Getting started with event tracking
It is rarely the thing that gets a project approved, and often the thing that decides how it goes. A short on-ramp to event tracking for teams who have not touched it before.
Measurement is only useful when someone has agreed in advance what they would do differently. If it only works because one person remembers to do something, it does not work yet.
Why it matters
Page views alone hide what people actually do. This is the sort of thing that compounds, quietly, in both directions. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.
Your first week
- Find out what is already in place
- Name events consistently or the reports are useless
- Change one thing and measure it
Track intent, not every click. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here. The failure mode is not doing it wrong, it is doing it once and assuming it stays done.
What this looks like day to day
Data you do not trust is worse than no data, because it gets quoted anyway. Three things worth confirming about event tracking before you move on:
- Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
- Page views alone hide what people actually do — and you know whether that is true here
- There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped
Pick the one that would hurt most if it failed, and start there.