How to Set Up Key Events in GA4

Events, key events and conversions

GA4 records everything as events: page views, scrolls, clicks, form starts. A key event is an event you have marked as important to your business. Google Analytics Help explains that up to 30 events can be key events in a standard property and 50 in Analytics 360.

Google changed the name from "conversions" to "key events" in 2024, so that "conversion" means the same thing everywhere in Google Ads. In practice: you mark key events in GA4, then import the ones that matter into Google Ads, where they become conversions used for bidding.

Step 1: decide what counts

Pick a small number of actions that show real intent. For most businesses that means:

• generate_lead for enquiry form submissions (a Google recommended event name)
• purchase for online sales, which GA4 marks as a key event by default
• Phone clicks from tel: links on mobile
• Booking confirmed for appointment systems
• sign_up for account or newsletter sign-ups, if they matter

Avoid marking page views of the contact page or scrolls as key events. They inflate the numbers and send Google Ads chasing the wrong behaviour.

Step 2: send the events

There are three ways to create the events:

1. Google Tag Manager. The most flexible. Create a GA4 Event tag with the event name, then a trigger such as a form submission, a thank-you page view, a click on a tel: link, or a custom dataLayer event pushed by your website.
2. Create event in GA4. In Admin, Events, you can create a new event based on an existing one, such as a page_view where the page location contains /thank-you/.
3. Platform integrations. Shopify and many booking or form tools send ecommerce and lead events for you. Check they use the right names and include value and currency for purchases.

The most reliable signal is a confirmed success, such as a thank-you page or a dataLayer event fired after the form has actually sent. Button clicks alone count failed attempts too.

Step 3: mark as key event and test

Google Analytics Help gives the steps: go to Admin, then Data display, then Events, find the event and click the star icon to mark it as a key event. For a brand new event, use Create event and switch on "Mark as key event".

Then test properly:

• Use Tag Assistant preview mode in GTM to confirm the tag fires once, at the right moment.
• Open DebugView in GA4 to watch the event arrive with the right parameters.
• Submit a real test enquiry on mobile and desktop.
• Check reports the next day, as standard reports take time to process.

Step 4: connect to Google Ads and consent

Link GA4 to Google Ads, then create Google Ads conversions from your GA4 key events. Decide which one is the primary goal for bidding. Do not import a GA4 key event and also run a Google Ads tag for the same action as primary, or each lead will count twice.

For UK visitors you also need a cookie banner that respects their choice, and Consent Mode v2 so Google can model conversions from people who decline. See what is Consent Mode v2.

Finally, show key events in a simple Looker Studio dashboard so the numbers get looked at.

What dijitul charges

Our GA4 set-up is £95 + VAT one-off. It covers the property, data streams, key events, internal traffic filters and data retention settings. Full conversion tracking across GA4, Google Ads and Meta Conversions API is £145 + VAT one-off. A Looker Studio reporting dashboard is £145 + VAT one-off.

The mistakes we fix most often in existing set-ups are: key events firing on every page load of the contact page, duplicate purchase events from both a plugin and GTM, missing value and currency on purchases, staff visits counted as leads because internal traffic was never filtered, and data retention left at the two-month default, which limits how far back explorations can look.

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