Product analytics and marketing analytics are not the same thing
Most founders install Google Analytics on day one and never realize they're measuring traffic, not behavior
Here's the difference ππ½
GA4 tells you where people came from... It does not tell you why they left as easily
If your onboarding has five steps and users vanish at step three, GA4 shows you a "bounce rate."
That number is useless for fixing the leak
@posthog tracks business events, not page views. The events that matter are the ones that map to revenue or retention:
β signup_completed
β onboarding_step_reached
β extension_installed
β voice_generation_completed
β checkout_initiated
These are decisions, not impressions.
The funnel I actually care about:
Landing β Signup β Onboarding Step 3 β Extension Install β First Generated Output β Paid Conversion
A funnel tool shows me exactly where people drop. A traffic tool shows me... colors on a map
Session replays caught a bug in which no error log flagged... A user on Firefox couldn't install the Chrome extension. Silent failure. They clicked, nothing happened so they left
I watched the replay in Posthog. CSP issue in my middleware. Fixed it
Without replay, I would never have known
Here's how I split my events... Steal the taxonomy:
Server (via PostHog Node SDK):
- signup, onboarding_progress, extension_install, voice_generation, checkout, churn_signal
Client (via PostHog JS):
- feature_discovery, time_to_first_value, help_article_viewed
Extension (via telemetry API):
- platform_detected, injection_success, generation_triggered
The free tier is actually free. Not a trial. Not capped at ten events. I run production analytics for multiple apps on the free plan
The paid plan costs fractions of a penny per event. The day I outgrow the free tier is the day the business justifies it
If your primary analytics tool is built for marketers, you are flying blind as a product builder
Switch to an event-based funnel tool & build an instrumentation layer that answers product questions and not traffic questions
Your retention curve will thank you ππ½