Hotjar

What is Hotjar

Hotjar is a behavior analytics software that helps you understand how users interact with your website. It provides visual tools to see what users click, where they scroll, and how they navigate through your pages. The main purpose of Hotjar is to give website owners, marketers, and UX designers insights beyond traditional web analytics numbers. Instead of just seeing that a user left a page, you can see a recording of their session to understand why. The company was founded in 2014 by David Darmanin, Marc von Brockdorff, Jonathan Vella, Erik Näslund, and Johan Malmberg. Hotjar is a fully remote company with its legal base in Malta. It combines several analytics and feedback tools into one platform.

Hotjar Features

Hotjar offers a suite of tools to analyze user behavior and collect feedback. Here are its main features:

• Heatmaps: These tools create visual maps of user activity. Click maps show where users click most, move maps track mouse movement, and scroll maps show how far down a page users scroll. This helps you identify which parts of your website get the most and least attention.
• Session Recordings: Watch video-like replays of real user sessions. You can see their mouse movements, clicks, and typing. This is very useful for identifying bugs, usability problems, and points of frustration in the user journey.
• Surveys: Create and launch surveys directly on your website or share them via a link. You can ask users about their experience, why they are visiting, or what they think of your products. This provides direct qualitative feedback.
• Feedback Widgets: Add a small widget to your site that allows users to leave instant feedback and rate their experience on any page. This is a simple way to collect continuous user sentiment.
• Funnels: Define a sequence of steps you expect users to take, like a checkout process. Funnels show you where users drop off in the process, helping you identify pages that need improvement to increase conversions.
• Dashboards: A central place where you can see all your data from heatmaps, recordings, and surveys. You can filter data and create reports to share with your team.
• Interviews: Hotjar Engage is a feature that helps you recruit users from your own audience for one-on-one video interviews. This allows for deep qualitative research and usability testing.

Hotjar Pricing Plans

Hotjar offers several pricing plans designed for different types of users and businesses. The plans are structured based on the number of sessions you can collect data from each month.

• Basic Plan: This is a free plan designed for personal projects or websites with low traffic. It includes access to all core tools but with limits on the amount of data you can collect.
• Plus Plan: Aimed at small businesses and startups. It offers higher data collection limits than the free plan, allowing for more consistent analysis.
• Business Plan: This is the most popular plan, designed for growing businesses and established companies. It provides a large number of sessions, advanced features, and more integrations. Data is collected more frequently.
• Scale Plan: The top-tier plan for large enterprises and high-traffic websites. It includes very high session limits, continuous data capture, dedicated customer support, and premium features for in-depth analysis.

Hotjar Free Plan

Hotjar offers a free forever plan called Basic. This plan is quite generous and provides access to all of Hotjar's main tools, including Heatmaps, Recordings, and Surveys. However, it comes with limitations. For example, it captures data for a limited number of sessions per month (e.g., up to 35 daily sessions). While you can create unlimited heatmaps and surveys, the data collected is based on this session limit. This plan is excellent for individuals, students, or small site owners who want to start understanding their users without a financial commitment.

How to use Hotjar

Getting started with Hotjar is a straightforward process. Here is a typical workflow:

1. Create an Account: Sign up for a free or paid plan on the Hotjar website.
2. Install Tracking Code: After signing up, you will get a small piece of JavaScript code. You need to copy this code and paste it into the <head> section of your website's HTML. If you use a platform like WordPress, Shopify, or Google Tag Manager, there are simple plugins and integrations to do this without touching code.
3. Configure Your First Tool: Once the code is installed, Hotjar will start tracking users. You can then log in to your dashboard and set up a tool. For example, you can create a new heatmap for your homepage or a key landing page.
4. Collect Data: Let Hotjar run for a few days or weeks to collect enough data. The amount of time depends on your website traffic.
5. Analyze Insights: Review the heatmaps to see where people click. Watch session recordings to find user struggles. Read survey responses to understand user opinions.
6. Take Action: Use the insights to form a hypothesis about how to improve your website. For example, if a button is not getting clicked, you might change its color or position. After making changes, you can use Hotjar to see if your changes had a positive effect.

Pros and Cons of Hotjar

Hotjar is a powerful tool, but it has both advantages and disadvantages.

Pros:

• All-in-One Platform: It combines multiple analytics and feedback tools in one place, which is convenient and cost-effective.
• Easy to Use: The interface is user-friendly and intuitive, making it accessible even for non-technical users.
• Visual Insights: Heatmaps and recordings provide a clear, visual way to understand user behavior that numbers alone cannot show.
• Excellent Free Plan: The free Basic plan is very capable and allows anyone to get started with behavior analytics.
• Combines What and Why: It helps you see what users are doing (with recordings) and understand why they are doing it (with surveys).

Cons:

• Website Performance: The tracking script can sometimes slightly slow down your website's loading speed, though this impact is usually minimal.
• Data Sampling: On lower-tier plans, Hotjar samples your traffic, meaning it doesn't record every single user session. You need a higher plan for full data capture.
• Not a Replacement for Traditional Analytics: It is best used alongside a tool like Google Analytics, as it does not provide deep quantitative data on traffic sources or demographics.
• Data Retention Limits: Recordings and heatmap data are stored for a limited time (e.g., 365 days), after which they are deleted.

Hotjar integrations

Hotjar integrates with many popular tools to help you connect user behavior insights with your existing workflows. Here are some key integrations:

• Google Analytics: Connect Hotjar with Google Analytics to send survey responses and other events, allowing you to segment your GA reports based on user feedback.
• Slack: Receive real-time notifications in your Slack channels when you get new survey responses or feedback, enabling your team to react quickly.
• Zapier: Use Zapier to connect Hotjar to thousands of other applications. For example, you can automatically create a support ticket in Zendesk from a negative feedback response.
• HubSpot: Enrich your HubSpot contact profiles with data from Hotjar. See recordings and survey answers directly in the contact's timeline.
• Optimizely: Use Hotjar heatmaps and recordings to analyze the performance of different variations in your Optimizely A/B tests.
• Microsoft Teams: Get notifications for new Hotjar feedback and recordings directly in your Microsoft Teams channels.

Integrations are typically set up within the Hotjar dashboard under the 'Integrations' section.

Hotjar Alternatives

While Hotjar is a leading tool, there are several alternatives, each with different strengths.

• Microsoft Clarity: A completely free tool from Microsoft that offers heatmaps and session recordings. It is a very strong competitor to Hotjar's free plan, as it does not have traffic limits.
• Mouseflow: A direct competitor with a very similar set of features, including heatmaps, session replay, funnels, and forms analytics. Some users prefer its interface or pricing structure.
• FullStory: A more powerful and developer-focused platform. It captures every user session automatically (no sampling) and provides advanced search and analysis capabilities, making it ideal for support and engineering teams. It is generally more expensive.
• Crazy Egg: One of the original heatmap tools. It focuses heavily on visual reports, A/B testing, and conversion optimization features. It is a good choice if your primary need is heatmapping and simple A/B tests.
• VWO (Visual Website Optimizer): A comprehensive conversion rate optimization (CRO) platform. It includes heatmaps and recordings as part of a larger suite of tools for A/B testing, personalization, and user feedback.

Hotjar API

Yes, Hotjar provides APIs for developers to extend its functionality and integrate it with other systems. The main APIs available are:

• Hotjar API: This allows you to trigger actions in Hotjar from your own application. For example, you can use it to identify users, trigger surveys based on specific events, or submit user attributes.
• Webhooks: Hotjar can send data to your application in real-time using webhooks. For instance, you can receive a notification at a specific URL every time a new survey response is submitted.

To use the API, you typically need to obtain an API key or token from your Hotjar account settings. Access to the API may depend on your pricing plan.

Here is a conceptual example of using JavaScript to send a user attribute to Hotjar:

// Example: Identify a user and send their plan type to Hotjar
if (window.hj) {
  window.hj('identify', 'USER_ID_123', {
    plan: 'premium',
    signup_date: '2023-10-26'
  });
}

For detailed documentation and guides, developers should visit the official Hotjar developer portal.

Hotjar Affiliate program

Hotjar offers a Partner Program for agencies, consultants, and affiliates who want to promote the tool. While it is not a traditional affiliate program with open sign-ups, you can apply to become a partner.

• How it works: Partners who refer new customers to Hotjar can earn a commission. The program is designed for those who can provide value to their clients by using or recommending Hotjar.
• Commission: Partners typically earn a revenue share, which is a percentage of the subscription fee paid by the customers they refer. The exact commission rate is provided upon acceptance into the program.
• How to Join: To join, you need to visit the 'Partner Program' page on the Hotjar website and fill out an application. The application will ask about your business, your clients, and how you plan to promote Hotjar. The Hotjar team reviews each application to ensure a good fit.
• Getting Paid: Commissions are usually paid out on a regular basis (e.g., quarterly) once you meet a certain payment threshold. Payments are typically made via bank transfer or PayPal.