Event tracking is the recording of specific user interactions on a website or app — such as clicks, form submissions, video plays, or file downloads — as discrete, named events, typically capturing additional context like which element was interacted with.
Unlike pageviews, which are usually captured automatically, most events require deliberate instrumentation — someone has to define what counts as an event and add the code that fires it, whether tagging a button click manually or configuring automatic click rules in a tag manager. This makes event tracking flexible enough to measure almost any interaction that matters, from scroll depth to outbound link clicks, but event data is only as complete as the tracking plan someone built and maintained.
An analytics setup might track a 'video_play' event every time a visitor clicks play on an embedded product demo, capturing not just that the page was viewed but that a specific, meaningful interaction happened on it.
Pageview tracking automatically records when a page loads; event tracking requires explicitly defining and instrumenting specific interactions, like clicks or downloads, that a pageview alone wouldn't capture.
Often yes, though tag management tools can configure many common events, like clicks on specific buttons, through point-and-click rules rather than direct code changes, reducing but not eliminating developer involvement.
A tracking plan is a documented list of the specific events a team has decided to track, including their names and any additional properties captured with them, used to keep event tracking consistent over time.