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GA4 Conversions and Key Events: Setup and Reporting

Tomas Katysovas
Analytics

In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), the most important business actions are tracked as conversions or key events. Examples include purchases, lead form submissions, and newsletter sign-ups.

How Conversions Work in GA4

GA4 measures conversions by tracking events and marking the ones that matter as key events.

  1. Step 1: Implement an event that fires when the important user interaction occurs (for example, using Google Tag Manager or Google tag).

  2. Step 2: In GA4, mark that event as a conversion or key event so it is treated as business critical.

Standard properties can designate up to 30 events as conversions. GA4 also automatically treats certain events (such as purchase and some app events) as conversions.

Mark Events as Conversions or Key Events

Mark a New Event

  1. Step 1: Go to Admin and make sure the correct property is selected.

  2. Step 2: Under Data display, select Conversions or Key events.

  3. Step 3: Click New conversion event (or New key event).

  4. Step 4: Enter the event name exactly as it will be sent (for example, generate_lead).

  5. Step 5: Save. When GA4 receives this event, it will count as a conversion.

Mark an Existing Event

  1. Step 1: Go to Admin > Events.

  2. Step 2: Find the event in the Existing events table.

  3. Step 3: Toggle Mark as conversion (or Mark as key event).

Stop Tracking a Conversion

To stop treating an event as a conversion, turn off the toggle in Admin > Events or remove it from the Conversions/Key events page. This only affects future data—historical conversions remain in reports.

Create or Modify Events for Conversion Tracking

Sometimes an existing event (such as page_view) is too broad to use directly as a conversion. Instead, create a more specific event inside GA4:

  1. Step 1: Go to Admin > Events and click Create event.

  2. Step 2: Base the new event on an existing one using matching conditions (for example, event_name = page_view and page_location contains your thank-you URL).

  3. Step 3: Give the new event a meaningful name (for example, thank_you or generate_lead).

  4. Step 4: Save the event, then mark it as a key event using the steps above.

Use event modifications carefully: they overwrite existing events, so avoid modifying core events like page_view unless you fully understand the impact.

Assign Value to Key Events

To measure revenue or value from key events, include value and currency parameters in the event.

  • value: A numeric amount (for example, 50).

  • currency: A three-letter ISO 4217 currency code (for example, USD).

Events missing a valid currency may still count in GA4 but might not be eligible for export as conversions to Google Ads.

Report on Conversions and Key Events

Once your events are marked as conversions or key events, you can analyze them in several GA4 reports.

  • Realtime: Use the Conversions by Event name card to confirm that events are being recorded as conversions.

  • Key events (Admin): View counts and values for each key event and adjust settings such as counting method.

  • Acquisition and Engagement reports: Apply the Conversions metric to see which channels and pages drive key actions.

  • Advertising reports: Use Conversion paths and Attribution reports to understand how different channels contribute to conversions.

Configuration changes can take from a few minutes to several hours to appear fully in standard reports. Real-time and DebugView update much sooner.

Modeled Key Events in GA4

GA4 uses modeling to estimate some key events when direct measurement is not possible (for example, due to browser restrictions, consent requirements, or cross-device behavior). Modeled data is combined with observed data to provide more complete attribution while preserving user privacy.

Modeled key events only appear when Google’s models are confident in their quality. When traffic is too low for reliable modeling, GA4 attributes those conversions to channels such as Direct instead of over-predicting.