How do I use the Targeting tab in Session Recording?

In this help, we'll discuss how to use the Targeting tab to:

  • Set which countries, devices, operating systems and browsers should be recorded
  • Block certain IP addresses from being recorded
  • Enable recording of bot sessions
  • Set recording rules for subdomains
  • Set rules for throttling the number of recorded visitors

Set which countries, devices, operating systems and browsers should be recorded 

  • You can target your session recording depending on where the session come from
  • By default, all visitors are being recorded
  • You can target recording by location, device, operating system and browser
  • Either select only record from allowed countries/devices/operating systems/browsers to create a whitelist or select never record from blocked countries/devices/operating systems/browsers to create a blacklist
  • Click Select locations/devices/systems/browsers to pick which ones should or shouldn't be recorded (depending on what you chose in the previous step)

Block certain IP addresses from being recorded 

  • Session Recording allows you to block certain IP addresses or IP ranges (e.g. if you want to block recording sessions from your own team)
  • Either insert an exact IP adress or define an IP range using wildcards (e.g. 192.168.1.*)
  • Click Add IP to insert another IP address/range to block
  • For example: You can use this feature to add the IP address of your company router. By doing so, you can prevent recording of sessions coming from your own employees.

Enable recording of bot sessions 

  • By default Session Recording automatically recognizes bot sessions and filters them out (as they normally don't tell you anything about real users and only waste your session quota)
  • However, you can opt to record specific bots by checking which bots are blocked by clicking Select bots
  • Alternatively, you can enable recording of all bots by unchecking do not record selected bots
  • Don't enable bot sessions unless you're absolutely sure that you know what you're doing

Set recording rules for subdomains 

  • Session Recording records all subdomains of your website/web app by default
  • You can enable or disable session recording on subdomains (e.g. only record on production.example.com but not on staging.example.com)
  • Either select record individual subdomains to create a whitelist or select record all other subdomains except to create a blacklist
  • Click Select subdomains and in the modal window that opens, write the subdomain you want to add to the whitelist/blacklist (depending on which one you chose in the previous step)
  • You can either enter an exact subdomain (e.g. staging.example.com) or use a wildcard to match all subdomains on that level (e.g. *.example.com)
  • All subdomains need to have the study's domain as their top domain (e.g. if your domain is example.com, staging.example.com is a valid subdomain, staging.examples.org is not)

Set rules for throttling the number of recorded visitors 

  • Session Recording records all visitors of your website/web app by default
  • Select Record first N visitors to stop recording new visitors after a certain number of visitors has been reached
  • Select Record each N-th visitor to determine how often a new visitor should be recorded
  • Select Record a percentage of total visitors to determine how many visitors should be recorded as a percentage