TheMarketing Tactical

Is Survivorship Bias Limiting Your Startup's Potential? Tips To Overcome It Today

In the context of startups, survivorship bias can make us focus too much on what's working and overlook areas for improvement. Tracking and analyzing events like "Add to Cart," "Checkout Initiated," and "Payment Info Entered" can help identify potential issues with the checkout process and customer journey, leading to increased revenue and improved conversion rates.

Entering Survivorship bias

Survivorship bias is a cognitive bias that occurs when we focus too much on the successes and overlook the failures. In the context of startups, we tend to study and focus on what is working in our funnels, but usually, the best opportunities are where things are not working.
So here we will list some of the most valuable events to track and watch that I've observed in the last years that are usually not attended.
They can lead to a massive increase in your company revenue and Conversion Rate Optimization.

Preparing to analyze your events.

I will always recommend creating this kind of analysis with First Party Data.
First-party data is an excellent way to have a neutral and more objective view of what is going on inside your site or app, and it refers to the data collected from customers or users. It can include user behavior, purchase history, and demographic and contact information. For this analysis, I suggest you implement Segment Commerce Convention and add the relevant tracking events to your site.
Is Important to set up a Data Warehouse, such as BigQuery, or even you can do that with Google Sheets, still will not recommend so because is so unstable and easy to have errors while analyzing this kind of data.
[As an alternative to Segment, you can use Rudderstack or any other CDP or tech, the key to implementing the Segment Commerce Convention is that it includes all the relevant data about these events, but you can achieve the same with other tools or even manually implementing it, is up to you.]

Top 3 Events that are usually a gold mine that you're not looking to.


Add to Cart

"Add to Cart" event is usually a gold mine you're not looking to. This event is critical in the customer journey as it shows that they are interested in purchasing a product and have taken the first step toward completing a purchase. By tracking this event, you can analyze the behavior of users who add items to their cart but do not complete the purchase.

  • Identify UX Issues that make your cart hard to understand and take action.
  • Identifying potential issues with the checkout process or website that may be preventing users from converting.
  • Creating targeted email campaigns or retargeting ads to encourage users to continue their purchase journey.


Recommended Actions:

  • Record sessions and filter when this event triggers
  • Ensure that it passes value and products as part of the Event so that you can analyze drops in high-attention products and services.
  • Create an analysis board in Looker Studio or Similar.


Checkout Initiated

"Checkout Initiated" is another valuable event that can provide insights into user behavior during checkout. This event occurs when a user initiates the checkout process but does not complete the purchase.
By tracking this event, you can identify potential issues with the checkout process, such as a lengthy or complicated form, that may be causing users to drop off before completing their purchase.
Additionally, you can use this data to create targeted email campaigns or retargeting ads to encourage users to complete their purchases. You can also analyze the effectiveness of different checkout flows and optimize your process accordingly.
Tracking these events can help you identify areas of improvement in your checkout process and customer journey, leading to increased revenue and improved conversion rates for your startup.
Recommended Actions

  • Record sessions and filter when this event triggers
  • Ensure that it passes value and products as part of the Event so that you can analyze drops in high-attention products and services.
  • Create an analysis board in Looker Studio or Similar.


Payment Info Entered

The "Payment Info Entered" event is another valuable event often overlooked. This event occurs when a user enters their payment information during checkout. By tracking this event, you can analyze the behavior of users who start the checkout process but do not complete the purchase.

  • This can help you identify potential issues with your payment gateway or checkout process that may prevent users from converting.
  • You can also use this data to create targeted email campaigns or retargeting ads to encourage users to complete their purchases.
  • Additionally, you can use this data to analyze the effectiveness of different payment methods and optimize your checkout process accordingly.


Recommended Actions

  • Record sessions and filter when this event triggers, but Purchase Event doesn't triggers, so you can see where the friction is for the checkout.
  • Ensure that it passes value and products as part of the Event so that you can analyze drops in high-attention products and services.
  • Create an analysis board in Looker Studio or Similar.