Inspectlet review: Watch people using your website

It was a little by accident that we found inspectlet, but glad we did, it takes over where Google Analytics falls short by allowing you to record and watch people using your site.

What does it do?

Principally it records visitors using your website within a session so that you can playback, watch and analyse later.
This information can then be reviewed and watched later along with details of where the visitor came from, what screen size and browser they used and potential which search term was used to find you.
You can watch how the visitor clicks and see clearly which pages they look at along with how they scroll.
That’s not all. You can also review multiple visits on a single page to get an overall feel of the page’s usages using the Heatmap feature.

How does it work?

Simply visit www.inspectlet.com sign up for free, then a snippet of Javascript code needs to be added to the bottom of each page.
If you’re using Google Tag Manager, a custom Tag can be added too.

How much does it Cost?

There is a free version that allows you to capture up to 4 visits per day. This is useful to get a good feel over several weeks of what’s happening, however upgrading to capture all usage gives you an accurate sense of what’s really happening.

What’s good?

The session recording is superb, there’s no other word for it. You get a 100% sense of what people are doing and the real value isn’t in working out what’s working, it’s being able to visualise what isn’t.

There are a number of filters, so you’re able to look at visitors for time periods, a particular source or device.

The Heatmeap feature is great too, in particular the Click Map and Scroll Map features.

What’s not so good?

The Session recording is superb, but the Heatmap feature has some limitations and is often inconsistent in its readings. Websites that are responsive or use drop-down style menus can give bogus results, however it still gives a good general insight and is useful.

The Inspectlet Dashboard

The Inspectlet Session Manager

The Inspectlet Heatmap showing clicks on the page

Summary
It’s a great tool and well worth trialling. If your website is new or you’re looking to improve it or troubleshoot something going wrong, this is definitely the tool to use!