Analytics Setup

What is Analytics Setup?

Analytics setup means installing a free tracking tool on your website or app so you can count who arrives, where they came from and whether they did the one thing you care about. For a first-time founder that one thing is a goal event: a sign-up, a booking, a paid order. Everything else in a dashboard is decoration until that event is counted correctly.

Two pieces of jargon you need. A goal event is a named action your tool records, like signup_completed. UTM tags (named after Urchin, the software Google Analytics grew out of) are short labels you add to the end of a link, like ?utm_source=instagram, so the tool knows which post, email or directory sent the visitor. With those two in place, you can answer the question that decides where your hours go: which channel brings people who actually convert?

When should you use it?

Set it up the day before you send traffic anywhere. Analytics can’t count visits retroactively, so every launch post you share before installing it is lost data.

• Fits: landing pages, waitlists, online shops, booking pages, SaaS apps, newsletters with a sign-up page. B2C and B2B alike.
• Fits lightly: a service sold entirely through calls and referrals. You still want one page with a booking form tracked, plus a simple “how did you hear about us?” field.
• Skip for now: if you have zero visitors and no plan to send any this month. Talk to customers first with problem interviews.

How do you do it, step by step?

1. Pick one tool and stick to it. PostHog suits apps and products where you want funnels, recordings and experiments in one place; its pricing page lists 1 million analytics events and 5,000 session recordings free every month, no card needed. Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is free, familiar to marketers and pairs with Google Ads. Running both on day one doubles the setup and halves your attention.

2. Install the snippet on every page. Both tools give you a script to paste into the <head> of your site. Website builders like Webflow, WordPress, Wix and Shopify have a field or plugin for this. Then open your site in a private window and check that your own visit appears in the live view within a minute or two.

3. Name your ONE goal event. Write it down as object_action in lowercase: waitlist_joined, booking_paid, trial_started. Fire it on the thank-you page or after the payment succeeds, never on the button click (people click and then abandon the form). In GA4, go to Admin > Data display > Events and click the star next to the event so GA4 counts it as a goal. Google’s help page on marking events confirms this doesn’t change historic data, so do it before launch day.

4. Exclude yourself. Your own testing inflates small numbers fast. In GA4, add an internal traffic rule for your home IP address. In PostHog, filter out your own email or use a separate browser for testing.

5. Build a UTM log in Google Sheets. One row per link with columns: date, channel, utm_source, utm_medium, utm_campaign, full URL, where you posted it. Google’s UTM guide says to always use utm_source, utm_medium and utm_campaign together. Keep values lowercase with hyphens (facebook-group, never Facebook Group), because the tool treats each spelling as a different source.

6. Handle consent before traffic arrives. In the EU, analytics cookies need the visitor’s consent, so add a cookie banner that blocks the tracking script until someone accepts. PostHog also has a cookieless mode that counts visitors without storing anything in their browser, at the cost of less detail. Mention your analytics tool by name in your privacy policy either way.

7. Check the data after 7 days. Open the report of goal events broken down by source. You are looking for one sentence you can act on, like “the newsletter sends 15% of visitors and 60% of sign-ups”.

What does a worked example look like?

Say Lina runs weekend sourdough workshops in Rotterdam and sells seats through a simple booking page. Before her autumn launch she installs GA4, names one goal event, booking_paid, fired on the confirmation page, and stars it as a goal.

She creates five tagged links in her sheet: Instagram bio, a local Facebook group post, her newsletter, a flyer QR code at two bakeries (utm_medium=print) and a listing on a city events site.

Three weeks later her numbers look like this:

Instagram brings the crowd, and almost nobody books. The flyers she nearly skipped bring the most committed people. Next month Lina prints 200 more flyers and moves her Instagram effort to growing the newsletter. Without UTM tags, those visits would have landed in one blurry “direct” bucket.

Which free tools help?

What mistakes should you avoid?

• Tracking 40 events on day one. You will never read most of them. Start with page views plus ONE goal event, and add a second only when you have a question it answers.
• Firing the goal on the button click. Clicks overcount. Fire it when the sign-up or payment is confirmed.
• Inconsistent UTM spelling. Newsletter, newsletter and news-letter show up as three sources. The log sheet prevents this.
• Tagging internal links. UTMs on links between your own pages reset the visitor’s source.
• Ignoring consent. A banner that loads analytics before anyone clicks “accept” defeats its own purpose, and EU visitors notice.

How do you know it worked?

You know your setup works when three things are true: your own test visit shows up in the live view, a test sign-up shows as one goal event (not two, not zero), and a tagged link shows the right source the next day.

Our rule of thumb for go / no-go: after 2 weeks of traffic, you should be able to name the channel with the highest goal rate and the one with the most visits. If more than 30% of your goal events land in “direct” or “(not set)”, your tagging has gaps; fix the links before drawing conclusions.

What should you do next?

With one goal event in place, map the steps before it with conversion funnel tracking, then put the numbers into a weekly metrics dashboard you review every Monday. If you still need visitors to measure, a landing page test gives you a clean first experiment. Founders in the F/MS startup game set this up alongside an AI co-founder that checks whether the numbers support the idea.

FAQ

Is PostHog or Google Analytics 4 better for a small startup?

PostHog fits product teams who want funnels, session recordings and experiments in one place. GA4 fits content sites and anyone running Google Ads. Both are free at small volumes, so choose the one whose reports you will actually open each week.

Do I need a cookie banner for analytics?

If you have visitors in the EU and your tool sets cookies, yes: consent comes before the tracking script loads. PostHog’s cookieless mode avoids storing data in the browser, though you still describe the tracking in your privacy policy. Rules differ by country, so check your local data protection authority’s guidance.

What are UTM parameters in simple words?

They are labels added to a link that tell your analytics tool where a visitor came from. utm_source names the site (instagram), utm_medium the type of channel (social, email), and utm_campaign the specific push (spring-launch). They don’t change the page at all.

Updated 26 October 2026 · Written by the Fe/male Switch team

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