Build Tracking Plan

A tracking plan is the bridge between your business KPIs (“How many new users sign up every month?” “How many are completing the entire purchase cycle?” “Where do they drop off?”) and the data your team actually collects. Instead of “tracking everything because we can,” a tracking plan helps you know what kind of data (which events or user properties) are essential for tracking based on your business goals.

For example, if your business goal is to increase first-time investment conversion in the next six months, your tracking should be centered around the revenue event, such as Investment Completed, along with the key funnel events that lead up to it. In this case, a relevant funnel could look like: Signup Completed → KYC Verified → Investment Completed

Based on this funnel, your core events to track would include Signup Completed, KYC Verified, Investment Initiated, and Investment Completed. In addition, you may track supporting events such as Scheme Viewed, Add to Cart, or Portfolio Viewed to better understand user intent and decision-making. These events should also carry meaningful properties called attributes, such as amount, order_type, payment_mode, and acquisition_source, to explain why users convert or drop off.

The events that become irrelevant in this case could be email opened, banner clicked, app uninstall, and more. They do not directly contribute to understanding drop-offs in the KYC-to-investment funnel.

This is how you avoid tracking everything and focus only on what drives the business goal. Done well, it becomes the single source of truth for what you track, why you track it, and how it’s defined, so your segment definitions are accurate, dashboards are goal-aligned, and implementation doesn’t drift over time.

The tracking plan creation process follows a simple, structured flow:

Framework → Goals → Funnel → Events and User Properties, aligned with the NVECTA data structure.

In this guide, we’ll walk you step by step through how to create a complete and goal-driven tracking plan for your business, including:

Defining a clear framework
Identifying your business goals and KPIs
Understanding value exchange and defining your primary revenue event
Mapping your business funnel stages
Understanding the NVECTA data structure
Outlining events and attributes aligned to your metrics
Reviewing a sample tracking plan for reference

Framework

Creating a framework provides a structured way to understand how users move through your business, from first discovery to becoming long-term customers, and ensures your tracking plan stays aligned with real business outcomes.

We recommend a framework with four core stages: AACR (Acquisition, Activation, Conversion, and Retention).

Acquisition

Define how users discover and arrive at your website or app. This includes acquisition sources such as organic traffic, paid ads, referrals, direct visits, app installs, or partner campaigns. The goal at this stage is visibility and qualified traffic, not revenue.

Activation

Define what the first meaningful success looks like for a new user. This is the moment when users experience initial value from your product, for example, completing signup, finishing onboarding, getting verified, or using a core feature for the first time. Activation is not about engagement volume; it is about reaching a clear value milestone.

Conversion

Define how users convert through a value exchange, most often represented by a revenue event. This could be placing an order, completing an investment, subscribing to a plan, or confirming a booking. Conversion events are critical because they directly connect user behavior to business revenue.

Retention

Define how you keep users coming back and generating repeat value over time. This includes repeat purchases, recurring investments, feature usage, renewals, or ongoing engagement with key product actions. Retention strategies focus on long-term growth rather than one-time transactions.

This framework should be used to define both your current strategy and your near-term strategy. For example, your current acquisition sources might include direct traffic and paid ads, while in the near future you may plan to introduce signup forms, referrals, or partnerships. You can document all relevant current and upcoming strategies within each stage.

Avoid adding far-future ideas that you do not plan to implement soon. During onboarding, it is recommended to include only the minimum set of strategies you actively want to track right now. This keeps your tracking plan focused and easier to implement correctly.

As your goals evolve, this framework is designed to evolve with you. Over time, we’ll help you update your framework, refine your funnel stages, and add or remove events and user properties as your business priorities shift.

To save time, you can begin with an industry-specific sample framework and make adjustments based on your business.

Framework sample – E-commerce

Framework sample BFSI

If you operate in a different industry, you can click here to let AI generate a tailored framework based on your business model and goals.

Define your goals and KPIs

Once your overall framework is defined, the next step is to clearly articulate your current business goals and KPIs. These KPIs act as the foundation for deciding which funnels to build and which events truly matter.

At this stage, focus only on the primary business outcomes you want to improve right now. Not every metric needs equal importance at all times. For example, retention may not be a priority if your immediate challenge is getting more users to convert. The goals defined here will directly determine how your funnels are structured and which events are considered relevant.

Following the AACR Framework, your goals or KPIs could be:

Traffic to Lead Goal – Increase the number of anonymous visitors who take a qualifying action and become identifiable leads through signup, inquiry, or intent-driven actions.

Lead to Activation Goal – Ensure a higher percentage of signups or captured leads reach their first meaningful value milestone, such as completing onboarding, verification, or initial setup.

Activation to Conversion Goal – Increase the proportion of activated users who complete a value exchange and generate revenue, such as placing an order, making an investment, or starting a subscription.

Conversion to Retention Goal – Increase repeat usage and transactions by encouraging customers to return and consistently use the product over time.

Retention to Advocacy Goal (optional and usually not prioritized during onboarding) – Encourage highly satisfied customers to promote the product through referrals, reviews, or word-of-mouth.

Business goals allows to avoid jargons and collect only necessary data and events based on your goal. This ensure that your analytics highlights the true picture and drop-off points that impact business outcomes.

Below are industry-wise examples of the most common business goals to help you get started.

E-commerce – Common Business Goals

Increase first-time purchase conversion rate from visitors or signups.
Reduce cart and checkout abandonment to improve order completion.
Increase average order value (AOV) through bundles, upsells, or cross-sells.
Improve repeat purchase rate within 30–60 days of first order.
Increase revenue contribution from returning customers and loyalty members.
Reduce returns and cancellations to protect net revenue.

BFSI / Fintech – Common Business Goals

Increase signup-to-KYC completion rate.
Improve KYC-to-first transaction (investment/payment) conversion.
Increase first-time transaction value or investment amount.
Improve repeat transactions or SIP continuation rate.
Reduce drop-offs in multi-step onboarding or verification flows.
Increase customer lifetime value through cross-sell and recurring products.

If you need goal recommendations for a different industry, you can click here to generate AI tailored suggestions and then select the ones most relevant to your business.

Value exchange and your revenue event

At the core of any analytics strategy is value exchange: the revenue you take from users in exchange for the value they get from your product.

To make this measurable, define a primary revenue event for your product. This is the event that represents value being exchanged:

E-commerce: Order Placed / Order Completed
Fintech: Investment Completed, SIP Executed
SaaS: Subscription Billed, Invoice Paid
Marketplaces / services: Booking Confirmed, Job Completed

Revenue event is useful to measure many of your business goals (primary or not), such as

Increasing the probability this event happens (more users reach it)
Increasing the size (higher order value, larger investment, higher plan tier)
Increasing the frequency (more repeat orders, more recurring investments)

Map business funnel stages

Once you know about your business goals and KPIs, multiple funnels can be created based on this framework. Creating funnels as per your goals avoid jargons and make the data meaningful by collecting relevant events or actions performed by users.

For instance, if your goal is to improve user activation and conversion, your funnel might include the full journey:

Page Viewed → Signup Completed → Product Viewed → Add to Cart → Order Placed

However, if you already have sufficient signups and the real problem lies in users not completing purchases, your funnel should be more focused:

Signup Completed → Product Viewed → Add to Cart → Order Placed

The details of funnel stages could differ industry to industry. For example a funnel of financial services firm might look like:

Traffic → Lead → KYC/Verification → First Transaction → Repeat Transactions

Each stage should have:

A clear entry event (e.g. Signup Started)
A clear success event (e.g. Signup Completed, KYC Verified, Investment Completed)
A KPI (e.g. conversion rate, time to complete, drop-off rate)

Next, we’ll simply translate these funnel stages into events and properties.

Understand the NVECTA data structure

Before we dive into events, it is important to understand the NVECTA data structure first. This includes how events, user profiles, and its properties are captured (along with property data types) and best practices for designing a scalable schema and naming conventions that remains consistent as your product evolves.

We will not dive into the entire data structure, for that you can click here for complete guide. But for tracking plan you need three core concepts:

Users (profiles): Each person gets a profile with a unique identifier. NVECTA SDKs automatically create anonymous profiles and then merge them when a known ID (user ID, email, mobile) is assigned. Learn more about profile merging.
Events: Actions users take or system events you send—page views, app launches, signups, transactions, notification interactions, etc. NVECTA supports both system events and custom events.
Attributes (properties): Extra details attached to users (user attributes like plan type, risk profile) or events (event attributes like amount, scheme_id, device_type).

Outline events and attributes aligned to your metrics

This is the final step required to create a complete tracking plan, translating your goals, KPIs, and funnel stages into concrete tracking decisions. Once you know what success looks like and how users move through your funnel, the next task is to clearly define which events to track and which attributes to attach to them.

The purpose here is not to track every possible user interaction, but to identify the minimum set of events and attributes required to explain changes in your key metrics. Each funnel stage should map to one or more events that mark meaningful progress, while attributes should provide the additional context needed to understand why users move forward, drop off, or convert.

Using the same framework and KPIs, the sections below show how to identify and organize events for each funnel stage.

For example:

Traffic to Lead:
- Events: Page Viewed, CTA Clicked, Signup Started
- Properties: page_url, utm_source, utm_medium, device_type, button_text, campaign_id, source_page
Lead to Activation:
- Events: Signup Completed, PAN Entered, KYC Document Uploaded, KYC Verified
- Properties: signup_method, referral_code, source_channel, pan_status, document_type, verification_stage, kyc_status
Activation to Conversion:
- Events: KYC Completed , Scheme Viewed, Investment Started, Investment Completed
- Properties: scheme_id, category, amount, order_type

Sample tracking plan

Below are examples of Industry specific tracking plans you can use as a starting point. Adjust event names and attributes to match your product and naming conventions.

E-commerce sample tracking plan csv

BFSI sample tracking plan csv

Need a sample tracking plan template for different industry? Click here to let the AI generate the one most relevant to your business.