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FeaturesSession Recordings

Session Recordings

Watch anonymized recordings of real visitor sessions.

Overview

Session Recordings let you see exactly how visitors interact with your website. Watch mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, and page navigation in real-time playback — like looking over a visitor’s shoulder, but without compromising their privacy.

Navigate to Session Recordings in the main menu to access this feature.

What’s Captured

Session recordings capture:

  • Mouse movements — Where the cursor travels
  • Clicks — What visitors click on
  • Scrolling — How visitors scroll through pages
  • Page navigation — The path through your site
  • Form interactions — Field focus and input patterns (content masked)
  • Page rendering — How your pages appeared to the visitor

Privacy and Compliance

Session recordings in Ghost Metrics are designed with HIPAA compliance in mind:

Automatic Masking

  • Form inputs — Text entered into forms is automatically masked
  • Sensitive fields — Password fields, credit card inputs, and similar fields are hidden
  • Personal data — No personally identifiable information is captured in the recording

What’s NOT Recorded

  • Actual text typed into forms
  • Password or payment information
  • Visitor IP addresses (anonymized)
  • Any data outside the browser viewport

Compliance Features

  • Recordings are stored securely
  • Access is controlled by user permissions
  • Recordings can be configured to exclude specific pages
  • Data retention follows your configured policies

Viewing Recordings

  1. Navigate to Session Recordings
  2. Browse the list of recorded sessions
  3. Use filters to find specific recordings
  4. Click a session to watch

Recording List

Each recording in the list shows:

  • Date and time — When the session occurred
  • Duration — How long the session lasted
  • Pages viewed — Number of pages in the session
  • Location — Country/region (if available)
  • Device — Browser and device information
  • Referrer — How they arrived at your site

Playback Controls

When watching a recording:

  • Play/Pause — Control playback
  • Speed — Watch at 1x, 2x, 4x, or faster
  • Timeline — Skip to specific moments
  • Page jumps — Jump to different pages in the session

Filtering Recordings

Find specific recordings using filters:

By Behavior

  • Sessions with specific page views
  • Sessions where goals were completed
  • Sessions with certain events triggered
  • Sessions where forms were interacted with

By Visitor Attributes

  • Device type (desktop, mobile, tablet)
  • Browser
  • Location (country, region)
  • New vs returning visitors

By Session Attributes

  • Minimum duration
  • Number of pages viewed
  • Date range
  • Referrer source

By Outcome

  • Sessions that converted
  • Sessions that bounced
  • Sessions that reached specific pages

Use Cases

Understand Conversion Paths

Watch recordings of sessions that completed goals:

  1. Filter by “Goal completed”
  2. Watch several successful sessions
  3. Identify common patterns
  4. Understand what drives conversions

Debug Usability Issues

When users report problems:

  1. Filter by the problematic page
  2. Watch sessions on that page
  3. Look for points of confusion
  4. Identify unexpected behavior

Investigate High Bounce Pages

For pages with high bounce rates:

  1. Filter by the problem page
  2. Watch bounced sessions
  3. See where visitors lose interest
  4. Understand why they leave

Validate Form Design

For important forms:

  1. Filter by form page
  2. Watch form interactions
  3. Note where users hesitate
  4. Identify confusing fields

Understand Mobile Experience

Compare mobile vs desktop:

  1. Filter by mobile devices
  2. Watch mobile sessions
  3. Identify mobile-specific issues
  4. Check touch interactions

What to Look For

Signs of Confusion

  • Rage clicks — Repeated clicking on the same element
  • Random clicking — Clicking on non-interactive elements
  • Back-and-forth — Repeatedly navigating between pages
  • Long pauses — Extended time without action
  • How visitors find information
  • Which menu items they use
  • Whether they use search
  • How they move between pages

Form Behavior

  • Which fields take longest
  • Where users go back to edit
  • Fields that cause abandonment
  • Overall form completion flow

Scroll Behavior

  • How far they scroll
  • Whether they read content
  • If they scroll past important information
  • Where they stop scrolling

Best Practices

Watch with Purpose

Don’t watch recordings randomly. Have specific questions:

  • Why do visitors leave this page?
  • How do users interact with this form?
  • What’s the journey to conversion?

Look for Patterns

One session is an anecdote. Watch multiple sessions to find patterns:

  • Watch 10-20 sessions for a given page/flow
  • Note recurring behaviors
  • Focus on patterns, not outliers

Segment Your Viewing

Compare different visitor groups:

  • Converters vs non-converters
  • Mobile vs desktop
  • New vs returning visitors
  • Different traffic sources

Combine with Other Data

Use recordings alongside:

  • Heatmaps — See aggregate patterns first, then dive into individual sessions
  • Funnel reports — Identify drop-off points, then watch sessions at those points
  • Form analytics — See which fields have issues, then watch form interactions

Take Notes

Document what you observe:

  • Specific issues found
  • Timestamps of interesting moments
  • Patterns across sessions
  • Ideas for improvements

Share Insights

Recordings are powerful for communicating issues:

  • Share specific recordings with your team
  • Use recordings in design discussions
  • Show stakeholders actual user behavior

Configuration Options

Recording Sample Rate

For high-traffic sites, you can record a percentage of sessions to manage data storage.

Page Exclusions

Exclude specific pages from recording:

  • Admin areas
  • Pages with highly sensitive content
  • Internal tools

Retention Period

Configure how long recordings are kept before automatic deletion.

Contact support to adjust these settings.

Limitations

  • Recordings require sufficient session duration (very short sessions may not record)
  • Some dynamic content may not replay exactly as seen
  • Pop-ups and modals may have display limitations
  • Very long sessions may be truncated
  • Sessions with technical errors may not record completely

Next Steps

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