If your analytics feel cluttered or confusing, you are not alone. Many teams rush into event tracking without a clear plan. They end up measuring too many things that do not matter, making it hard to see what is truly driving growth.

A structured tracking plan helps you focus on the events that align with your goals, keep your data clean, and measure success accurately. Here is how to set one up and why it is worth the effort.

What Is a Tracking Plan

A tracking plan is a centralised document that outlines the key actions (events) you want to measure and how to capture them. It also details what properties (additional context) should be included with each event. It is usually managed in a simple spreadsheet or tool so your team has one source of truth. When done well, it keeps your analytics accurate and ensures everyone measures data in a consistent way.

Thinking about your plan before implementing tracking is essential. If you try to fix inconsistent naming or duplicate events later, you will waste time and risk losing data. Spend the effort up front to define a clean, well-structured event schema that stays relevant as your business evolves.

Why You Need a Tracking Plan

Most event tracking falls apart when there is no strategy. Events are tagged with inconsistent names, and properties are duplicated or missing. This leads to questions like “Why does our ‘Sign Up’ metric differ from our ‘Signed Up’ metric?”. A tracking plan avoids this chaos by providing a clear event naming convention and focusing on what really matters.

A tracking plan also helps you:

• Preserve data integrity and reduce errors

• Align teams on the metrics that drive growth

• Identify what works, why it works, and where to improve

• Avoid duplicate or confusing event labels

Keep it simple. Long lists of micro-events might provide interesting details, but they also create clutter. Instead, focus on high-impact actions that reveal meaningful insights and support your growth goals.

Where to Store Your Tracking Plan

Use a spreadsheet in Google Sheets or Airtable, or store it in a built-in tool like Mixpanel Lexicon or Amplitude Data. Whatever you choose, keep it updated in real time so it remains a living resource. Encourage team members to reference it before naming a new event or property to maintain consistency.

Events vs Properties

Events capture the action (“form_submitted”), while properties add extra context (“page_name”, “campaign_source”). A concise set of event names, combined with richer properties, is easier to manage than dozens of nearly identical events.

For example, an event might look like this:

{
  "type": "track",
  "event": "form_submitted",
  "properties": {
    "first_name": "Stuart",
    "last_name": "Brameld",
    "email": "stuart@google.com",
    "phone": "",
    "url": "growthmethod.com/contact"
  }
}

Or, when sending events to PostHog, you could use:

posthog.capture('form_submitted', {
  first_name: 'Stuart',
  last_name: 'Brameld',
  email: 'stuart@google.com',
  phone: ''
})

Create Global Events

Global events apply across your entire site or app. For instance:

• page_viewed – Tracks all page views under a single event. Uses a url or path property to differentiate pages.

• button_clicked – Captures button clicks efficiently with a button_type property, reducing the need for many similar events.

• form_submitted – Stores all form completions under one event, using a form_name property to keep similar events consolidated.

This approach keeps your schema lean and easier to update. As you add or change pages on your site, you can adjust properties as needed, rather than creating new events every time.

A Note on Interaction Events

Some teams track everything from button hovers to scroll depth. These can be useful, but they quickly clutter standard reporting. If you want deeper behavioural data, group these micro-actions into a single event (for example, interaction_happened) and attach properties like element_type or scroll_position. This keeps your core events clean while letting you dive deeper when you need it.

Tips for Getting Started

• Match tracking to your goals: Only measure metrics that matter for growth.

• Keep it simple: Fewer, well-defined events with richer properties helps you focus.

• Think in stages: Break down user journeys and list the most important actions.

• Document clearly: Include event names, definitions, properties, and sample code in your plan.

• Stay flexible: Introduce new events or properties when a need arises, but maintain consistency.

For a full approach, see our Object Action Event Tracking Framework.

How Growth Method Can Help

Growth Method is the only work management platform built for growth marketers. While you focus on creating a solid tracking plan, Growth Method consolidates your ideas, experiments, and analytics in one place, so you do not need to juggle multiple tools.

With Growth Method, your event data design stays consistent across the entire marketing process, from hypothesis creation to results reporting. That means you can spend more time on insights and less time untangling messy event names.

“We are on-track to deliver a 43% increase in inbound leads this year. There is no doubt the adoption of Growth Method is the primary driver behind these results.” – Laura Perrott, Colt Technology Services

Ready to optimise your growth marketing function? Book a call today and learn how Growth Method can help you implement a structured, scalable tracking plan that fuels real results.