow’s tracking script in the code of your B version, you’ll have no problem capturing session recordings for both (or all) pages in your test. 

What’s more, session recording adds another layer of analysis to your test strategy. Not only can you analyze A/B test data to determine winners, losers, and indeterminate results — you can back up (or challenge) your findings with user recordings that exemplify your results. 

Mouseflow session recording software allows you to group by UTM, filter by URL, segment by source, and more, to make sure you’re measuring the right collection of users. You can even use live heatmaps to see how users interact with dynamic elements, such as drop-down menus.

Just like a desktop session, a mobile session is tracked by Mouseflow’s session replay software. Click — or tap — data can be combined or separated from desktop session recordings for even more granular optimizations. 

On the mobile version of your website, see how far users scroll, what they click, and more — not just when and where they convert, but how they got there. Segment session recordings by device, such as phone or tablet, to understand the distinctions between users on different viewports. 

While Mouseflow does not run on apps (such as those downloaded from Apple or Google), it can track on any browser as long as you’re able to drop the tracking code into the URLs.

Session replay software gives you a crystal-ball-view of your users’ actual interactions on your websites — which means you can see exactly what they like and don’t like on their path to conversion. For example…

Marketers can use a session recording tool to understand differences between the journeys of users coming from different sources, such as paid social or a referral program. They can also analyze how successful a website or journey is in driving a user to complete specific actions, or the efficacy of the latest campaign or message. 

Analysts look to record users on a website so they can analyze and understand what they may be seeing in their data. Instead of relying solely on data points and aggregations to inform their insights, analysts can use session replays to confirm or challenge data inferences. They can also use session recordings themselves as their data points, and analyze satisfaction levels, depth of journey or scroll, and other parameters that help them make sense — and actionable recommendations — of massive amounts of data. 

Product managers need to measure the reception to new feature rollouts and analyze the crossover of intended use and actual use — that’s when they turn to session recording tools. Even bird’s eye views of overall Friction Scores across web pages gives product managers important data they can use to improve their products and prioritize their next projects, with the actual user perspective top of mind. 

UX specialists want to build satisfying environments, and thus turn to session replay software during research, testing, rollout, analysis, optimization — every step of the way. Session recordings — especially when combined with heatmaps — help UXers visualize the ways in which users succeed or fail to properly engage with a website feature. 

CRO (conversion rate optimization) specialists can’t keep their hands off session recordings, as they provide a wealth of data to help guide testing strategies, prioritize optimizations, understand audiences, and zero in on the most effective converting elements. Without session recordings, CROs rely on best practices, user interviews, and traditional analytics data — all of which gives a partial picture, whereas Mouseflow session recording software provides the full story of user interaction and behavior. 

check out this blog post to learn what else you can learn from recording website visitors

How do I use session recordings alongside the rest of my web analytics data?

Traditional analytics, such as Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics, offer a seemingly never-ending stream of data. They might give you direction on where to look or the effects measured, but they can’t tell you what’s actually causing it — what the user is really doing. 

That’s where Mouseflow’s session recording data can complement data gathered from other sources, be it analytics; ecommerce platforms like Magento and Shopify; content management systems like WordPress, Wix, and Drupal; marketing platforms like HubSpot, Optimizely, and Unbounce; and even customer service and tag management systems. Check out our entire list of integrations to find the data handshake that takes you from analytics-savvy to analytics-savant.

Mouseflow’s recent accolades include:

G2 (Spring 2022): Top 100 Software Products and Top 100 Highest Satisfaction Products, Best Results, Best Usability, Highest User Adoption, Category Leader, Momentum Leader, Most Implementable, and Best Relationship. 

Capterra Shortlist for Web Analytics Software 2022

Category Leader for Web Analytics Software

We’ll let you decide — check out real user reviews on  GetApp, G2, and Capterra and look at similar tools side-by-side with our handy comparisons to tools like Hotjar, CrazyEgg, FullStory, Contentsquare, VWO, lucky Orange, and more.