Unlike in the past, when the cost of owning and running a website was prohibitive for startups, today, anyone can have a website. It is also no longer a luxury to own a website if you are in business. It is more of a necessity as retail and marketing move to the virtual world. Thanks to the growth of affordable content management systems, any novice can build a website in hours.

There is, however, a massive difference between a functional website and a profitable one. The journey towards profit-making in the online marketing world can be very intimidating for a new business. Thankfully, there are tons of web analytics tools out there to help make the journey easier. Top amongst these tools is session replay tools.

What is session replay?

Also known as user replay, playback, or session recording, these tools recreate a user journey on an app of a webpage. They provide qualitative data that can combine both the user screen and browser output. Through session replay, you can also access metrics on mouse and keyboard inputs, which, when combined, can help you visualize your user’s behavior when interacting with your web pages. These tools are, therefore, very useful product development and target marketing tools.

What can user playback tools record?

• Multiple page views
  A session recording tool can recreate a user’s journey across various pages on your website. Multiple page views are recorded as a whole, making it much easier for you to quickly visualize the user journey uninterrupted. 
• Keyboard strokes and mouse scroll actions
  These tools can also track the user’s keystroke data, and highlight information typed in by your website’s visitors. You might need however, to white list permitted tracking fields. The best session replay tools anonymize personal identification information automatically. This means that you will not view a user’s private data, such as credit card number inputs.  

• CSS, HTML elements 

• CSS, SVG, and vector graphics animations

• Window resizing

• Mobile device multi-touch events

• Other web components including Shadow DOM

It is important to note that user replay sessions are not actual recordings of a customer’s journey on a webpage. These tools are designed to reenact events on web pages as they occur. They, therefore, are very rich in granular data, which can be mined to give insights. The qualitative data can also be used to segment users by their interaction or behavior. 

You should, therefore, not worry about privacy if you are going to use reputable user replay tools. They also have robust data security and disclosure agreements. An excellent user playback tool also excludes the recording of sensitive data such as passwords.

Conclusion
Session recording tools’ qualitative insights are beneficial for website optimization. Your business cannot run a thorough conversion rate optimization program without the aid of user replay tools. When coupled with comprehensive behavioral analysis, they can help turn around low sales margins and enable your business to scale the heights of e-commerce.