Your analytics say the checkout page gets visits. They do not say why three of the last five people who reached it never clicked Pay. A pageview total counts a visit. A session recording shows the visit: the pages someone opened in order, where the cursor went, which form fields were started, how far the page was scrolled, and what happened in the moment before the tab closed.
That is what this guide is about. Watching visits one at a time cannot read minds, but it turns “people leave at checkout” into something you can watch, name and test. Here is the workflow.
Before you start: what recording records
- Recording stays off until you turn it on for a website. Adding the tracking code does not start it.
- Each site records a daily sample of visits, not every visit.
- Page text is masked in the visitor’s browser by default. Passwords and payment fields always stay hidden.
Recordings are kept for 30 days by default, which sets the pace.
Step 1: Turn recording on for one website
Check two things first: the tracker is installed on the site, and you have the rights to change recording settings. Only the website owner, or a teammate the owner granted manage rights to, can enable recording. If the dashboard says “Ask the website owner”, you are read-only. Access is opening gradually, so the Experience menu appears only when your website has access; follow its access message if you see one.
When you can, open Experience → Settings, switch Record visitor sessions to Enabled, and Save settings. Recording is per website, so enable it for the site behind the page you want to review. First recordings usually appear within a few minutes of the next sampled visit; on a quiet site they can take longer.
Step 2: Open a visit tied to a problem, not a random one
Start from a visit connected to something worth explaining: one that hit an error page, or one that started a form and never sent it. Hitsteps keeps each recording next to that visit’s pages, errors and form activity, so the suspicious ones are easy to find.
Step 3: Replay it page by page, or watch it live
Follow the visit along the timeline. Note where the person hesitated, backtracked or stopped, and what was on screen just before they left. If a visit is still going on, you can open it and watch it live.
Step 4: Save, tag and share what matters
Keep the visits that matter, tag them, and share one with a private link that expires. A short tag such as “checkout coupon field” tells your team what to look for, and an expiring link sends the right visit to the page owner.
Step 5: Change one thing
A replay shows behavior, not motive. A visitor may have left because of a confusing button, or because they were always going to leave. Change three things at once and you will not know which one mattered, so pick the smallest change that could plausibly help the moment you saw.
Step 6: Re-check later visits
Return to the same page or flow in the next days’ recordings. With 30 days of retention, compare a small run of visits before your change against the same number after it. That comparison is exploratory, not proof that the change worked; consistency across several visits matters more than any single replay.
When recordings are not the answer
If the visits you watch show nothing unusual, or the sample is too small to see a clear pattern, that is inconclusive, not a verdict. Cross-check the same visits against aggregate outcomes, device and traffic source before you conclude anything.
Your next step
Turn recording on for the website behind the page your visitors leave most often. When a sampled visit stops on that page, replay the last minute of it. That first replay may suggest a question to investigate; if it does not, review more sampled visits and the aggregate outcomes. Session recording is included with Pro and higher plans, and every new account starts with a 7-day Pro trial, no credit card needed. Free, Starter and Growth accounts that have paid before can start one 14-day Experience trial from the dashboard. For setup and player details, the Experience session recordings guide walks through every screen.
