See where people click, on the button they clicked.

Heat that stays on the button

In a sample of recorded sessions, the web recorder notes the element that each click belongs to: the nearest button, link or other clickable element, or else the nearest block of the page. It records the element by its place among the page's elements, not by its text or class names. It also records which of 64 cells of that element the click was in.

The map counts those clicks for each page and device. Then it draws the heat on that element in a recent recording of the page, wherever the element is in that recording. When Sequential cannot find that element in the page picture, it does not guess, and the map tells you the share.

• On small screens. Desktop, Tablet and Mobile each have their own map. Each map is drawn on a recording of that page in a window of that size. Mobile means a browser window narrower than 768 px.
• After a redesign. Sequential places a click only on an element that its path names exactly. If no single element matches, the click counts as "Not placed", and the map shows that share. The map also shows the share that it placed by a nearby structure match. Above 25 % not placed, the map tells you that the page has changed and that a shorter, more recent date range matches better.
• Why not pixels. Privacy masking replaces text with blocks, and this can change the layout of a page. When we masked the Wikipedia article on heat maps, the page became 66.6 % taller. The median element moved by 42.4 % of the page height. Element matching was exact on all four pages that we tested. This was a spot check, so every map still tells you what it could not place.

Reading the map

• Clicks. Where people click.
• Rage. Three or more clicks within one second in one small area. Sequential counts them apart from Clicks.
• Not clickable. Clicks on parts of the page that are not buttons, links or other clickable elements.
• Scroll. The page in bands of 5 %. Each band shows the share of the visits that scrolled and saw all of that band. A dashed line marks the fold when Sequential knows the screen height.

Most clicked ranks the ten busiest elements by name, never by their text. Point at one, and the picture scrolls to it and puts an outline around it.

Know how much the map knows. Every map shows the sampled page views and the days behind it. Below about 100 sampled views, the map also tells you that the patterns are not reliable.

Illustrative

Example: Northlight Outfitters, a demo shop

This example is illustrative. Sequential has found a failed request on the shipping page. It hit 38 people: the postcode field refuses a space. Northlight's agent has filed it as WEB-231. To see where, the head of product opens Heatmaps, picks the shipping page, then Mobile.

• Most clicked puts "Button in main · section 2" on top. Pointing at it outlines the Continue button.
• Rage is on that same button.
• Not clickable lights up the postcode hint text.
• Scroll reads "Half of the visits saw 45 % of the page".

Beside the map: Sampled page views: 1,240 · Days: 7 · Blocked regions are not recorded.

Sequential recorded release 2026.10.09 and measured the finding again: 41 % → 12 % of sessions on the shipping page. This is a measurement, not a cause.

Counts, not content

Heatmap data holds no text. It holds the page address without the query string or #fragment, the device class, the clicked element's place in the page and the cell in it, scroll depth in steps of 5 %, and counts. It never holds element text, ids, classes or link addresses. For rage clicks, it also keeps the session ids, so that you can watch those sessions.

Recordings never hold heatmap data, and no third party gets it. Sequential shows heatmap data for your replay period: 30 days by default, and 7 days on the hosted preview. It deletes the data a week at a time after that.

The page picture is one recent recording of that page and device. It is masked as your replay settings say. Anyone who can watch replays can see it. To find the picture, Sequential keeps at most one row an hour for each page and device that names a session.

Good to know

• One view at a time. You cannot compare periods or segments side by side. You filter by page, device and date range. Sequential does not keep query strings, so there is no campaign filter.
• Sampled, with daily limits. Past its daily limits (by default 25,000 page views a day), a project stores no more heatmap data that day. Recordings continue.
• Web only. Mobile means a browser window narrower than 768 px. Mobile apps send no heatmap data.
• One recent picture for each page and device. An element that is not in that picture counts as "Not placed", and the map shows that share. The map also shows the share that it placed by a nearby structure match.
• No export. From an element's rage clicks, Watch these sessions opens the sessions that had them.
• Your agent can read the counts. It sees which pages and elements get clicks and rage clicks, and how far people scroll. It never gets the page picture or element text.
• No mouse-movement maps. Clicks and scroll only.
• Hash-routed pages and scrolling panels. Clicks on #/ routes count as "Not placed". Sequential does not measure scroll inside a panel.
• About 6 minutes behind. Data appears within about 6 minutes of the end of a session.
• A little page weight. With heatmaps on, the recorder is about 7.6 KB (about 22 %) larger, compressed, on every page load, in the sample or not.

Questions