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GA4 Events: Types, Processing, and Real-Time Checks

Tomas Katysovas
Analytics

In Google Analytics 4 (GA4), everything important is tracked as an event. Events measure user interactions (such as page views, clicks, and purchases) and system behavior (such as app crashes or impressions served).

Event Types

GA4 groups events into several categories:

  • Automatically collected events: Core events collected as soon as you implement GA4, such as first_visit and session_start.

  • Enhanced measurement events: Events collected when you enable Enhanced measurement on a web data stream, such as scrolls, outbound clicks, file downloads, and site search.

  • Recommended events: Events you implement with names and parameters defined by Google. These unlock richer and more future-proof reporting.

  • Custom events: Events you define for your own use cases when no recommended event fits. These often require custom reports or Explorations.

How Events Are Processed

  1. Step 1: A user performs an action on your tagged site or app (for example, clicks an outbound link).

  2. Step 2: GA4 records an event with parameters describing the interaction.

  3. Step 3: Events are processed, attributed, and batched when possible to improve performance.

  4. Step 4: Processed events appear in reports, audiences, and other GA4 features.

Event Batching and Delivery

GA4 often batches events to reduce network overhead, but there are key exceptions:

  • If the browser does not support the sendBeacon API, events are sent immediately.

  • Conversion events are sent promptly, even when batching is used.

  • Events queued on a device are sent when the user navigates away from the page.

  • Containers in debug mode do not batch events, so you see them in real time.

If a user’s device goes offline, GA4 stores event data locally and sends it when the device reconnects. Events that arrive more than 72 hours after they were triggered are discarded.

Check Events in Real Time

Realtime Report

Use the Realtime report to verify that GA4 is receiving events from your site or app.

  1. Step 1: Open the Realtime report in GA4.

  2. Step 2: Trigger the event on your site or app (for example, click the link or submit the form).

  3. Step 3: Look at the Event count by Event name card to confirm that your event appears and is incrementing.

  4. Step 4: Click the event name to inspect key event parameters.

DebugView Report

DebugView shows a timeline of events for a single user and is ideal for implementation testing.

  1. Step 1: Enable debug mode (for example, using GTM preview mode, a GA4 debug extension, or the debug_mode parameter).

  2. Step 2: Open the DebugView report.

  3. Step 3: Perform the actions you want to test and verify that the events and parameters appear in the correct order.