Frequently Asked Questions




Getting started

1. How does ClickTale work?

ClickTale captures every mouse move, click, scroll and keystroke that a visitor makes inside a webpage, and then sends this information back to the ClickTale servers in a highly compressed package. Our servers take a snapshot of the webpage as experienced by the visitor, and combines it with the visitor actions to recreate the original browsing session. When you then login to your ClickTale account you can see your visitor recordings, visual heatmaps and other behavioral reports.
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2. How do I set up ClickTale?

Simply add a small JavaScript tracking code to the web pages you would like to record.
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3. Does ClickTale require any special software?

ClickTale is a hosted service, so no software installation on the server or client side is needed and visitors can browse your website the same way they always have. We use a Content Delivery Network to host the tracking code, ensuring scalability and reliability.
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4. Will ClickTale record all of my visitors?

ClickTale allows each subscriber to select the percentage of their visitors they would like to record. You can choose to record between 0 - 100% of your visitors, however you can only record up to your monthly recording limit as determined by your subscription plan.
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5. Will ClickTale affect visitors’ browsing experience or page loading times?

Website visitors don’t notice any difference in their browsing experience since ClickTale is optimized for minimal use of CPU and bandwidth resources. In addition: Only about 5K of highly compressed data per recording is sent back to our servers, which has no noticeable impact on site performance. The ClickTale tracking code is small and compressed, and is delivered via a Content Delivery Network that is extremely fast and reliable. Customers usually choose to record only a small fraction of their total traffic, and the extra load is not noticeable on the servers. The ClickTale code is loaded at the end of the page, and therefore does not affect page load times at all.
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6. Will the ClickTale tracking code interfere with other JavaScript code?

No, ClickTale will not interfere with any other JavaScript code. ClickTale has been used successfully in conjunction with many other analytics packages including: Google Analytics, Omniture, JQuery, Prototype, etc.
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Fast Deployment

1. How long does it take to set up ClickTale?

ClickTale can be set up in a couple of minutes, and can start capturing visitor data immediately.
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2. Can ClickTale record member-only areas and secure pages?

Yes. With our paid plans you can record pages protected by a log-in, as well as https pages such as shopping carts.
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3. What browsers do you support?

ClickTale supports recordings of Internet Explorer and Firefox on all major operating systems. Our policy is to support all browsers with a market share of over 10%.
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4. What site architectures do you support?

ClickTale supports almost every type of architecture including, HTML, PHP, Classic ASP, ASP.NET, Ruby on Rails, JSP, and many, many others. We also support various platforms such as WordPress, Magento, Joomla, Yahoo! Store, ColdFusion, and many more.
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5. Does ClickTale work with Flash?

A few simple adjustments to your HTML code will allow ClickTale to work with Flash on a limited basis and enable the recording of mouse movements and clicks over Flash elements. We do not at the moment support dynamic Flash elements or completely Flash based sites, due to the various ways that different browsers handle Flash requests. This is something we’re working on at the moment and hope to get it fully working very soon.
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6. I'm testing my website in an offline development environment. Can I still use ClickTale?

Yes, you can use ClickTale for offline environments and intranet sites by using the ClickTaleUploadPage API command.
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Privacy Assured

1. How will visitors’ privacy be affected?

Your visitors’ privacy is a top priority for us. That’s why we make every effort to protect your visitors’ personal information.
  • ClickTale does not collect any personally identifiable information unless a visitor voluntarily and knowingly submits this type of data.
  • Password fields are never recorded. During session playback asterisks are displayed instead of the input.
  • Any text that a visitor enters into a form but does not submit is hidden. You can still generate Form Analytics reports on these fields, but are unable to view the text.
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2. Can ClickTale be used to record sensitive personal or financial information?

We require that you block recording of any sensitive personal or financial information about your visitors by using our API (please see our Terms of use, section 7, for more information on this).Breaking these Terms of Use will instantly invalidate your ClickTale subscription and revoke your access to all past, present and future recordings. You can use our ClickTaleSensitive class to censor information entered into form fields or our ClickTaleExcludeBlock method to prevent the recording of any element on your page.
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3. Do my visitors know they are being recorded?

The recordings process itself is completely transparent to the end user. However, all ClickTale subscribers must put a disclaimer in their Privacy Policy letting their visitors know that they may be recorded. For more information please see our Terms of use.
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4. Can ClickTale track visitors after they leave my site?

No, ClickTale can only track visitors on the specific web pages that contain your ClickTale tracking code.
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5. Can my visitors choose not to be recorded?

Yes, we offer an opt-out option for anyone who does not want to be recorded. This inserts a cookie within your visitor's browser that will prevent them from being recorded by any ClickTale customer.
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6. How secure is my data?

Very secure. ClickTale takes several steps to ensure your data’s security. We restrict our employees’ access to your data. Our employees cannot access your data unless you provide us with your password and specific permission to access your account. HTTPS page data is passed to our servers via SSL and is fully encrypted. Our servers are stored at certified data centers. We use firewalls to limit access to our servers. We regularly apply updates to servers, OS, firewalls and all our software to prevent security vulnerabilities.
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Using ClickTale

1. Can I use ClickTale to find bugs in my website?

Yes, ClickTale provides a Most Errored Page Report to help you find which pages are generating the most JavaScript errors. In addition, ClickTale can show you when a visitor encounters an error and which line of your site code is generating the error.
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2. How is ClickTale different from traditional web analytics?

Most traditional web analytics tell you where visitors come from and which pages they go to within your site. We tell you everything your visitors do inside those web pages using playable videos of customers’ entire browsing sessions as well as powerful visual heatmaps and behavioral reports.
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3. Does ClickTale provide aggregated data about links and visitors?

Yes, ClickTale provides several reports based on aggregated visitor data. These reports include our Heatmaps, Link Analytics, and Form Analytics among others.
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4. Why isn’t my question listed here?

We’ve only put our most frequently asked questions on our frequently asked questions page. If you have an infrequently asked question, please see:

  • Video Tutorials: Learn how to use each of ClickTale’s main reports to optimize your site.
  • ClickTale Support Forum: Technical information about integrating and customizing ClickTale
  • User Manual: Download our user manual for instructions on integrating and using ClickTale.
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