Visitor Recordings

Record and review visitors browsing your store

Is this for me?

If you've ever wondered why visitors leave without buying, or where exactly they get stuck in your funnel, Visitor Recordings is for you. You get video-like playbacks of real customers browsing your store — every click, scroll, and page they visit — so you can spot confusing layouts, broken flows, or unexpected drop-off points and fix them.

A typical use: your add-to-cart rate looks healthy but checkouts are low. You filter for "Abandoned checkout" recordings, watch five sessions, and notice everyone hesitates at the shipping step. That's a clue you can act on.

Before you start: Recordings only capture real human visits — bots and crawlers are filtered out automatically. Don't expect to see numbers that match your raw traffic stats.

Setup, Step by Step

Open the Vitals dashboard and go to Visitor Recordings.
Enable the app with the toggle.
Turn on Don't record my own visits so your own browsing doesn't fill up your recordings.
Leave Exclude preview pages for unpublished products on (the default) unless you specifically want to record those.
If you have any sensitive page elements you don't want captured, add their CSS selectors to Exclude the following CSS Selectors from being recorded.
If you're in the EU/UK or otherwise need GDPR-style cookie consent, turn on Require cookie consent before recording.
Adjust Set a page view limit if you want a hard cap on monthly recordings.
Save. Recordings will start appearing as real visitors browse your store.

Key Features

Session Playback

Watch a full recording of a single visitor — mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, page navigations, and form interactions. It plays like a video, so you see exactly what they saw and did from landing page to exit.

Smart Recording Activation

Recordings only start transmitting once the system spots genuine human interaction — a click, a text selection, meaningful mouse movement, or a combination of signals. Bots and automated crawlers don't show up in your list.

Traffic Source Detection

Every recording is tagged with where the visitor came from: Google, Google Ads, Bing, Yandex, Facebook, Facebook Ads, Instagram, Instagram Ads, TikTok, TikTok Ads, Pinterest, Pinterest Ads, Email, ChatGPT, and direct. Filter by source to compare how each channel behaves.

When to use this: Run a paid Facebook campaign? Filter to "Facebook Ads" and watch a few sessions. If those visitors bounce faster than your organic traffic, your landing experience may not match your ad.

Automatic Event Tagging

Recordings are tagged when key actions happen: added to cart, initiated checkout, completed order, added a product bundle, added a BOGO offer, or applied a volume discount.

Abandonment tags are smart: an "Abandoned cart" tag is applied when someone adds to cart, then removed if they reach checkout. Same for "Abandoned checkout" — it disappears once they complete the order. So your filter for "Abandoned checkout" only shows sessions that genuinely dropped off there.

AI-Powered Summaries

Each recording can be summarized by AI — a short TL;DR plus a longer narrative of what the visitor did. It also calls out interactions with specific Vitals apps (Product Reviews, Wishlist, Back in Stock, Cart Drawer, Upsell Builder, and others). Handy when you want to scan twenty sessions without watching all twenty.

Favorites

Star recordings you want to keep handy — usability issues you want to fix, great conversion paths to learn from, or anything worth sharing with your team.

Live Recordings

See visitors who are on your store right now. You can watch sessions as they happen.

Device and Location Data

Each recording shows device (mobile or desktop), city and country, and browser info. Filter by device or country to spot patterns — for example, mobile visitors from a specific country dropping off in a specific spot.

Multi-Page Session Tracking

One recording covers the visitor's full journey across your store — landing page, every page in between, and exit page, with total page count and duration. Search by landing page, exit page, or any page visited in between.

Privacy-First Input Masking

Anything typed into a form is automatically replaced with asterisks before it leaves the visitor's browser — passwords, credit card numbers, personal info. Videos, iframes (including YouTube and Vimeo), and any elements you add to the exclusion list are also blocked.

Turn on Require cookie consent before recording and recordings only start after the visitor accepts cookies. Use this if you need GDPR-style compliance.

Page View Limits

Cap how many page views get recorded each billing period. Useful if you want predictable usage on a plan with a page view allowance. Resets at the start of each billing period.

How It Works

Visitor Recordings runs invisibly in the background — your customers never see or interact with it. When someone lands on your store, the system captures the page and starts tracking changes (mouse, clicks, scrolls, input events). Data is sent in real time to Vitals.

To filter out bot noise, the system waits for proof of a real human before transmitting: either one strong signal (a click or text selection) or a combination of weaker signals (scrolling plus mouse movement). Visits that show no human signals never become recordings.

A visitor is tracked across pages using a 30-day cookie. A session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity. Each visitor gets a stable ID so you can see when someone comes back.

In the dashboard, your recording list shows date, duration, page count, traffic source, device, location, and event tags for each session. Filter and sort to narrow things down, then click any recording to open the player. You can step forward and back between recordings without going back to the list.

Recordings are automatically cleaned up after they hit your plan's retention period. You can also delete individual recordings or wipe everything from the dashboard.

Tips for Getting the Most Out of It

Watch on mobile first. Most stores get the majority of their traffic on mobile, and most usability problems hide there too. Filter by device = mobile before you start.
Use event tags as your filter, not your start point. Don't try to watch every recording. Filter for "Abandoned checkout" or "Added to cart" and watch five from each — patterns show up quickly.
Block your own internal pages. If you have admin panels, draft pages, or internal tools embedded on your store, add their CSS selectors to the exclusion list so you don't waste recordings on them.
Star recordings worth showing your team. Conversations about UX go faster with an actual recording attached. Favorite the good ones as you go.
Watch a return visitor. Each visitor's recording count tells you if they've been before. Return visitors who don't buy are often your most useful sessions — they're interested but something keeps stopping them.

Troubleshooting

No recordings are appearing

Make sure the app is enabled. Recordings only start when real interaction is detected, so bot visits are filtered out. If Don't record my own visits is on, your own browsing won't appear either — try an incognito window or a different device.

Recordings show blank areas

Videos, YouTube/Vimeo iframes, and anything in your CSS exclusion list show up as blank blocks. That's the privacy behavior working as designed.

I'm hitting my page view limit

Check the Set a page view limit setting. It resets at the start of each month. You can raise the limit if you need more (usage charges may apply).

Recordings aren't starting for some visitors

If Require cookie consent before recording is on, visitors who haven't accepted cookies won't be recorded. Also, very short visits with no mouse movement, clicks, or scrolling don't pass the real-human check and won't be saved.

Settings Reference

Setting	Input Type	Description
Don't record my own visits	On/Off toggle	Excludes your own shop visits from recordings. Default: off.
Exclude preview pages for unpublished products	On/Off toggle	Skip recording visits to unpublished product preview pages. Default: on.
Exclude the following CSS Selectors from being recorded	Text field	CSS selectors for elements you want blocked from recordings (e.g., sensitive areas). They appear as blank blocks in playback. Default: none.
Set a page view limit	Number field	Cap the number of page views recorded per billing period. Resets at the start of each billing period. Default: 10,000.
Require cookie consent before recording	On/Off toggle	Only start recordings after visitors accept cookies. Useful for GDPR compliance. Default: off.

FAQ

What exactly is recorded in a visitor session?

Mouse movements, clicks, scrolls, page navigations, text selections, and form interactions. Text input is masked with asterisks. Videos and iframes are blocked. The result is a video-like playback of what the visitor saw and did.

Does this slow down my store?

No. The recording system is lightweight, runs in the background, and only starts transmitting after real interaction is detected. Customers won't notice anything.

Is customer data private and secure?

Yes. Text input (passwords, personal details, card numbers) is masked with asterisks before it leaves the visitor's browser. Videos and iframes are blocked entirely. You can also exclude additional elements via the CSS selector setting.

How long are recordings kept?

Recordings are kept for 30 days. Expired ones are cleaned up daily. You can also delete individual recordings or wipe everything from the dashboard.

Can I filter recordings by traffic source?

Yes. Each recording is tagged with its source (Google, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Pinterest, Email, Direct, and the paid ads variants). Filter the list by source to compare channels.

What are the event tags on recordings?

Tags are added when visitors take key actions: Added product to cart, Initiated checkout, Completed order, Added product bundle, Added BOGO offer, and Added volume discount. There's also a cart upsell filter.

Abandonment tags are smart — "Abandoned cart" is applied when someone adds to cart but removed if they reach checkout. "Abandoned checkout" is applied at checkout but removed if they complete the order. So your filters show genuine drop-offs.

Can I see recordings from visitors currently on my store?

Yes. The Live filter shows sessions from visitors who are browsing right now.

Yes. Turn on Require cookie consent before recording and recordings only start after the visitor accepts cookies through your consent banner.

How does the page view limit work?

The Set a page view limit setting caps how many page views are recorded per month. Once you hit the cap, no new page views are recorded until the next period starts. Default is 10,000.

Can I see if a visitor has been to my store before?

Yes. Each visitor has a unique ID that persists for 30 days via a cookie. When viewing a recording, you can see how many total recordings exist for that visitor — easy to spot return visitors.