Your Metrics are Lying to You — Here’s the Brutal Truth!
Your dashboards may look healthy — conversion rates steady, revenue up but beneath the surface, users are silently struggling.
Analytics can mask real frustrations; the solution? Session replays.
Here are three principles for when to use them:
𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗔𝗻𝗮𝗹𝘆𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗖𝗮𝗻 𝗟𝗶𝗲 𝘁𝗼 𝗬𝗼𝘂
Your metrics might show strong feature adoption, task completion, and user growth — sounds like success, right? Not exactly.
Because session replays can reveal the truth:
➔ Users are taking 15 clicks for a 3-click task.
➔ They’re constantly switching tabs and struggling through abandoned features.
➔ Frustration builds up silently, leading to more churn, dissatisfied customers, and inconsistent growth.
We learned this firsthand at thredUP. Our pricing metrics looked strong — revenue was up, conversions were solid, and A/B tests were winning.
But customer support kept hearing:
“These prices don’t make sense.”
When we looked closer, we saw users confused, bouncing between items trying to understand our logic.
Our data-driven approach had limits; numbers showed what happened, but not why. Watching users revealed the real friction.
𝗪𝗵𝗲𝗻 𝘁𝗼 𝗨𝘀𝗲 𝗦𝗲𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗥𝗲𝗽𝗹𝗮𝘆𝘀
Here are the three principles to guide your use of session replays:
𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝟭 — 𝗢𝗯𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘃𝘀. 𝗜𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗽𝗿𝗲𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻
Use session replays when you need to observe, not interpret.
➔ Observable Questions
How do users navigate?
Where do they get stuck?
What paths do they take?
➔ Interpretive Questions
Why did they choose our product?
What features should we build next?
𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝟮 — 𝗧𝗶𝗺𝗲
Session replays are rooted in today’s reality, not future possibilities.
➔ Current Behavior
Where is friction happening now?
What problems exist today?
➔ Future Possibilities
What could the product become?
What new problems might we solve?
𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗰𝗶𝗽𝗹𝗲 𝟯 — 𝗦𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗲
Use session replays when depth matters more than breadth.
➔ Deep Understanding
Revealing specific friction points, interaction patterns, and individual journeys.
➔ Broad Understanding
Market trends, overall user satisfaction, and feature adoption rates.
Use session replays to uncover the real user experience that metrics can’t show.
Session replays won’t tell you what to build, but they’ll show you where users struggle with what’s already built.
Find it out with the great tools like LogRocket and improve it.
If you want to dive deeper into uncovering meaningful insights from session replays (and not just wasting time)…
