10 min read
Hotjar (now a part of Contentsquare) is a user behavior tool that helps your website grow with powerful qualitative analytics features. From exploring heatmaps and user session recordings to analyzing funnels and gathering feedback, the platform lets you instantly discover growth opportunities.
In this article, we’ll cover exactly what Hotjar is and how you can use it to your advantage. Keep reading to learn how to leverage heatmaps and recordings and gather feedback with widgets, surveys, and user interviews step by step.
What is Hotjar?
Hotjar is a UX tool that lets you analyze user behavior on your website and get valuable insights. This tool is different from other platforms like Google Analytics because it tracks more than just the actions users take. It also shows you hesitations, scrolls that don’t end up becoming clicks, U-turns, and much more.
Session recordingsHeatmapsWhat changed since Hotjar’s integration with Contentsquare?
Ever since Hotjar integrated with Contentsquare, there have been a few changes that you should be aware of. Here they are:
- There are now 4 types of user permission levels instead of 3.
- There can now be multiple users with Admin roles instead of just one.
- Surveys, interviews, and customer feedback widget are now under the same “Voice of customer” section.
- Contentsquare now also offers zoning together with heatmaps, which Hotjar lacked.
- The Basic, Plus, Business, and Scale plans have been changed to Free, Growth, Pro, and Enterprise respectively. However, Pro and Enterprise plans now have custom pricing.
How to install Hotjar
To install Hotjar, you first need to create an account on Contentsquare and ensure your platform is compatible with the tool. You can find the list of unsupported environments on their official website.
To proceed with setup, follow this step-by-step guide:
- Create an account on the Contentsquare website, which you can do for free.
- Complete the quick survey about your organization.
- On the Homepage, you’ll be presented with a 3-step installation process. Click the Copy button to copy the code.
- You can add the tracking code to the Head tag (<head> </head>) of any page you want to track on your platform or insert it in your website template to track all pages.
- Go back to the home section and click Verify installation.
Keep in mind that you may have to wait a few minutes until Contentsquare confirms that your installation was successful.
User permissions
No matter which Hotjar plan you’re using (even the free one), you can add an unlimited number of users free of charge. Since Hotjar integrated with Contentsquare, there are now four permission levels instead of three. Here are the levels of permissions all other team members can have on Hotjar:
- View access (Viewer). This permission allows viewing and analyzing data or creating basic funnels.
- Edit access (Analyst). Users get the same permissions as Viewers plus the ability to create and manage their own data objects or dashboards.
- Full access (Expert). Same permissions as with Viewers and Analysts plus the ability to add or remove users, access project settings, and create, edit, or delete any data objects.
- Admin. Users get the same permissions as Expert users plus the ability to access account settings, manage subscriptions, add more admins, manage integrations, and delete the account.
Hotjar features and how to use them
Hotjar provides you with a variety of features for analyzing user journey and friction, getting feedback about the user experience, and more. Here are all the main functionalities and tools that come with Hotjar and how to use them:
Heatmaps
With the Hotjar’s Observe tool, you can explore heatmaps – data in the form of a map that represents values using colors. Heatmaps show specific user engagement on your website, including clicks, scrolling behavior, or taps.
Heatmap types
You can view heatmaps of desktop, tablet, and mobile pages. There are four types of heatmaps available on Hotjar:
- Click heatmap. This shows the exact places where users click on a page. The more red it is, the more clicks the button or section receives. You can hover your mouse to a specific heatmap value and it will show you the exact number of clicks it got.
- Move heatmaps. With this heatmap, you can see where the user’s mouse is moving most, no matter if they click or not.
- Scroll heatmap. A scroll map shows how much users scroll on your website. You can hover your mouse anywhere on the heatmap, and it will show you the exact percentage of users that scrolled that far.
- Engagement zones. This map combines data from other heatmaps, including click, move, and scroll, to show you which parts of the page users are engaging most. The darker red the section is, the more engaging it is.
- Rage-click map. Rage clicks demonstrate which sections on your page cause users friction. You can analyze the issue by hovering your mouse on the identified rage click and clicking “View recordings.”
Whichever heatmap you explore, you can choose a custom date period or add filters to explore more specific data.
How to create heatmaps on Hotjar
Creating heatmaps on Hotjar requires enabling session capture and simply placing your page URL into the heatmap tool. Here’s a step-by-step guide on how to do it:
- Click on your profile, go to Projects and users > Tracking and confirm that session tracking and data collection is enabled.
- Head back to the Home section, go to Heatmaps on the left menu and click the “+ New heatmap” button or select the heatmap type.
- Enter the URL of your page. You can choose either one page or multiple pages, for example: testsite.com/blog. Choose the device type and date for your heatmap.
- Click the “Continue” button and select a screenshot of your page to create a heatmap.
You can easily switch between different types of heatmaps at the top bar of the page.
Keep in mind that you may have to wait up to 90 seconds for the heatmap to appear. As soon as someone visits your website, results will start showing up.
Once Hotjar integrated with Contentsquare, you can now also create zonings in the same section. They give even more detailed metrics about user engagement on specific pages, arranging the pages into defined zones.
Session Replay
Hotjar lets you watch screen recordings of how your users scroll, move their mouse, and engage with your website. This can help you not only understand what works but also what causes user friction.
To get even more valuable data, you can filter it by device type, browsers, or other values.
How to set up recordings
Setting up recordings on Hotjar is fast and simple if you have session tracking enabled. Here’s the full process of how to do it:
- Confirm that session tracking is enabled by going to your Account > Projects and users > Tracking.
- Go to the Session Replay section and click the Play button by the recording that you’d like to review.
If you’d like to add filters, click the “Filters” button on the Session Replay page. To remove the applied filters, click “Reset filters.”
Funnels
Funnels is a tool that lets you visualize user conversion journeys and drop-offs on your website. You can simply choose a page and analyze the specific event triggers, clicked elements, and even make comparisons or add filters.
Let’s take an example website. The first graph shows how many users viewed a specific page in the last 30 days, which is 177 sessions (100%). Meanwhile, the second graph demonstrates how many people clicked the About us button, which is only 1.1% (2 users).
You can use this information to identify reasons for low clicks on a certain section or compare marketing campaign performance, new users to returning ones, A/B test variants, and more.
How to build a funnel
Building a funnel takes just a few steps. Here’s the quickest way to do it:
- Go to the Funnels page, and click Add step to define the funnels you need. You can add up to 10 steps.
- Now, filter the data by device type, date, and users at the top of the funnel page.
- You can see the generated data by scrolling down the page.
You may also share your funnels with team members using the sharing icon in the upper right corner of the page.
User feedback
Hotjar lets you add a feedback widget to your site so that users can leave their immediate insights whenever they experience friction or want to point out a positive remark. You can add it to the side or bottom of your page and customize it to fit your brand.
You can even see an example of how it looks on your Hotjar account dashboard.
Adding a widget like this can help identify pain points, improve user satisfaction, and ultimately, it may even improve conversions.
How to create a feedback widget
The feedback widget is located in the “Voice of customer” section. To set up a user feedback widget, you can follow this simple guide:
- Go to the Voice of customer section of Contentsquare and click the “+Create” button or select the “Collect ongoing feedback via a survey” template.
- You’ll be redirected to a feedback widget creation page. Click “Get started.”
- Now, you can customize your widget’s texts, including the question, low and high score labels, and position. Click Create feedback button once done.
- Now, click Create survey and customize your widget’s appearance and feedback questions, then click Done.
- Set what devices and pages you want the widget to appear on. Click Done.
- You can set up feedback forwarding to your email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, or Responses API based on your preference. Click Done.
User surveys
Hotjar also includes a user survey tool for gathering feedback that’s relevant to you. You can customize when to target a survey, for example, when a specific page is visited. This allows you to get quantitative data to explore how to improve pages based on real user experiences.
There are multiple types of surveys:
- Popover. It shows questions at the bottom of the page and inside the widget. You can use it to get feedback at specific moments of a user’s journey.
- Button. A button survey is a button on the side of the page that users can click and it will expand asking for a rating and then a question.
- Embedded survey. You can add it to a specific part of the page. It can be used to get feedback on the content before the survey.
- Bubble survey. It’s a chat-like button that appears at the lower corner of the page and requests rating and answering a question when expanded.
- Full screen. These surveys are like pop-ups – the background is darkened to get the user to focus on the questions.
- Link survey. It’s hosted on a unique URL that you can share with users to collect data from multiple channels.
You can check user experience recordings of all of these surveys except the link survey.
How to create a survey
- No matter which type of survey you want to set up, the process is similar. Let’s take a look at how to do it:
- Open the Voice of customer section and click “Create survey.”
- Enter the name and description for your survey and choose the type.
- Add Questions – you may change their order, make them required or optional, and more.
- Alter the Appearance of your survey to fit your brand. You may change the language, button label, color, position, and branding.
- If you opted for the Link survey, set the On-site invitation settings.
- Set what devices, pages, and users should receive the survey and traffic coverage. Click Next.
- Change Behavior settings, such as frequency, timing, and screenshots. Click Next.
- Enable the Forward response option on the platform you want.
- You’ll get a summary of your survey setup – change the survey status to “Active” and click Create survey.
That’s all – you can check user feedback recordings by opening the survey you want in the Voice of customer section.
User interviews
With the Hotjar interview tool, you can set up live interviews with your network users or some of the users from the tool’s +200,000 participants. It’s useful not only to get valuable feedback and make time-stamped notes but also to automate recruitment and host moderated interviews.
The user interview tool will also transcribe conversations for you, helping you save valuable time or share your call experience with team members who couldn’t make it.
You may use such interviews to test concepts, conduct market research, or get a pre-launch evaluation.
How to set up user interviews
Setting up interviews on Hotjar is very intuitive. All you have to do is follow this guide:
- Head to the Voice of Customer section, click “+ Create” and press Interviews.
- Select interview settings – choose whether you want to recruit from a participant pool or your network, set interview length, compensation, and others.
- Answer the questions about the participants you need for interviews to ensure you recruit your target audience.
- Schedule interview times so Hotjar can begin setting up interviews.
Hotjar pricing
Hotjar offers a limited free plan and 3 paid plan options starting from $32/month. The best part is that you can customize the plans however you want. You don’t have to purchase the whole product, you can pick which ones you need. Here are the options:
- Experience analytics. With this product, you can get visualizations of user behavior, including heatmaps, funnels, and recordings.
- Voice of customer. This product is for analyzing user surveys & feedback as well as hosting moderated user interviews.
- Product analytics. You can use this product for understanding user journeys and identify opportunities to personalize the experience.
Here are the main differences between the plans:
|
Free |
Growth |
Pro |
Enterprise |
|
|
Price |
Free |
From $32/month |
Custom |
Custom |
|
Monthly sessions |
200,000 |
7k – 10 million |
1 million - unlimited |
1 million - unlimited |
|
Heatmaps |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
Unlimited |
|
Monthly feedback responses |
100 |
500 – 100k |
Up to unlimited |
n/a |
|
Monthly interviews from Hotjar participants |
0 |
0 |
Up to 3600 |
n/a |
|
Monthly interviews from your network |
Up to 5 |
Up to 10 |
Up to 3600 |
n/a |
|
Session replay access |
1 month |
2 months |
2 months, up to 24 |
3 months, up to 24 |
|
Session replay summaries |
❌ |
✅ |
✅ |
✅ |
No matter which plan you get, you can add unlimited users and get access to customer support. And if you figure out that the service isn’t for you, there’s a 30-day money-back guarantee you can make use of.
Conclusion
Hotjar (now part of Contentsquare) is an excellent analytics platform for improving the user experience on your website and getting insights on how to optimize conversion rates, increase clicks, and more.
You can use Hotjar for analyzing heatmaps, reviewing recordings, and exploring funnel drop-offs. Additionally, you can gather user feedback using widgets, surveys, or even live user interviews. Getting reviews based on real user experiences can accelerate the website optimization process and make your customers trust you more.
If you discover poor user engagement to be caused by a slow website or broken links, leverage tools like TinyIMG on Shopify. It lets you set up automatic broken link redirection or receive reports. Plus, you can even boost your website speed using the one-click lazy loading feature, image optimization, and more.
Frequently asked questions
Contentsquare is an AI-powered digital experience analytics platform that helps you examine and understand how customers interact with your website or app. With features like heatmaps, zoning, session replays, surveys, and interviews, Contentsquare helps optimize the user experience and conversion rates.
Hotjar is a user behaviour analytics tool focused on small businesses and startups, offering tools like heatmaps, session recordings, and interviews. It has become a part of Contentsquare, which is catering to enterprises with AI-powered journey analysis and data visualization.
Hotjar is a behavior analytics software that is used for user behavior examination and feedback data to help improve your website by understanding your audience. The Experience Analytics tool lets you explore heatmaps and the Voice of Customer product is used for examining user feedback through interviews and surveys.
Hotjar provides website owners with an aggregated user behavior view when they browse the website that has Hotjar installed. This helps understand how customers use their website, helping improve the user experience.
Hotjar is a useful behavior analytics tool for any business that wants to grow and improve. It can be a valuable addition for data analysts, digital marketers, freelancers, business owners, product managers, and anyone else who wants to understand their customer journey.
Hotjar focuses on qualitative data while Google Analytics is a quantitative data tool. For example, Google Analytics provides you with user engagement reports and web metrics like bounce rates, views, click-through rates, and more. Meanwhile, Hotjar focuses on exploring heatmaps, gathering user feedback, hosting user interviews, and more.
