What is Event Tracking?
Recording user actions as timestamped events with properties, the raw material of product analytics. Clean event tracking answers what users do before asking why; replays and surveys explain the motivations behind the counts.
Example
A SaaS team logs signup started, signup completed, and project created with plan and source properties, then builds activation funnels directly from those three events without touching code again.
What people get wrong
Tracking everything just in case. Unowned volume events inflate bills and bury signal; instrument the decisions you actually make, then expand deliberately.
Frequently asked questions
When is autocapture enough?
For early exploration and retroactive questions. Graduate to explicit events once funnels and experiments drive decisions.
Related terms
Explicit Events
Hand-defined tracking calls placed at meaningful product moments: signup completed, checkout started, invite sent. Explicit events cost engineering time upfront and pay back in clean names and trustworthy funnels.
Autocapture
Automatic collection of clicks, pageviews, and form interactions without per-element instrumentation. Fast to start but noisy: retroactive data comes with vague names and mystery events that explicit tracking would have labeled.
Event Taxonomy
The naming contract for analytics: object-action conventions, required properties, and ownership per event. Taxonomies prevent the analytics swamp where three teams log the same signup three different ways.
Funnel Analysis
Measuring stepwise conversion through an ordered series of events to find where users drop off. Funnels turn vague activation complaints into a specific step with a specific leak to fix first.
Cohort Analysis
Grouping users by shared start time or behavior, then tracking each group retention or revenue over its own lifetime. Cohorts reveal whether product changes help new users or just reflect older, stickier ones.
Hypothesis
A falsifiable prediction written before an experiment: changing X will move metric Y by a stated direction. Hypotheses force teams to name the mechanism, which makes both wins and flat results interpretable.