Introducing Key Events in GA4

GA4 Key Events is the new name for what was previously called "Conversions" in GA4.

Now, here is what you’ll see in GA4:

• Event: Any interaction on your website or app that you want to track.

• Key Event: An event that's important to your business. (old name "conversion")

• Conversion: A key event that you want to use for reporting and bidding in Google Ads 

A Key Event is any interactions that are most important to your business. Purchase and Signups are the most commonly used key events. 

A Conversion now refers to an action (key event) that you want to use to measure the performance of your ad campaigns and optimize your bidding strategy. These conversions are shared between Google Ads and Google Analytics.

With this new definition, you can view consistent conversion-based performance metrics in both Google Ads and Analytics reports.

How to Create a Conversion

 To create a conversion, identify a key event, and then in Google Ads, create a new conversion that's based on the Google Analytics key event. After you create the conversion in Google Ads, the conversion data is shared between Google Ads and Google Analytics so you're viewing the same data across platforms.

If you have a linked Google Ads account with GA4 then Google Ads conversions created from Analytics key events appear as conversions in the Analytics advertising section.

Note: You can use any event, not just key events, in Google Analytics 4 to create a Google Ads conversion. If you create a Google Ads conversion from a non-key event, the event will automatically be marked as a key event.

Why are Conversions Renamed to Key Events?

The new term is created to bring the 'conversion' parity between Google Ads and Analytics. It also makes it simpler to measure the performance of Google Ads campaigns in Google Ads and Google Analytics. 

This is simply a name change so you don’t need to take any action. Key events are created and reported the same way as you created and reported conversions in Google Analytics 4.

Note: Key Events are not yet available in all the accounts. So if you don’t see it in your account then don’t worry, it is coming.

I would love to hear your view on this change.

Google Analytics 4 Help and Support

We are here to help you with all your Google Analytics needs. Our team can get you up and running in no time and also train you and your team to save you a lot of time so that you can focus on driving the business outcomes rather than configuring Google Analytics 4.

Online Course -Master GA4 with my comprehensive GA4 course on Optizent Academy
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Thank you,
Anil Batra. Optizent.com