Session Replay cheatsheet – how to get the most out of this powerful tool

Session Replay is an incredibly powerful tool that shows you exactly how visitors are experiencing your site and uncovers reasons why they are not engaging or converting.

We’ve compiled this cheatsheet of handy tips and best practices to show you when to use Session Replay, what to look out for, and how to work smarter to save time and focus on what matters.

When to use Session Replay

• When you notice an unexpected change in traffic such as a dip in conversions, a rise in bounce rate or visitors dropping off on certain pages, Session Replay can show you exactly the problems or frustrations your visitors experienced.
• Every time you launch a new landing page or make changes to design, content or navigation, it’s vitally important to watch new Session Replays to make sure your visitors are not struggling with any of the changes.
• When a visitor reports a technical issue that you can’t reproduce, replay their session to follow in their footsteps and see what went wrong for them.
• Making regular spot checks with Session Replay is an invaluable activity to set time aside for every week. Session Replay will often reveal issues with parts of your website that may not be obvious or are easily overlooked by you.

What to look out for in Session Replay

• Are there any signs of frustration such as rapid scrolling or erratic mouse movements that indicate where visitors are getting confused or stuck?
• Do your visitors encounter any errors or bugs while navigating your site?
• Are there any pop-ups or automatic messages that get in the way of visitors accomplishing their goals?
• Are pages loading quickly enough?
• Are visitors navigating your menus and forms with ease?
• What were the last few steps visitors took before leaving?
• Is your site working well on mobile?

Tips on speeding up workflow

Use filters to shorten the list of sessions you’re interested in. Some useful filters include:

• Recorded Sessions (use if you are not recording all of your sessions)
• Session Length
• Page Views per session
• Page (anywhere in session)
• Platform > Mobile / Desktop

Don’t forget you can combine filters to really zone in on the important sessions.

Switch on Skip Inactivity in the player to automatically fast-forward through periods where the visitor wasn’t active.

Click on the player timeline to jump forward to a specific page or part of the session.

What’s your experience?

Has Session replay given you any insights into your website visitors behavior? Let us know in the comments.

If you haven’t yet experienced the valuable insights Session Replay can bring to your business, you can try it for free now.