At a glance
This real-time alert fires when your Microsoft Clarity session count drops sharply against its recent 7-day baseline. A sudden collapse almost always means the Clarity tracking tag has broken, been removed, or stopped firing, rather than that real traffic vanished overnight. Catching this fast protects the behavioural data the rest of your Clarity cards depend on.
| What it counts | The shortfall in recorded sessions once the count drops past the collapse trigger relative to the 7-day baseline. |
| Sample type | Behavioural session data from Microsoft Clarity (heatmaps and session recordings), refreshed on the standard data refresh. |
| Why it matters | A tracking gap quietly blinds every other Clarity metric, so behavioural insight stops arriving until it is fixed. |
| Reading the value | A non-zero or rising value means sessions have collapsed and tracking is likely broken; zero means session capture looks healthy. |
| Currency | count |
| Time window | RT |
| Alert trigger | session count down >25% vs 7D baseline |
| Sentiment key | clr_alert_tracking_broken |
| Roles | owner, marketing |
Calculation
Microsoft Clarity records a session count as it captures heatmaps and recordings. Vortex IQ compares the current count against the trailing 7-day baseline and raises this alert when sessions fall past the collapse trigger, which typically points to a broken or missing tracking tag rather than a genuine traffic drop. See the At a glance table for the trigger and time window, and the worked example below for how it reads in practice.Worked example
A representative reading of Tracking Gap (session count collapsed) for a typical merchant on Microsoft Clarity. A store normally records around 5,000 Clarity sessions a day. After a deploy, the daily count falls to roughly 300 and this alert fires the same morning. The merchant opens Vortex Mind to trace the collapse upstream and finds the Clarity script was dropped from the theme during the deploy. They restore the tag, then ask Ask Viq “are Clarity sessions back to last week’s level yet?” in plain English to confirm capture has recovered before trusting the other cards again.Sibling cards merchants should reference together
| Card | Why merchants reach for it |
|---|---|
clr_sessions_captured | The session capture count this alert watches for a collapse. |
clr_bot_traffic_pct | Rules out a bot-filtering shift as the cause of a session swing. |
clr_alert_event_volume_drop | Confirms whether signal volume moved with the session count. |
clr_top_pages_by_sessions | Shows whether the gap hits all pages or just a few. |
clr_javascript_errors | JavaScript errors that can stop the tracking tag firing. |
Reconciling against Microsoft Clarity
Where to look in Microsoft Clarity’s own dashboard: Open the Clarity Dashboard and check the session count trend, then confirm the tracking tag is reporting under your project’s setup. Confirm the period and any device or channel filters match the Vortex IQ profile. Why the Vortex IQ value may legitimately differ:| Reason | Direction | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Period boundary. Vortex IQ uses rolling windows by default; Clarity may use calendar periods. | Variable | Match the period range. |
| Sampling. Clarity may sample sessions on high-traffic sites; Vortex IQ reads what Clarity exposes. | Variable | Allow for sampling on busy stores. |
| Filter scope. Profile-level filters (device, channel, bot exclusion) may narrow the Vortex IQ view. | Variable | Match filter settings. |