February 11, 2024
How to Track Conversions with Google Analytics 4 (previously known as Goals)
Updated: February 11th, 2024
In my previous Google Analytics 4 tutorials, I shared how to install GA4 and how to track events with Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager. Now, the time has come to configure conversions.
In other words, we’ll tell Google Analytics that some events are more important to us.
Today, I will show you how to track conversions with Google Analytics 4. And there are several options/gotchas you need to know. Also, I’ll take a quick look at a thing called Google Analytics goals (the definition of conversion in older GA versions).
Table of Contents
+ Show table of contents +
- Video tutorial
- How to track events with Google Analytics 4
- What is a conversion in general?
- Goodbye, Goals. Hello, Conversions!
- Predefined Conversions
- Toggle Conversions (or Enter Event Name Manually)
- Create events and mark them as Conversions
- Try planning your event naming convention better
- Check the data in Google Analytics 4 DebugView
- Conversion counting method
- Default conversion value
- Where can I see the conversion data in Google Analytics 4 reports?
- Where can I find the conversion rate in GA4?
- Useful resources
- Final words
Video tutorial on how to track conversions with Google Analytics 4
I have recorded a tutorial on my YouTube channel if you prefer video content. As always, I recommend you do both: read this blog post and watch my video (because they complement each other).
Note: some parts of the GA4 interface have changed since this video was recorded. However, the general idea of the tutorial is still valid.
How to track events with Google Analytics 4
If you are new to Google Analytics 4 (but have worked with its previous versions (e.g., Classic or Universal Analytics), you need to understand this. GA4 is an event-based analytics tool.
Everything is an event now. Purchases, page views, etc.
So if you want to configure conversions, you first must configure event tracking in Google Analytics. Then you will need to instruct GA4 that some events are more important than others.
So if you are completely new to event tracking in Google Analytics 4, read this blog post and watch this video tutorial first.
What is a conversion in general?
I realize that some of my readers who land on this page might be completely new to web analytics and the concept of conversions. If you are one of them, here’s a quick introduction. And if you already know what conversions are, feel free to skip to the next chapter of this blog post.
A conversion is an important interaction you want your visitors/users to complete. Conversions can be split into micro and macro conversions. An example of a micro-conversion can be a newsletter subscription, a download of a whitepaper, etc.
Micro conversions are usually described as conversions that put your visitors/users one step closer to the main (macro) conversion.
Macro-conversions are the most important interactions, such as a purchase.
By tracking conversions, you can better understand what works for your business and what isn’t. For example, you can create a segment of your users who have purchased and then try to understand what they are doing, their behavior, etc. Also, conversions are used to measure the effectiveness of advertising campaigns and then redistribute your advertising budget.
Hopefully, this super-brief introduction gave you a better understanding of this concept.
Now, let’s learn how to track conversions with Google Analytics 4.
Goodbye, goals. Hello, conversions!
Those who have worked with the previous versions of Google Analytics, for example, Universal Analytics (GA3), are familiar with the term “Google Analytics Goal”. Basically, that’s how GA was calling conversions in the past.
If you want to treat a page view of the order confirmation page as a conversion, you could create a destination goal. Speaking of other types of Google Analytics goals, you could create goals that:
- Were based on events and their parameters
- Or were based on the duration of the session (if a visitor spends more than X minutes on your website)
- Or were based on the number of page/screen views per session
Also, it’s worth mentioning that you could create up to 20 goals per GA view. In GA 4, that limit is 30 conversions per property.
With the rise of GA4, the concept of Google Analytics 4 goals is gone. Now, the most important interactions are called conversions (this term has been adopted by the industry and other marketing/analytics tools for many years, and even GA users often referred to goals as “conversions”).
So, in reality, it’s a welcome cosmetic change that’s been long overdue. However, the name is not the only thing that has changed. Many things are now different in Google Analytics 4 when it comes to conversions:
- The way we have to configure them is different
- The types of conversions are different (no more out-of-the-box destination, session duration, or number-of-pageviews goals)
It’s all about the event now. It’s your job to send them and mark the most important ones as conversions.
Speaking of how to configure conversions in Google Analytics 4, there are two options (that you can control) and one that’s predefined. Let’s start with the latter.
Predefined Conversions
There are a bunch of predefined conversions that you cannot disable:
- first_open (applies to mobile applications)
- app_store_subscription_convert (applies to mobile applications)
- app_store_subscription_renew (applies to mobile applications)
- in_app_purchase (applies to mobile applications)
- purchase (applies to websites and mobile applications)
Speaking of purchase, here is a guide by Simo Ahava that explains the entire implementation process in great detail.
If you go to your Google Analytics 4 property, then go to Admin > Conversions, you will see the list of those predefined conversions (they will be displayed here if you have received at least one event of that particular name).
If you have only the Web data stream connected to the property, your only default conversion will be purchase (and it that cannot be disabled).
If you have connected any of the app data streams, you’ll likely see the rest of the aforementioned conversions too. But since there isn’t much we can configure, that’s all I can say in this chapter.
Now, let’s move to the next group of conversions.
Conversions that can be turned on (or you can enter the event name manually)
If you want to mark an event as a conversion, go to Admin > Events and then switch the toggle next to the event that’s important for your business.
So, for example, if you have an event called ebook_downloaded, then you can flip the switch and turn it into a conversion (note: this will apply only to the new data. The events that were collected in the past will not be turned into conversions retroactively).
Alternatively, you can go to Admin > Conversions, then press New conversion event and enter the event’s name, for example, ebook_downloaded. There is no difference between entering the name of the event manually and flipping the toggle button in the Admin > Events list. If you decide to flip the switch, you must first wait until that event appears in the list.
Once you do that, wait for up to 24 hours, and you will start seeing conversion data in the list of all Conversions.
If you want to discover other places where the conversion data is available in the Google Analytics 4 interface, jump to this chapter of the blog post.
Create events and mark them as conversions
I bet that some of my readers have one question now. What if you don’t want to mark ALL events (of a certain event name) as conversions?
Example: you have a “Thank you” page to which users are redirected when subscribing to a newsletter. Let’s say that the URL is https://www.mywebsite.com/thank-you/. If I mark the page_view event as a conversion, ANY pageview will become a conversion. How can I separate only those pageviews that happened on the /thank-you/ page?
You can either send a dedicated event (with a different name) from Google Tag Manager/Gtag.js, or you can use the Create Event feature in the GA4 interface.
This feature allows you to create a new event based on other incoming events. On the Admin > Events page, click Create Event and then click Create.
Then, you will need to enter the name of the custom event. Once again, you can name it whatever you want. Just make sure that the name clearly communicates what it means. thankyou_page_visit might be a good option.
Then, let’s move on to the Matching Conditions section. Here, we must tell GA4 what kind of event we are looking for. When that particular event is spotted, then our thankyou_page_visit should be created as well.
In my case, I need to enter the following conditions:
- event_name equals page_view
- page_location contains /thank-you/
If you want to copy all the parameters from the page_view event to the new event, keep the checkbox Copy parameters from the source event enabled.
If some of the parameter’s name is incorrect and you want to fix it as well, you can Add Modification in the Parameter Configuration section. For example, if an event contains the parameter pricingPlan but wants it to be pricing_plan, you can introduce a new field (and reuse its value) while removing the incorrect parameter (by leaving the New Value empty).
Look at [[pricingPlan]] in the screenshot above. Double square brackets mean that GA4 will reuse the value of the parameter pricingPlan in that event.
Once you save the changes, you can view them in the Real-time reports and the DebugView of GA4.
Also, when you create that new event in GA4 (and you want that to become a conversion), don’t forget to mark that event as a conversion in the Admin > Events page.
If you don’t like to wait up to 24 hours (because that thankyou_page_visit will not appear in the list of all your events immediately), you can create a new conversion immediately. Go to the Admin section on the left sidebar of your GA4 interface. Then go to Conversions and click New conversion event.
Then enter the name of the event that you have just created. Click Save.
That way, you will mark the newly created thankyou_page_visit event as a conversion (without the need to wait for 24 hours until it appears on the Admin > Events page.
If Debugview is not working for you, please take a look at this guide.
Or try planning your event naming convention better
I’m just continuing the previous chapter of this blog post here.
If we are talking about events you send from the website’s code or Google Tag Manager to GA4, you could just plan your event naming convention better and create more distinct events.
Imagine that you track various form submissions with the event name form_submission, but you want to treat only certain types of forms as conversions. Let’s say that you track contact form submissions, search form submissions, and registration form submission events, but you only want to treat the registration form submission as a conversion.
In that case, you could track 3 separate events:
- contact_form_submission
- search_form_submission
- sign_up
Finally, mark only the sign_up event as a conversion. This, of course, requires more thorough planning upfront but every solid setup starts with one.
Check the data in Google Analytics 4 DebugView
Once you configure your events, it’s time to test them. The primary feature built for debugging GA 4 data is the DebugView section. You can find it by going to Admin > DebugView on the left side of the GA4 interface. Click it.
That’s the place where your debugging should take place. Do not mix this with the GTM Preview and Debug mode. They are two different beasts.
To enable the debug mode in GA4, it’s enough to have the GTM Preview mode enabled. Then all events sent to Google Analytics 4 will have a debug_mode parameter attached to them. As a result, this data will be visible in the GA4 DebugView.
There is also another option to enable the debug_mode in Google Analytics 4. Install the Google Analytics Debugger Chrome extension here, and then click its icon (so that you can see the ON ribbon). From this moment, you will start seeing your events coming into DebugView.
When the data starts coming into your DebugView, you can click on every individual event, and then a list of parameters will be displayed.
Click on that parameter to see the value that was received by GA4.
Also, ensure you have selected the correct Debug device in the top left corner.
If multiple visitors have enabled the debug view (e.g. they all have enabled the Chrome extension), you will see multiple devices there, and it might require some time to find yourself.
Once you start seeing data in DebugView, things will look like this.
Events are marked with blue icons, and conversions with green. Please ignore the fact that I treat menu_click events as conversions. This is just for demonstration purposes 🙂
If you click the event, you will see the parameters sent together with an event. Click on the parameter to see its value.
Once you made sure that the data is coming in and is displayed properly, you should submit your GA4 changes in the GTM container and publish it.
Change counting method
By default, Google Analytics 4 will calculate a conversion every time an event is tracked. For example, if a visitor submits the same form twice in a session, GA4 will calculate 2 conversions.
When you are tracking purchases, counting each one of them is important. But does it really matter if the same person submits the signup form twice? Normally, no. So, if you want to avoid counting the same non-purchase conversion multiple times, change its counting method.
Go to Admin > Conversions and click three dots next to a conversion that is not related to purchase. Select Change counting method.
You will see two options there:
- Once per event
- Once per session
Choose “Once per session” and click Save.
Even though Google recommends counting once per event, I prefer using once per session for most events. For example, I don’t care if a visitor submits the same form once or three times in a single session.
What matters to me is the fact that the user submitted the form. By choosing “Once per session” you will avoid bloating conversion numbers (at least to some extent).
Even though this solution will not completely solve the issue (because the same person can return tomorrow and submit the same form again), it will make your numbers (at least) slightly more accurate.
But when it comes to purchases, every transaction is important. That’s why purchase, in_app_purchase, and other similar conversions should still be counted as “once per event”.
The only reason (that I see) why it would make sense to track form submission conversions “once per event” is if you are using the same event (e.g., generate_lead) for multiple forms.
Default conversion value
Another setting that is available in each conversion’s settings is value. It is a monetary value that you want to assign to a conversion. For example, if you have calculated that every new form submission is worth 2 dollars, then you can set it in the conversion’s settings.
Go to Admin > Conversions and click three dots next to a conversion that is not related to purchase. Select Set default conversion value.
Then select “Set a default conversion value”, pick the currency, and enter a value. Hit Save.
There are several things to note here:
- Changing this value will not affect your historical data
- If you are already sending “value” parameter with an event to GA4, that parameter will get a higher priority compared to the default value you’ve entered in the settings
- This “value” will not populate revenue-related metrics in GA4 (like, Revenue). Instead, it will populate the “Event value” metric.
Where can I see the conversion data in Google Analytics 4 reports?
The conversion data is available in various places of the Google Analytics 4 interface. To name a few (but this list is definitely not complete):
- Admin > Conversions section in the left sidebar menu. This place is like an overview of all events that you have marked as conversions.
- Acquisition > Traffic Acquisition, and then there is a column Conversions in the table
- If you have implemented Ecommerce tracking, the data will appear in the Monetization reports
- Explore. For example, you can include the metric Conversions in the Exploration report.
Where can I find the conversion rate in GA4?
There are more things to explain here. Thus, I published a separate blog post.
In a nutshell, standard reports and explorations in GA4 don’t display this metric. However, you can customize/build the reports to include session (or user) conversion rates. Read this to learn more.
Useful Resources
Here are some additional useful resources related to conversions and events:
- Track GA4 conversions once per session
- Track “Pages per session” conversions in Google Analytics 4 (for regular websites)
- Track “Pages per session” conversions in Google Analytics 4 (for single-page applications)
- Track Events in Google Analytics 4
Final words on how to track conversions in Google Analytics 4
The word “GA4 goals” is gone from Google Analytics 4 vocabulary. From now on, they will be called “Conversions” (and this should have happened a long time ago). But this is not the only change introduced in the new version of Google Analytics.
The entire process of conversion configuration has changed in GA4. You can quickly turn any event into conversion by clicking a toggle button next to it (in the All Event list).
If you want to be more specific and treat only events with certain parameters as conversions, you can:
- either use the Create event feature in the GA4 interface
- or plan your event names upfront more carefully (and use distinct event names for interactions that are the most important for a business).
26 COMMENTS
Hi,
The options Mark as Conversion is greyed out for me including all the options such as Modify Event and Create Event.
I created the events in GTM about 18-19 hrs ago so they are populating the list already but those options are still greyed out.
And i've checked if they are firing correctly in preview mode.
Any idea what im missing?
Maybe you don't have enough permissions in GA?
Hi everyone! It's 2 years later and I'm having the same issue. Is it because events weren't created in GA4 but in GTM? It would be super helpful to know as I'm going crazy bc of this issue. Can events be created in GTM and still be marked as conversions in GA4? Thanks a lot!!
Greetings! THX for the video and this blog post. Both helped me understand how to create conversions.
Unfortunately, in my haste to create my first conversion, I also created one via GA4, so now I have two similar events being tracked.
How do I get rid of the GA4 event - through "modification" or through this article - https://www.kristaseiden.com/new-data-deletion-feature-in-google-analytics-4/
THX in advance.
You can try to use the Modify events feature
Hi,
Really great article and defo some of the most in-depth coverage on GA4, thanks.
I'm wondering, with regards to conversion events based on page views, is it possible to only record a page view as a conversion if that page was loaded after a specific page.
For example you have an opt-in page and a thank you page. In this scenario you'd only want the conversion to fire after they opted in on the previous page.
Thanks
Dan
Have you actually read the entire blog post? :) because it is explained here
Hey thanks Julius,
I did read the whole article, but I'm not sure if I explained my self clearly.
In universal analytics you could set a funnel that would trigger the goal where they had to visit a specific page before the event page in order for it to be classed as a conversion.
It doesn't seem possible in GA4?
You need to use Audience triggers for that. Create a sequence in the audience where two specific pageviews are made in the same session. Then create an audience trigger for that. Somewhat related example: https://www.analyticsmania.com/post/track-conversions-once-per-session-in-google-analytics-4/
Hi Julius and thanks as always! I'm afraid I already know the answer to this question.. but is there a way to find on a report (or exploration) which organic keywords bring conversions?
no
Hi! Myself and my colleague have been trying to figure out something in GA4 for reporting purposes and for the life of me, I cannot figure it out. I don't think it's mentioned here though.
I make a report on assisted conversions and last click/direct conversions currently. However, in GA4, this doesn't seem to be possible? I've read what feels like hundreds of articles and watched many videos and no one seems to have an answer.
Thanks in advance!
GA4 does not show assisted conversions, unfortunately
Hi Julius - I'm not sure I understand the concept of parameters. Why do we need parameters? What do they do? What would happen if we didn't have any parameters for an event/conversion?
Parameters give additional context about the event. E.g. you have an event form_submit. My question is "Which form was submitted if we have 5 forms on a website?". Event parameter form_name would contain the name of the form.
Nothing will happen if you don't send any parameters. The event will still be tracked.
Hey, great article!
I have a question, if I created a pdf_download event in January and marked it as a conversion in March, can the conversion data show records from Jan?
No
Hi Julius,
I strangely receive a decimal value for the conversion value. Do you know what could be causing it?
It is because of data driven attribution
Thanks a lot for making this tutorial and for sharing it. I was wondering how to set up "goals" or conversions in the new Google Analytic platform (GA4)
Hi, the first step would be to read the article you are commenting on. Because this blog post is explaining how to set up "goals" or conversions in the new Google Analytic platform (GA4)
Hi Julius,
I created a custom event yesterday in GA4 for a conversion but it is still not appearing in the event list and the conversion is also not being triggered in debug mode. Would you have any advice why that might be the case? I've done this several times previously and it usually appears instantly. Thank you.
I also created a conversion event, and whilst it does not appear in the conversion list, I can see it in debug mode if I am using the chrome analytics debug tool.
Did you wait up to 48 hours?
Which report I could find the organic keywords that led to conversions in GA4?
Hi Julius,
I would like to recreate in GA4 what I used to do in UA; tracking the traffic source of specific order IDs so that I can assign monetary value to particular campaigns, posts etc. I cannot use GTM and rely on what I can do as a dumb GA4 user.
Is this possible? Many thanks