"Ungated" sessions are ones that don't require the visitor to register first: on-demand pages and public retargeting replay links. Because there's no attendee record tied to the visitor, eWebinar chat behaves differently on these sessions than on scheduled or just-in-time sessions.
Chat availability on ungated replays
Whether chat runs on an ungated session comes down to the Replay chat type on the webinar's Settings → Chat settings:
- Chat (eWebinar) — ungated viewers see eWebinar's chat and can send messages. Messages show up in the moderator inbox but are flagged as coming from an anonymous ungated viewer (no email).
- Email capture — viewers see a prompt to enter their email before chatting. Once they do, the message is attached to a new registration with their email.
- Off — chat is hidden on the replay. Ungated viewers simply watch the video.
- Third-party chat (Drift / Intercom / Zendesk / FomoChat) — the third-party widget runs instead; see third-party chat.
What's different about ungated messages
- No email address on the sender unless you use the Email capture chat type.
- No linked registration, so the message doesn't appear in a registrant's conversation history until email capture turns it into one.
- Conversion events fired inside an ungated session are captured as anonymous conversions — they still show up in analytics but aren't tied back to a registrant until an email is captured.
If lead capture matters to you on ungated pages, set the Replay chat type to Email capture rather than Chat. The friction is small and you'll actually be able to follow up with these viewers.