Different questions, overlapping tools
Web analytics often begins with visits: where people came from, which pages they used and whether a goal occurred. Product analytics begins with meaningful actions: who completed onboarding, returned to a feature or stopped at a step. A single platform can support both, but a dashboard does not create a measurement plan.
Write decisions before events
For a content site, the question might be which acquisition channels lead to useful reading or enquiries. For a SaaS product, it might be where new accounts fail to reach an activation milestone. Define the event, its trigger and the population to which it applies.
A small event plan
- Name the business question and the decision owner.
- Define a short list of actions with stable names and required properties.
- Specify whether identity refers to a visitor, user or organization.
- Test one complete journey and one abandoned journey.
- Check duplicates, missing events, time zones and consent behavior.
Example: a trial signup
A landing-page visit and a signup can support an acquisition report. Completing setup and returning to use a core feature support product questions. Counting only signups may hide a large gap between acquisition and useful adoption.
Choose after checking instrumentation
Compare event limits, retention, export and hosting choices. A simple reporting tool may be enough when the questions are narrow. A richer event platform adds flexibility but also requires a maintained schema and clear ownership. Document changes so a tracking update is not mistaken for a sudden change in behavior.