Author: Steve Lock
Configuring event tracking can initially seem daunting, but don’t panic.
After you’ve set up a few (and definitely, after reading this article), you’ll be implementing GA4 events in no time!
UA Versus GA4
In case you’re still hearing about UA, let’s clarify: GA4 replaced Universal Analytics (UA) in Google Analytics. UA was hierarchical so you would have users, sessions, hit-level and event data.
With GA4, the major change made EVERYTHING an event, with modern parameters, increased flexibility, and alignment with more enterprise analytics platforms.
Adding custom events has extended how GA4 collects data, and you should be mindful of naming conventions and extending in a logical way. This should also include thinking ahead about how you might want to add related events in the future. With great power comes great responsibility!
Step 1: Planning
The first step is to carefully plan everything you want to measure, typically focusing on key user interactions you would want to track. It’s also important to document everything, and most importantly, definitely use all of Google’s recommended event names wherever possible.
Below is an example of recommended naming for lead generation. You can call events pretty much whatever you want, but it’s a bad idea not to follow these naming conventions if they include the events you want to measure.
You should also check that the events you are trying to track aren’t already covered by the automatically collected events. For example, page_location or URL is already collected so you shouldn’t try to create your own solution if it already exists.
Step 2: Setting Up Events In GTM
It is technically possible to add events in the website code, but it’s strongly recommended to add events in Google Tag Manager (GTM) instead. This is the best fit for most businesses.
You’ll need to add a GA4 event tag and enter your measurement ID, which should be a variable or use the GA4 configuration built in. This is because there is a risk of human errors if the measurement ID needs to be added every time by hand.
Below you can see how to select the correct event type:
This is an example from the Google developer guide for how to configure your event:
Triggers then need to be added and connected to the tag. For example, you might want to track a visit to a thank you page as a conversion, so the trigger would need to be configured to page visits to either a specific URL or pages that contain a pattern such as ‘thank-you’.
Events are incredibly flexible and it’s worthwhile doing Google searching for additional examples of how other folks have configured common events.
You will then want to use the preview feature and test that your tag is behaving as expected before submitting changes.
For a detailed guide, we recommend the official Google documentation.
Step 3: Changes In GA4
If it’s a key event (or conversion), you will want to mark the most important events in the admin section of GA4. Refer to the official tutorial to set up a key event. Also, note that sometimes it’s normal to take up to 48 hours for it to show up.
It’s also best to check the real-time reporting and DebugView to ensure you can see your new event, even if it’s not a key event, to validate that everything is working.
You can see an example of the DebugView here:
Source: image credit
If you can see your new events as expected, you’re good to go. But that’s not the end of the road, by any means.
We recommend closely monitoring your most important data points because any changes to the website can cause events to stop being collected.
PS. Complement your GA4 event tracking with a broader view of the biggest 2025 trends in Data Analytics.
