Starting Event

A starting event is the event or page a forward path analysis begins from — the anchor against which all later steps are measured.

The starting event determines the base population of a path analysis: all next-step shares are measured against those who did this event, so choosing it directly reshapes the whole report. A starting event is a sibling of a funnel's entry event but not the same thing: the entry event belongs to funnel analysis with a predefined route, while the starting event belongs to open, hypothesis-free path analysis that wants to see what happens next. Set the starting event too broadly, like the home page, and the branches spread so thin no pattern shows; set it too narrowly and there is not enough volume to analyze. The best starting event is usually a clear decision point, such as opening the cart or reaching a key page, where the subsequent behavior is genuinely meaningful.