Attribution & Analytics
Microsoft Clarity
Microsoft Clarity is a free behavior analytics product from Microsoft for websites and supported mobile apps. It combines session recordings, click and scroll heatmaps, journey highlights, and AI-assisted summaries so teams can see where visitors hesitate, abandon tasks, or encounter friction. It is a practical starting point for marketers, product teams, and site owners who need qualitative evidence alongside conventional traffic and conversion reports.
What it does
Microsoft Clarity answers the question that traffic analytics cannot: what visitors actually did on the page. It records sessions for replay, aggregates clicks and scrolling into heatmaps, and flags behavior patterns that indicate friction, such as rage clicks, dead clicks, excessive scrolling, and quick-backs. AI features summarize sessions so teams do not have to watch hours of recordings. It is genuinely free without traffic limits, which Microsoft offsets through aggregate data use, and integrates with Google Analytics so you can jump from a GA segment to matching recordings. Setup is one script or a GTM tag. Privacy tooling includes content masking on sensitive elements and consent integration.
Where it fits
Clarity adds the qualitative layer to the analytics stage, explaining the behavior behind the conversion numbers that GA4 reports.
Core features
- Session recordings with replay and AI summaries
- Click, scroll, and area heatmaps
- Friction signals: rage clicks, dead clicks, quick-backs
- Google Analytics integration for segment-to-recording workflows
- Free with no traffic limits
Best for
- Marketers diagnosing why landing pages underperform
- Product and UX teams reviewing real user behavior cheaply
- Anyone validating analytics anomalies with visual evidence
Beginner notes
- Start from the friction filters such as rage clicks and quick-backs instead of browsing random recordings; they surface problems fastest.
- Configure masking for forms and sensitive content before launch, not after, to stay on the right side of privacy obligations.
- Use heatmaps on your highest-spend landing pages first, because that is where behavioral insight converts most directly into saved budget.