Where to Find Goals in Google Analytics 4?

If you're looking for the "Goals" section in Google Analytics 4, you won't find it - because it doesn't exist anymore. Universal Analytics (UA) relied on Goals, but GA4 has replaced them with a more flexible system called "Conversions." Don't worry, this change is for the better. This guide will walk you through exactly where your old goals went, how to find conversion data in your reports, and how to set up new conversions in GA4 from scratch.

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The Big Change: Why You Won't Find "Goals" in GA4

In Universal Analytics, goals were fairly rigid. You had a few specific types you could create:

• Destination: Fired when a user reached a specific page, like a "thank you" or confirmation page.
• Duration: Triggered when a session lasted a certain amount of time.
• Pages/Screens per Session: Counted when a user viewed a specific number of pages.
• Event: Fired when a user performed a specific action (like clicking a button or playing a video), but required custom setup.

GA4's approach is much simpler and more powerful because its entire data model is built around events. An "event" is any interaction a user has with your website or app. This can be anything from a page_view and a scroll to an add_to_cart or a purchase. In GA4, a "conversion" is simply an event that you’ve marked as being important to your business. That’s it. There’s no separate "goal" configuration screen because any event can become a goal with the flip of a switch.

This event-based model means you have more flexibility. You're not limited to just page views or session durations. Any interaction you can track as an event can also be tracked as a primary key performance indicator (KPI), which gives you a much richer understanding of user behavior.

Where to Find Your Conversion Data in GA4

Once you’ve defined what actions count as conversions, you need to know where to see how they're performing. There are three key reports in GA4 where your conversion data will live.

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The Traffic Acquisition Report

This is arguably the most useful report for understanding performance. It shows you which channels (organic search, paid social, direct, etc.) are actually driving valuable actions on your site.

How to get there: In the left-hand navigation, go to Reports > Acquisition > Traffic acquisition.

Once there, scroll to the right, and you'll find a column named Conversions. This column shows a total count of all conversion events attributed to each channel. For more granular insights, you can use the dropdown menu at the top of the Conversions column to isolate a single conversion event, like purchase or generate_lead. This lets you see, for example, which channels are best at generating sales versus which ones are better for newsletter signups.

The Conversions Report

If you want a simple, high-level overview of all of your defined conversions, this is the report to use. It doesn't offer deep analysis on its own, but it's perfect for a quick check-in.

How to get there: Navigate to Reports > Engagement > Conversions.

The report presents a straightforward table listing every event you've flagged as a conversion. For each one, you'll see metrics like the Conversions count, the number of Total users who performed the action, and the Event revenue associated with it (if applicable). Clicking on any conversion name will take you to a more detailed report for that specific event, showing how it performs across different channels.

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The Advertising Snapshot Report

For those running paid campaigns, the Advertising section is your campaign headquarters. It’s designed to help you understand a user's multi-touch path to conversion and evaluate the effectiveness of your ad spend.

How to get there: Click Advertising in the left-hand navigation.

On the Advertising snapshot, you'll find several valuable cards. The Conversion Performance card shows you which conversions are happening most frequently. More importantly, you can explore the Conversion Paths report to see the sequence of touchpoints users interact with before converting. This can help you understand how different channels, like Facebook Ads and Organic Search, work together to drive a sale. You can also use the Model comparison tool to see how different attribution models (like first-click vs. data-driven) would distribute your conversion credits, giving you a better sense of which marketing efforts are truly making an impact at different stages of the funnel.

How to Create New "Goals" (Conversions) in GA4

Setting up your most important business actions as conversions is the foundation of meaningful reporting. In GA4, there are two primary methods to do this.

Method 1: Mark an Existing Event as a Conversion (The Easy Way)

This is the most common and simple way to set up a conversion. GA4 automatically tracks a variety of events right out of the box, and if one of those events corresponds to a business goal, you just need to activate it.

For example, if you have a form_submit event being sent when someone contacts you, you can mark it as a conversion in a few clicks.

Here’s how to do it:

1. Click the Admin gear icon in the bottom-left corner.
2. In the Property column, find and click on Events.
3. You'll see a table listing all the events GA4 has collected from your site. Scan this list for the event you want to treat as your goal (e.g., generate_lead, sign_up, purchase).
4. On the right side of the event's row, you'll see a switch under the "Mark as conversion" column. Simply toggle it on.

That's it! Within 24-48 hours, GA4 will begin populating your reports with data for this new conversion event.

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Method 2: Create a Custom Event and Mark it as a Conversion

What if the event you want to track doesn't exist yet? This is common for actions like reaching a confirmation page, which was the most popular "goal" type in Universal Analytics. For this, you first need to create a custom event, and then you can mark it as a conversion.

Let’s stick with the classic thank-you page example. You want to count a conversion every time a user lands on the URL yourwebsite.com/thank-you.

Here’s the step-by-step process:

1. Go to Admin > Events.
2. Click the Create event button.
3. In the Custom events list, click Create again.
4. A configuration panel will open. First, give your new event a name in the Custom event name field. Use a descriptive name with no spaces, like contact_form_success.
5. Next, define the "Matching Conditions." This tells GA4 when to fire your brand new event. For our thank-you page example, you'll set two conditions:
6. Click Create in the top right.
7. Now for the important step: You have to wait. It can take anywhere from a few minutes to 24 hours for your new custom event (contact_form_success) to actually fire for the first time and show up in your main events list back on the Admin > Events page.
8. Once you see contact_form_success in the table of existing events, you can follow the instructions from Method 1 to simply toggle the "Mark as conversion" switch for it.

This two-step process - create the event, then enable it as a conversion - gives you the power to turn almost any user interaction into a trackable business goal.

How to Check if Your Conversions Are Firing Correctly

After creating a GA4 conversion, you want to be sure it's working properly before you rely on its data. The best way to do this is with GA4's built-in DebugView tool.

Here’s how to test your setup:

1. Navigate to Admin > DebugView. This will open a real-time event stream.
2. In a separate browser tab, go to your own website. You'll need to enable a debug mode. The easiest way to do this is by installing the Google Analytics Debugger Chrome extension and turning it on. Alternatively, if you use Google Tag Manager, entering Preview mode will achieve the same result.
3. Once debug mode is active on your site, perform the action that should trigger your conversion. For instance, go fill out your form and land on the /thank-you page.
4. Go back to your DebugView tab. You'll see events from your session appearing in real-time in the middle column.
5. Look for your conversion event! In our example, you'd find contact_form_success. Crucially, conversion events are marked with a green flag icon next to their name. If you see that green flag, congratulations - your conversion is tracking correctly.

Final Thoughts

While the terminology has changed, the core purpose of tracking important user actions remains the same. Shifting from "Goals" to event-based "Conversions" in GA4 gives you a much more robust and realistic way to measure what truly matters for your business. It just requires creating an event for any key interaction and then telling Google Analytics that you want to track it as a conversion.

Connecting all your data and building insightful reports can still be time-consuming, even with GA4 set up correctly. Between navigating advertising reports, acquisition reports, and custom explorations, getting a simple answer often requires digging through multiple screens. At Graphed, we automate that entire process. By connecting your GA4 account, you can simply ask questions in plain English like, "show me a dashboard of my Shopify revenue vs. GA4 conversions for the last 30 days," and get an instant, real-time dashboard without the hassle.