Event-based vs. pageview-based analytics?

The pageview model counts views of URLs and pre-aggregates them into fixed dimensions; the event model keeps the individual actions so they can be sliced later. In single-page applications, where the URL rarely changes, the pageview model largely stops working.

Should everything be tracked as an event?

No. Every event consumes volume, taxonomy space and review time. Start from the decision that has to be made and instrument only the actions that would change it.

Event-based Analytics

Beginner

Updated Jul 11, 2026 Shahin editorial 3 min read

PronunciationEN/ɪˈvɛnt beɪst ˌænəˈlɪtɪks/

Event-based analytics is a model in which every user action is stored as a separate timestamped record with its own properties, rather than counted into a fixed report.

Each record says who did what, when and with which attributes, and it is kept raw instead of pre-aggregated. That is what makes retroactive questions possible: a funnel nobody planned for can be built later from the same stream, provided the action was instrumented in the first place. The cost of the model is governance rather than collection, because without a naming convention the event list drifts into dozens of near-duplicate names that nobody trusts. Note also that the word event is not uniform across tools, since property limits and identity handling differ between GA4, Amplitude and Mixpanel.

FAQ

Sources:Mixpanel — Events and properties