Combining funnels with recordings, heatmaps, and surveys for more insights (and conversions)

This guide shows you how to combine Hotjar Funnels with our Recordings, Heatmaps, and Survey tools so you can visualize, monitor, and optimize your funnels with complementary data—all from a single platform.

Funnels + Recordings

Funnels reveal where users drop off, but session recordings help determine why by showing how real people navigate your website—including what they do just before they convert or bounce.

Combine Hotjar Recordings with Funnels to:

• Find bugs and design issues that cause visitors to bounce without converting, including broken links, confusing navigation, or unclear instructions

• Identify rage clicks that highlight areas of frustration, like slow-loading elements or non-responsive buttons

• Spot browsing patterns that reveal where users spend the most time and what they scroll past or ignore

How to combine Funnels and Recordings

• Create a funnel in Hotjar, mapping out the user journey you want to analyze

• Identify the funnel step where users drop off

• Click the play icon to jump straight to a playlist of user recordings associated with that step

Watch recordings from both cohorts—drop-offs and successful conversions—to understand what to remove (e.g. broken links, confusing elements, or bugs) and improve (e.g. better CTA placement, more delivery information, or social proof).

Funnels + Heatmaps

Heatmaps show you where visitors click (with or without rage!), scroll, engage, and move their cursors on any page. 

Combine Hotjar Heatmaps with Funnels to:

• Identify if users rage click on non-clickable elements

• See if visitors scroll far enough to see your CTAs on different devices

• Optimize content placement near areas of high engagement

How to combine Funnels and Heatmaps

1. Set up a funnel in Hotjar and find the page with the highest drop-off percentage

2. Go to Heatmaps > + New Heatmap and add the drop-off page URL

3. Filter your heatmap by ‘Clicked element’ and ‘did not occur’ to view heatmaps of visitors who didn’t click your CTA

Use different heatmap types to identify areas for improvement and optimize your funnel to maximize clicks to the next step.

Look at:

• Click maps to identify the CTAs that work best and find elements that might have distracted non-converting users

• Scroll maps to see if visitors miss CTAs on different devices

• Move maps to see the areas attracting the most (and least) attention

• Rage click maps to pinpoint where users get frustrated

• Engagement Zone maps to view all mouse activity in a single heatmap

Funnels + Surveys

While Recordings and Heatmaps let you observe the usability issues holding visitors back from converting, they won’t reveal what's still missing from the page—like information about shipping times, product performance, or relevant use cases. 

Instead of trying to guess what people might want or need before converting, run surveys to find out the unaddressed concerns or objections that cause visitors to drop off your funnel. 

Use Hotjar Surveys to:

• Run an exit-intent or cart abandonment survey to find out why people leave your funnel without converting

• Ask follow-up questions on post-purchase surveys like Net Promoter Score® (NPS®) to learn what almost stopped people from converting

How to combine Funnels and Surveys

1. Use Hotjar Funnels to identify where users drop off

2. Go to Surveys > New Survey to set up an exit survey. Use the exit intent survey template or the AI creation feature to generate a set of relevant questions.

3. Target the survey to your drop-off page and set it to display when a user is about to leave

4. When you’ve collected at least 30 responses, click the ‘AI Report’ button to generate a report with key findings, quotes, and recommended next steps

Exit surveys will reveal some of the reasons why people leave your website without converting, but don’t stop there. Ask, “What nearly stopped you from completing your purchase?” in a post-purchase survey while the experience is still fresh in your customers’ minds. Their ‘almost-deal-breakers’ will help you optimize your ecommerce funnel for less-determined browsers who might need a little more convincing.

Diagnose your funnel drop-offs with real user data

Using Hotjar Funnels on its own will help you monitor and share what’s happening across your funnels so you can celebrate your conversion wins and pinpoint the pages that need conversion rate optimization the most. 

But your funnels won’t optimize themselves: level up by combining Funnels with Heatmaps, Recordings, and Surveys to generate a complete picture of user behavior and sentiment all in one place. Once you see where your visitors get stuck and hear what they really need, you’ll have the right data to fix your funnel leaks and drive growth where you want it.