Symptom
The distortion lives in the gap between conversion volume reporting and post-conversion path tracking — analytics systems fire success events at the thank-you page and the default view ends there.
Cause
The acquisition funnel terminates at the confirmation page without a structured continuation — users default to the path of least resistance after the conversion event fires.
Impact
Acquired users fail to activate — the effective cost per engaged user is 5.5× the reported CPA because only 18% of conversions produce any post-conversion behavioral signal.