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How to See Key Events in Google Analytics 4

Cody Schneider••7 min read

Tracking important actions on your website just changed names in Google Analytics 4. The "Conversions" report you might be used to is now called "Key Events," but the goal is the same: to measure the user interactions that matter most to your business. This article will show you exactly how to mark, create, and find these key events so you can measure what's working.

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What Are Key Events in GA4? (And How Are They Different from Conversions?)

In early 2024, Google renamed "Conversions" in GA4 to "Key Events." If you’re feeling a bit of whiplash, don’t worry - the underlying functionality is identical. A Key Event is simply any user action that you've flagged as important to your business's success.

Think of it like this:

  • Event: Any tracked user interaction (a page view, a button click, a video play). GA4 collects dozens of these automatically.
  • Key Event: An event that you've personally marked as valuable (a new user signing up, a form submission, a purchase).

So, why the name change? Google's reasoning is that the term "conversion" is often tied strictly to monetary value, like a sale. The new name, “Key Events,” is meant to be more inclusive, encouraging you to track fundamentally important actions that aren't necessarily purchases, such as newsletter sign-ups, demo requests, or webinar registrations.

At the end of the day, any event you were tracking as a "conversion" before is now just called a "key event." Same feature, different label. Now let's get into how to set them up.

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How to Mark an Existing Event as a Key Event

The easiest way to track a key event is by flipping a switch on an event that GA4 is already collecting. This is perfect for standard, automatically collected events or recommended events that already capture the action you need.

For example, let's say you're a SaaS company and the sign_up event is vital for you. Or, if you're an ecommerce store, the automatically logged purchase event is your main goal. Instead of recreating the wheel, you just need to tell GA4 that these specific events are important.

Here’s how to do it step-by-step:

  1. Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property.
  2. In the bottom-left corner, click on the gear icon to go to the Admin section.
  3. Under the Data display column, click on Events.
  4. You'll see a table listing all the events collected on your website or app. This includes automatic events (like page_view and session_start) and any custom events you’ve configured.
  5. Scan through the list to find the name of the event you want to track, such as generate_lead or sign_up.
  6. On the far right of that event's row, you’ll see a toggle switch under the column labeled Mark as key event. Simply click this toggle to turn it on (it will turn blue).

That's it. Once you flip that switch, GA4 will start populating data for that event in the "Key Events" report. It's retroactive in the sense that GA4 has already collected the event data, but it will only start being treated and categorized as a "key event" in your reports from that moment forward.

How to Create and Track a New Key Event

Sometimes, the default events don't quite capture the specific action you need to track. Maybe you want to measure when a user visits a specific "contact-us-thanks" page after filling out a form, but you don't have a custom 'form_submission' event set up yet.

In this case, you can create a new event based on the parameters of existing events (like a page_view event). Then, you'll mark that newly created event as a key event. It’s a two-step process, but it's very straightforward once you understand the logic.

Step 1: Create a Custom Event in the GA4 Interface

Let's stick with our example: tracking a visit to your /thank-you-for-contacting page as a new event called contact_form_submit.

  1. Navigate back to Admin → Events.
  2. In the top right corner of the events table, click the blue Create event button.
  3. In the configuration panel that slides out, click Create.
  4. Now, you’ll define the rules for your new event:
  5. Leave the "Copy parameters from the source event" box checked. This is useful as it carries over information like page_title and page_referrer from the original page_view event to your new custom event.
  6. Click Create in the top right.

You have now successfully told GA4, "Anytime a 'page_view' happens and the URL contains '/thank-you-for-contacting', create a brand new event called 'contact_form_submit' for me."

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Step 2: Mark Your New Custom Event as a Key Event

This part requires a little patience. Your newly created event won't appear in the Admin → Events list immediately. It can take anywhere from a few hours to a full day for GA4 to process it and for it to show up once a user completes that action.

Once your new event, contact_form_submit, appears in the main events list, you simply follow the steps from the first section:

  1. Find the contact_form_submit event in the table.
  2. Click the toggle switch under the Mark as key event column.

Your custom-created event is now officially a key event, and GA4 will start reporting on it as a primary success metric.

Where to Find and Analyze Your Key Events Data

Now that you've configured your key events, where do you actually see the data? There are a few core places in GA4 to analyze their performance.

1. The Key Events Report

The most direct place to see a summary of your key events is in the dedicated report.

  • In the left-hand navigation menu, click Reports.
  • Expand the Engagement lifecycle collection.
  • Click on Key Events.

This report provides a simple table listing each key event you've enabled, along with a count of how many times it has occurred. You can change the date range and compare data just like any other standard GA4 report. While it's a good top-level view, the real power comes from using your key events as a metric in other reports.

2. Acquisition Reports

Understanding which marketing channels drive your most valuable user actions is fundamental. Adding key events to acquisition reports gives you this clarity.

  • Navigate to Reports → Acquisition → Traffic acquisition.
  • This report shows a breakdown of your traffic by session 'Default channel grouping' (e.g., Organic Search, Direct, Paid Social).
  • By default, you'll see metrics like Users, Sessions, and Engaged sessions. Towards the right side of the table, there's a column for "Key Events."
  • You can now see which channels are not just driving traffic, but which ones are generating the most form submissions, sign-ups, or sales. This helps you decide where to double down on your marketing budget.

You can do the same in the User acquisition report to see which channels are responsible for acquiring new users who later complete a key action.

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3. Within Your Google Ads Account

One of the primary purposes of tracking key events is to improve your advertising performance. You can (and should) link your GA4 property to your Google Ads account.

Once linked, you can import your key events directly into Google Ads as conversion actions. This allows Google's algorithms to optimize your campaigns using automated bidding strategies, aiming to get you more of the key events you care about for your budget. The data flows from GA4 to Google Ads, creating a powerful feedback loop to improve your campaign ROI.

Final Thoughts

Tracking key events is essential for understanding your business and user behavior in Google Analytics 4. Whether you’re simply flagging an existing event like a purchase or creating a new custom event for something like a form submission, the setup process is quite manageable once you get the hang of it.

The real challenge often isn’t just seeing these events in GA4, but combining them with data from your ads platforms, CRM, and email software to get a complete picture of performance. Instead of manually exporting data and wrangling spreadsheets for hours just to connect the dots, we built Graphed to automate the tedious work. By connecting your tools to our platform, you can ask questions in plain English - like "show me a dashboard of my Facebook Ads spend and GA4 key events by campaign for last month" - and get a live dashboard built for you in seconds.

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