Event Tracking vs Pageview Tracking: What’s the Difference and Why It Matters

In the world of web analytics, tracking user interactions on your website is key to understanding visitor behavior and optimizing your site for better performance and conversions. Two fundamental tracking methods you’ll encounter are event tracking and pageview tracking.

If you’re wondering about event tracking vs pageview tracking, what they are, how they differ, and when to use each, this article will give you a clear and comprehensive explanation.

What Is Pageview Tracking?

Pageview tracking is the most basic form of website analytics. It counts every time a user loads a page on your site. Each page load or refresh counts as one pageview.

How Pageview Tracking Works

When a visitor arrives at a webpage, the analytics tracking code embedded on that page sends a signal to your analytics platform indicating a pageview. This helps record:

• How many pages are viewed
• Which pages are most popular
• How many total visits your site receives

Pageview tracking helps answer questions like:

• Which pages do users visit?
• How many times is a page viewed?
• How long do visitors spend on the site?

What Is Event Tracking?

Event tracking goes beyond pageviews by monitoring specific interactions or actions users take on your website that don’t necessarily involve loading a new page.

Examples of events include:

• Clicking a button or link
• Playing a video
• Submitting a form
• Downloading a file
• Scrolling to a certain section
• Using a search feature

How Event Tracking Works

Event tracking requires extra code to be set up so that when a specific interaction happens, an event is sent to your analytics tool. This gives detailed insights into how users engage with your site beyond just navigating pages.

Event Tracking vs Pageview Tracking: Key Differences

Why Both Are Important for Website Analytics

Tracking only one metric gives you a limited view. To really understand your audience, you need to combine both pageview tracking and event tracking.

Pageview Tracking Provides the Big Picture

Pageviews show you how visitors navigate your site and which pages attract the most traffic. It helps identify popular content, understand user flow, and measure overall site performance.

Event Tracking Reveals User Engagement

Event tracking uncovers what users do on your pages. For example, on an e-commerce site, events can track adding items to carts or completing purchases. On a blog, it might monitor social shares or video views.

Using both methods together gives you a comprehensive understanding of both how many people visit and how they interact with your content.

When to Use Pageview Tracking

Pageview tracking is essential for:

• Measuring website traffic trends
• Identifying top-performing pages
• Analyzing visitor navigation paths
• Basic SEO performance analysis

If you want to see how many users visit your homepage or blog posts and how frequently pages are visited, pageview tracking gives you that information clearly.

When to Use Event Tracking

Event tracking is best suited for monitoring:

• Calls to action effectiveness (button clicks, downloads)
• Video engagement and interactions
• Form submissions and contact requests
• Scroll depth and interaction with page elements
• User interactions with dynamic or single-page applications (SPAs)

Event tracking is particularly valuable when you want to measure conversion funnels and engagement beyond just page visits.

Setting Up Event Tracking vs Pageview Tracking

While pageview tracking is usually built-in and easy to configure, event tracking requires more setup since it focuses on specific user interactions. Here’s how both methods work:

Pageview Tracking Setup

Most analytics tools, like Google Analytics or Slimstat, track pageviews automatically by adding a simple tracking code snippet to your website’s pages.

Event Tracking Setup

Event tracking requires configuring custom triggers for the specific interactions you want to monitor. This can be done by:

• Adding JavaScript event listeners that send data to your analytics tool
• Using tag management systems like Google Tag Manager to set up event triggers without coding
• Defining event categories, actions, and labels for clear reporting

Because it’s customized, event tracking setup can be more complex and time-consuming than pageview tracking.

How Event Tracking and Pageview Tracking Work Together

By combining pageview and event tracking, you can answer both:

• “How many users visit my site and where do they go?” (pageviews)
• “What actions do they take while on my site?” (events)

For example, a user might visit your product page (pageview), watch a product video (event), add the item to their cart (event), and then complete a purchase (event).

This layered data helps you understand not only site popularity but also user behavior patterns and conversion points.

Common Mistakes in Event and Pageview Tracking

• Relying solely on pageviews: Misses valuable user interactions that don’t generate new page loads.
• Tracking too many events: Can clutter analytics reports and make data analysis confusing.
• Not defining clear event categories: Leads to inconsistent data and difficulty in interpreting results.
• Ignoring event data: Not analyzing event data means losing insights into user engagement.

Best Practices for Event Tracking and Pageview Tracking

• Define your goals: Know which interactions matter most to your business.
• Start simple: Track key events like form submissions and button clicks before adding complex events.
• Use consistent naming: Create a clear event taxonomy (category, action, label).
• Regularly audit your tracking setup to ensure accuracy.
• Combine event and pageview data in reports for holistic insights.

How Tools Like Slimstat Help

Analytics platforms like Slimstat, Matomo, Plausible Analytics, Clicky, Google Analytics (GA4) and… make it easy to track both pageviews and events within your WordPress site, all while respecting user privacy. Slimstat offers:

• Real-time pageview tracking
• Easy event tracking setup
• Comprehensive dashboards combining both data types
• No third-party data sharing

Conclusion: Event Tracking vs Pageview Tracking

Understanding the difference between event tracking vs pageview tracking is crucial for interpreting your website’s analytics accurately. Pageview tracking gives you the broad overview of how visitors move through your site, while event tracking provides detailed insight into how they engage with your content.

For a complete picture of user behavior and website performance, implement both. Use pageviews to measure traffic and event tracking to measure engagement and conversions. With these insights, you can optimize your website effectively and achieve your digital goals.

Frequently Asked Questions