Microsoft Clarity guide: free session recordings, used properly

Microsoft Clarity records how visitors use your website: where they click, how far they scroll, where they get stuck. According to Microsoft, Clarity is free forever with no traffic limits. For a landing page that gets Google Ads traffic, it’s one of the cheapest ways to find out why clicks don’t turn into enquiries. In Germany, though, it belongs behind consent, and some content must not be recorded. Here’s what Clarity shows, how to set it up properly, and how to review 20 recordings in half an hour.

1. Microsoft Clarity: what it shows and what it costs

Microsoft describes Clarity as a behavioural analytics tool: session recordings, heatmaps, funnels and AI-powered insights. For Google Ads landing pages, four building blocks are most useful:

• Recordings: you watch individual visits as a replay, with mouse movement, clicks and scrolling.
• Heatmaps: clicks, scroll depth and attention summarised across all visits to a page.
• Dashboard signals: Clarity flags, among other things, rage clicks (several rapid clicks in the same spot), dead clicks (a click with no response from the page), excessive scrolling and quick backs (someone leaves the page and quickly comes back).
• Filters and segments: recordings and heatmaps can be narrowed down to specific pages, devices or actions.

A few ground rules from Microsoft’s own documentation are worth knowing:

• Cost: according to Microsoft, Clarity is free forever, with no traffic limits and no sampling.
• Retention: according to the FAQ, data is available to you for up to 30 days from the time of recording.
• Storage: the data is stored in Microsoft Azure. Customers in the EU contract with Microsoft Ireland Operations Limited.
• Role: Microsoft writes that Clarity operates as a data controller. What that means for your privacy policy is something to settle with your data protection officer.
• Restriction: Clarity shouldn’t be used on websites aimed at users under 18.

Clarity, PostHog, Hotjar: the comparison in one table

These three tools come up most often in this context. Prices and plans change, so the table only contains what can be checked on the official pages today.

	Microsoft Clarity	PostHog	Hotjar
Cost	free forever according to Microsoft, no traffic limits	pricing page: start free, scale when you need	Hotjar’s pricing page now redirects to Contentsquare; check plans there
Recordings and heatmaps	yes	session replay	yes
Masking	input fields and dropdowns always masked; “Balanced” mode also masks numbers and email addresses	text, inputs and whole elements can be masked before capture	check in the vendor account
Consent	own consent signal, enforced for the EEA, UK and Switzerland since 31 October 2025	controlled through your banner setup	controlled through your banner setup
Fits if	you want to see quickly and without budget what happens on a landing page	you want product analytics and recordings in one tool	you already work in the Contentsquare or Hotjar ecosystem

For a single Google Ads landing page, Clarity is usually enough. The other two are worth it if you want more than recordings.

2. Putting Clarity behind consent with Google Tag Manager

Consent in Germany

Clarity sets cookies and records behaviour in the visitor’s browser. Under § 25 TDDDG, storing information on a device or reading it from there requires consent, unless it’s strictly necessary for a service the user explicitly asked for. Behavioural analytics isn’t that.

Microsoft has tightened this itself: since 31 October 2025, Clarity requires a valid consent signal for visits from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland for all features to work. Without consent, Clarity runs in a no-cookie mode, assigns a unique ID per page view according to Microsoft, and doesn’t link sessions. But Microsoft also describes Clarity continuing to send data in this mode. So in Germany I wouldn’t rely on it; I’d load Clarity only after consent. What the law actually requires is in Tracking and cookie consent in Germany. I’m not a lawyer, and this isn’t legal advice.

Setting it up in GTM

Microsoft describes three ways to install Clarity via Google Tag Manager. The clearest is the official template:

1. Create a new tag in GTM and, in Tag Configuration, search the Community Template Gallery for Clarity.
2. Add the Microsoft Clarity - Official template to your workspace.
3. Enter your Clarity project ID. You’ll find it in the address bar of your Clarity project.
4. Microsoft suggests “All pages” as the trigger. In Germany, replace it with your consent trigger, or add an additional consent check for analytics_storage in the tag’s advanced settings.
5. Check in Preview that Clarity doesn’t load before consent, then publish.

You should also pass the decision on to Clarity. For that there’s Clarity’s Consent API, window.clarity('consentv2', …) with values for ad_Storage and analytics_Storage, or a banner solution that Clarity supports directly. How to add Tag Manager to WordPress is covered in Google Tag Manager in WordPress. My free GTM configurator also has an optional field for the Clarity project ID.

What Clarity must not record

Microsoft masks some things by itself: according to the documentation, the content of input fields and dropdowns is masked in all modes. In the default “Balanced” mode, Clarity also masks numbers and email addresses; in “Strict” mode it masks all content. According to Microsoft, masked content is never sent to Clarity in the first place.

That isn’t enough for every page. Check these in particular:

• Thank-you and confirmation pages that show a name, address or order.
• Customer areas and account pages.
• Free text containing personal data outside form fields, such as a summary of the enquiry.

Mask such areas with the data-clarity-mask="True" attribute on the HTML element, or exclude the page altogether. According to Microsoft, masking changes only apply to new recordings, not retroactively. So do this before you record.

3. Reading 20 recordings of a Google Ads landing page in 30 minutes

Recordings are tempting: you watch one, see something odd and rebuild the page. That’s chance, not insight. With a fixed routine, 20 recordings become a usable picture.

Preparation, 5 minutes

• Filter recordings to your landing page as the entry page and to visits from your ads, for example via the parameter your Google Ads clicks arrive with.
• Separate mobile and desktop. Most problems look different on each.
• Take 20 recordings from the last few days, not just the longest ones.

Watching, 20 minutes

About one minute per recording. For each, note in a simple table:

1. How far does the person scroll before stopping or leaving?
2. Do they see the form or the phone number at all?
3. Do they click something that isn’t clickable?
4. Do they start the form and abandon it? At which field?
5. Are there rage clicks or dead clicks, and where?

Evaluating, 5 minutes

Count, don’t interpret. A pattern is only a pattern once it shows up in several of the 20 recordings. One person wandering around once is an anecdote. But if half never scroll down to the form, that’s a job to do: form higher up, shorter intro. Then measure whether the conversion rate moves, not whether the recordings feel better. How to test such a change properly is covered in Google Ads A/B test.

The bottom line

• Clarity shows recordings, heatmaps and signals such as rage clicks and dead clicks. According to Microsoft it’s free, with no traffic limits, and data is available for up to 30 days.
• In Germany, Clarity loads only after consent. For the EEA, UK and Switzerland, Microsoft itself has required a consent signal since 31 October 2025.
• Install it with the official GTM template, using a consent trigger instead of “All pages”, plus a consent signal to Clarity.
• Input fields are always masked. Mask thank-you pages, customer areas and free text with personal data yourself, before you record.
• 20 recordings in 30 minutes: filter, five questions per recording, count patterns, then check with numbers.

You can see in the recordings that something’s wrong, but not what to fix first? For one specific question, such as which landing page change comes first or whether Clarity is set up cleanly on your site, there’s the Clarity Session: from €390, a 60-minute video call with up to three links reviewed first. If you want someone to rebuild and test the page, landing pages and funnels (in German) covers what that includes. Whether the session fits is something you can check first in a free intro call. Book a free intro call.

FAQ

Is Microsoft Clarity really free?

According to Microsoft, yes: free forever, with no traffic limits. There’s no obligation to move to a paid version.

Do I need a cookie banner for Clarity?

Yes. Clarity sets cookies and records behaviour, and in Germany that requires consent under § 25 TDDDG. For visits from the EEA, the UK and Switzerland, Microsoft itself has required a consent signal since 31 October 2025.

Does Clarity see what visitors type into forms?

No. According to Microsoft, the content of input fields and dropdowns is masked in all modes and isn’t sent. Personal data outside form fields, for example on a confirmation page, you have to mask yourself.

How long does Clarity keep recordings?

According to Microsoft, the data is available for up to 30 days from the time of recording.