How to Mark an Event as a Key Event in Google Analytics 4

Switching from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4 feels a bit like moving into a new house - the layout is different, boxes are in weird places, and some of your favorite furniture has a totally new name. One of the biggest changes is how we track major user actions. What we used to call "Goals," and then later "Conversions," are now called "Key Events" in GA4. This article will guide you through exactly how to mark an event as a key event, why it’s so important, and what to do if the event you want to track doesn’t exist yet.

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First, What Are Key Events in GA4?

In mid-2023, Google renamed "Conversions" inside GA4 to "Key Events." If you’re wondering what changed with this update, the answer is simple: nothing but the name. The functionality is exactly the same.

A Key Event is any user action you consider valuable to your business. It's an event that signifies a step forward in the customer journey or the achievement of a business objective. Think of them as the milestones on your website or app that really matter.

A few common examples include:

• A customer completing a purchase (purchase event)
• A potential client submitting a lead form (generate_lead event)
• A reader signing up for your newsletter (sign_up event)
• A user starting a free SaaS trial (begin_trial event)

The main reason for the name change was to reduce confusion. The term "conversion" is used heavily in Google Ads, and often, an imported GA4 conversion could mean something different. By rebranding them to "Key Events," Google created a clearer distinction between the metrics tracked inside Google Analytics and the actions used for bidding and optimization in Google Ads (even though they are often the same data!).

This event-based model is a huge leap from Universal Analytics' "Goals," which were often rigid and limited. In GA4, any event can be turned into a key event with the flip of a switch, giving you much more flexibility.

Why Marking Events as Key Events is a Must-Do

You might see an event like purchase or form_submission already reporting data in GA4 and think your work is done. Not quite. Going the extra step to formally 'mark' it as a key event unlocks several powerful features inside GA4.

1. Better Performance Measurement

Key events get their own dedicated card and report under Reports > Engagement > Key events. This gives you a clean, at-a-glance view of your most important metrics without having to dig through the all-events table. You can quickly see how many key events occurred over time and spot trends.

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2. Unlocking Attribution Reports

This is perhaps the most critical reason. Key events are the entire foundation of the attribution reports found in the Advertising workspace. Once you've marked an event like generate_lead as a key event, you can use reports like Model comparison and Conversion paths to understand which marketing channels (Organic Search, Paid Search, Email, Social) are most effective at driving that action.

Without key events, you're just measuring traffic, with them, you're measuring impact.

3. Seamless Google Ads Integration

If you advertise with Google Ads, key events are non-negotiable. When you link your GA4 and Google Ads accounts, you can import your key events directly into Google Ads. This allows you to:

• See GA4 key events right in your Google Ads campaign reports.
• Use this data for Smart Bidding strategies, empowering Google's algorithm to optimize for the actions that actually grow your business, not just clicks.

4. Creating Smarter Audiences

Ever wanted to create a remarketing list of users who added an item to their cart but didn't finish the purchase? You can do that by building an audience based on users who triggered the add_to_cart event but not the purchase key event. Using key events as a foundation for audience building allows you to segment users based on their most valuable behaviors for highly targeted follow-up communication.

Before You Begin: Identify What Absolutely Matters

Before you even open GA4, take five minutes to think about your business goals. Since you can only have up to 30 key events per property, you need to be strategic. You can’t just mark everything.

Ask yourself: "What are the top 5-10 actions a person can take on my website that indicate they are becoming a customer or a valuable lead?"

Here are a few ideas for different business types:

• For an E-commerce store: purchase, add_to_cart, begin_checkout.
• For a B2B/SaaS company: generate_lead (form submission), sign_up (free trial), request_demo.
• For a publisher or blogger: sign_up (newsletter), file_download (for a PDF guide), ad_click.

Heads Up: An important rule in GA4 is that you can only mark an event as a key event if it has already been recorded at least once. GA4 needs to see the event in its system first before it gives you the option to elevate its status.

How to Mark an Event as a Key Event: Step-by-Step

Alright, you’ve identified the actions you want to track and confirmed they are firing. Let's make it official. It only takes a few clicks.

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Step 1: Go to the Admin Panel

Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property. In the bottom-left corner of the screen, you'll see a small gear icon labeled Admin. Click on it to open the administration view.

Step 2: Navigate to the Events Menu

In the admin panel, you'll see two columns. Look for the Data display section in the second column and click on Events. This will take you to a list of all the events that have been collected in your property so far.

Step 3: Find Your Event and Flip the Switch

Here you'll see a table of all existing events, like page_view, session_start, scroll, and hopefully the custom events you've set up. To the right of the event names, you’ll see a column called Mark as key event.

Simply scroll to find the event you want to track - for instance, generate_lead - and click the toggle switch to turn it ON. It will turn blue.

That's it! Your event is now officially a key event. It can take up to 24 hours for the new key event to appear correctly in all of your reports, so don’t worry if you don’t see it immediately. Just repeat this process for any other high-value events you identified.

Oops, My Event Isn't in the List! Now What?

It's a common scenario: you have a specific goal, like tracking a "Contact Us" form submission, but you don't see an event for it in the list. This just means GA4 isn't automatically tracking it. You'll have to create a custom event first.

There are two primary ways to do this:

Option 1: Create an Event from within the GA4 Interface

This method is great for simple events that can be created based on a single condition, like a user landing on a specific URL. For example, let's say you want to create a newsletter_signup event for when a user lands on your confirmation page, /thank-you.

1. Navigate to Admin > Data display > Events.
2. Click the blue "Create event" button.
3. Click "Create" again on the next screen. A configuration panel will pop up.
4. Give your new event a name (e.g., newsletter_signup). No spaces or special characters!
5. Under Matching Conditions, set up a rule that tells GA4 when this event should fire. In our case:
6. Leave everything else as is and click "Create" in the top right.

Now, when a user views the thank-you page, GA4 will log a page_view event as well as your new newsletter_signup. After new data comes in, this new event will appear in your events list, where you can then mark it as a key event.

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Option 2: Use Google Tag Manager (GTM) for More Control

For more complex tracking - like clicks on a specific button that doesn’t have a unique URL - Google Tag Manager is the way to go. It offers much more granular control.

The GTM process involves three core components:

• A Trigger: This is the condition that must be met. For example, a user submits a specific form or clicks a button with a certain CSS ID.
• A Tag: This is the action that happens when the trigger's conditions are met. This will be a Google Analytics: GA4 Event tag. You'll give it the name for the event you're creating.
• Variables (optional): Extra pieces of info tied to events - like the name of the white paper someone downloaded or the amount of money someone spent at your online store.

While a full GTM walkthrough is an article of its own, the basic workflow is: set up a trigger for the user interaction -> create a GA4 event tag with your custom event name -> link the two together -> test & publish. Once GTM fires this event, it will show up in the GA4 Events list, ready to be marked as a key event.

Finding and Using Your Key Event Data

Once you’ve marked your events, it’s time to see the data in action.

• Engagement Report: For a quick overview, navigate to Reports > Engagement > Key events. This shows you a summary list and counts for all the user interactions you’ve marked as important.
• Advertising Reports: To see which of your marketing efforts are working, head to the Advertising workspace. Here, you'll see key events in attribution reports such as Model Comparison showing how different attribution models credit your event to various paid and unpaid channels, as well as Conversion paths that show you the most common ways that visitors interacted with different marketing channels before they 'converted', like Paid Search > Organic Search > Direct.
• GA4 Explore: GA4 Explore reports give you a freeform canvas you can use to do whatever kind of analysis you want. You can drag and drop key events in as the metric for a table or chart, combined with any other dimensions like Default channel grouping, Device category, or Country.

Final Thoughts

Moving from Universal Analytics Goals to GA4's Key Events is a big improvement that gives us more power and demands more intentionality about how we set up our tracking. By identifying and marking these high-value interactions, you're moving beyond surface-level traffic analysis to truly understanding the actions driving your business forward. It’s what empowers effective attribution analysis, smarter campaign bids in Google Ads, and more detailed Audience Segmentation.

Tracking key events across multiple platforms — a purchase on Shopify, a deal closed in Salesforce, and a cost per lead from Facebook Ads — can still feel disjointed when you have to glue that all together. With our platform, we make it effortless. You can connect your marketing and sales platforms in just a few clicks and instantly create dashboards using simple, natural language. Instead of doing the mental gymnastics to connect your GA4 event with our HubSpot deal data and Google Sheets target numbers to get answers, you can just get clear answers to questions like "What's my ROAS on the last Facebook Ads campaign and which channels contributed the most?" Use Graphed today to see it for yourself!

Of course, your business doesn’t live entirely within GA4. A key event like a "Lead Form Submission" in GA4 is just the first step–the real story unfolds when that lead becomes a qualified deal in Salesforce or a paying customer in Stripe. With Graphed, we make connecting these dots instant. Instead of toggling between tabs and exporting data, you can connect all your analytics, ad platforms, and CRM in seconds and just ask: "Show me a dashboard of cost per acquisition from Facebook Ads compared for sales qualified leads this last quarter," and get your answer from a live dashboard that combines all your data in a single place.