Basics of session replay

The ability to replay a visitor’s path on a website, mobile app or web app is known as session replay. The replay may include user presentation (browser or screen output), user input (keyboard and mouse input), and network event logs or console logs. Session replay is expected to help improve the customer experience and help identify obstacles in website conversion processes. However, it can also be used to study website usability, customer behavior, and handling support questions along the journey to purchase, with all interactions reproducible. Some organizations also use this capability to analyze website fraud.

Some solutions supplement session replay with advanced analytics that can identify customer segments struggling to use a website. This allows the replay capability to be used much more efficiently and reduces the need to unnecessarily replay other user sessions.

There are generally two ways to capture and replay visitor sessions: client-side and server-side.

Client-side

There are many tag-based solutions that offer a video-like website session recording. While the playback is similar to video, it is a more accurate reproduction of a specific user’s experience, with detailed descriptions of mouse movements, clicks, taps, and scrolls. The underlying data for session records is captured using page tags. Some advanced tools can access the Document Object Model (DOM) directly and can reproduce most interactions within the DOM, including all mutations, with a high degree of fidelity. There are a number of tools that provide similar functionality, with the advantage that the entire customer experience can be reproduced in a movie-like format. It can also work with modern Single Page Applications. The downside is that the tracking script can be easily detected and blocked by an ad blocker.

Back-end without tags

These solutions capture all website traffic and replay every visitor interaction from any device, including all mobile users from anywhere. Sessions are replayed step by step, making it possible to search, find, and analyze aspects of a visitor’s session, including clicks and the entry form. Server solutions require hardware and software to be installed “on-premise”. The advantage of server-side recording is that the solution cannot be blocked. However, you will not be able to see the video replay of client-side actions such as scrolling and mouse movements. It also doesn’t handle modern Single Page Applications well.

Hybrid

A hybrid approach combines advantages without disadvantages. The hybrid approach ensures that each session is recorded (important for compliance) by collecting server-side data and enriched with client-side tracking of mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, keystrokes, and user behavior (based on customer experience analysis). This method works exceptionally well with current Single Page Applications. There is film replay and 100% capture. It can be deployed either “locally” or as Software as a Service (SaaS).

Summary

Traditional web analytics solutions are elevated by session replay capabilities, since they provide a comprehensive view of the user on a website or app. They give all the individual data points that a conventional analytics tool provides, as well as how those data points combine to create an experience. Combining this with heatmap session recording tools, you can acquire much information about your user’s experience.

The end result? Product managers, support agents, product and UX designers, developers, marketers, salespeople, and everyone else in your business may use session replay to better understand the customer, learn from their problems and achievements, and build better products. Session replay is useful for many types of online enterprises, from SaaS and e-commerce to finance and hospitality.

You may finally receive the answers you need to understand your clients and improve their online experience using session replay.