What Product Analytics Miss when Tracking Adoption
Why Most Product Analytics Don’t Tell the Full Story
For marketing, tracking weekly user numbers is great - you get a sense of who’s coming in and overall growth. But when you actually want to know if users are moving from sign-up to real value in your product, those numbers don’t cut it.
Today’s analytics platforms throw a ton of data at you. But do they answer the most important question:
Did my user actually get to value after signing up?
Not really.
Rethinking What Data Matters
At Autoplay, we stepped back to ask: with all this data, which pieces actually help us crack adoption and drive user success?
Session event logs show every action users take. But aggregated across many users, it’s impossible to see what people were trying to do, what they struggled with, or where they needed help.
Funnels show where users drop off. But they don’t tell you why it’s happening. You still need to dig deeper to understand what was going on at each step, and current tools just don’t give you that context.
The Blind Spots That Matter
Traditional analytics often miss:
✅ Which sessions are worth reviewing: You end up scrubbing endless replays or digging through heatmaps without knowing which sessions actually show friction or missed goals.
✅ What users intended to do: Funnels assume a linear journey, but users explore, backtrack, and pivot - tools today don’t capture the why behind these pivots.
✅ Feature-level blind spots: Drop-off data isn’t tied to features, so you don’t know which feature interactions led to frustration or success.
✅ Goal alignment: You can’t see whether a user’s session moved them closer to their goal, or if they left because they hit a blocker you didn’t know existed.
✅ Cumulative behavior patterns: Funnels don’t reveal what combination of steps or prior behaviors led to drop-offs or success, leaving product teams guessing.
The Bottom Line
Numbers alone won’t reveal the real story behind user behavior. If you want to improve adoption, you need to know not just what users did, but why - and where they need help to succeed.
That’s the gap we’re focused on closing.
Introducing the Golden Path
At Autoplay, we map Golden Paths - the paths users take when they’re moving toward meaningful outcomes in your product. Instead of tracking single-step drop-offs, we analyze sequences of actions, feature usage, and intent patterns so you can see:
✅ What users are trying to achieve
✅ What successful users actually do
✅ Where intent breaks down, not just where they leave
Why This Matters
Funnels can tell you if users drop off, but they can’t tell you:
Where users get stuck in a flow.
Where they take a workaround.
What cumulative actions beforehand lead to path changes
Without this, you’re stuck guessing how to fix adoption. Golden Paths turn those guesses into clear, actionable insights so you can prioritize the right features, optimize onboarding, and help your users get to value faster.
Ready to actually understand your users and move the adoption needle?
👉 Sign up for Autoplay and start mapping your Golden Paths today.