The Complete Handbook to Conversions in GA4: Setup and Tracking

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the latest version of Google Analytics, and it offers a number of new features and benefits over its predecessor, Universal Analytics (UA). One of the most important new features in GA4 is conversion tracking. Conversion tracking allows you to measure your visitors’ most important actions on your website or app, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter, or downloading a white paper.

By tracking conversions, you can gain valuable insights into how your marketing campaigns are performing and make adjustments to improve your results. For example, if you see that a particular marketing campaign is driving a lot of traffic to your website, but few of those visitors are converting, you can use this information to adjust the campaign and improve your conversion rate.

In this comprehensive handbook, we will guide you through setting up and tracking conversions in GA4. We will cover everything from creating conversion goals to interpreting your conversion data. By the end of this article, you will have a solid understanding of how to use conversion tracking to improve your marketing results.

Table of Contents:

1. Introduction to Google Analytics 4
2. Understanding Conversions and Their Importance
3. Setting up Google Analytics 4 Conversion Tracking for Already Tracked Events
4. Setting up Google Analytics 4 Conversion Tracking by Creating a New Event
   • Passing a Custom Event Using Google Tag Manager
   • Creating a New Event in GA4 through the “Create Event” Functionality
5. About Conversion Counting Method in GA4
   • How to Change the Counting Method for a Conversion Event
6. Conclusion

Introduction to Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is the next generation of the Google Analytics platform, designed to provide businesses with advanced insights into their digital presence and customer behavior. It builds upon the foundation of Universal Analytics but introduces several key enhancements and features to meet the evolving needs of the digital landscape.

One of the significant changes in GA4 is the shift towards event-based tracking, allowing for a more flexible and granular understanding of user interactions and conversions. Instead of focusing solely on pageviews, GA4 emphasizes capturing and analyzing specific events, such as button clicks, form submissions, and video plays. This shift enables businesses to better understand user behavior and engagement across their digital properties.

GA4 also introduces machine learning capabilities, empowering businesses to automatically uncover valuable insights from their data. The platform leverages advanced modeling techniques to provide predictive metrics, such as churn probability and customer lifetime value, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions and optimize their marketing strategies.

These are only a few features of this comprehensive and advanced analytics solution. We’ve fully described all of them in this article.

Understanding Conversions and Their Importance

If you’re new to analytics, you might be wondering what conversion is and why we put so much emphasis on it. Simply put, conversions are the most important actions you want your visitors to take on your website or app. They can be anything from purchasing to signing up for a newsletter. By tracking conversions, you can see how your marketing campaigns perform and make adjustments to improve your results.

There’re two types of conversions: micro-conversions and macro-conversions. Micro-conversions are smaller actions that lead up to a macro-conversion. For example, a micro-conversion might be someone signing up for your email list, while a macro-conversion might be someone making a purchase.

Tracking conversions is important for a number of reasons:

1. It allows you to measure the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns; this way, you’ll see which campaigns are working and which ones need to be adjusted
2. Tracking conversions can help you improve your website or app by understanding what actions your visitors are taking
3. By understanding what actions your visitors are taking, you can create targeted marketing campaigns that are more likely to convert them into customers

Now, let’s discover how to set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics 4.

Setting up Google Analytics 4 Conversion Tracking for Already Tracked Events

With Google Analytics 4, you can mark any event as a conversion. This is the easiest way to set up conversions for the already tracked events. Let’s assume that you have multiple events tracked on your website. You can mark any of these events as a conversion. To set conversions for already tracked events, you’ll need to:

1. Go to the admin area of your GA4 property and click on “Events”



There you’ll see the events tab console like this:



If you want a particular event to be marked as a conversion, just change the toggle switch to “On”.

2. Next, click on the “Reports” tab, go to the “Conversions” report under “Engagement”; you’ll be able to see your important events as conversions

Congratulations! Now you’ve successfully set up conversion tracking for your events.

Setting up Google Analytics 4 Conversion Tracking by Creating a New Event

The next option available is setting up a new conversion event from the “Conversions” tab. Here’re the steps you’ll need to follow:

1. Go to the admin area of your GA4 property and click on “Conversions”



2. Select the “New conversion event”



3. Give a descriptive name to your new conversion event, and then click “Save”

Let’s track a contact form view as a conversion event when a user submits it. We’ll name it “Lead_genrated”. You’ll be able to see it in the “Conversions” tab as below.

Now you need to pass this event when it happens on the website to your GA4 property. You can do it in two ways:

• Pass a custom event using Google Tag Manager
• Use “create event functionality” in GA4

Let’s review these two options in detail.

Setting up Google Analytics 4 Conversion Tracking by Creating a New Event

1. Log into your Google Tag Manager console and select “Tags” from the menu



2. Next, click on the “New” button



3. Give a name to your tag and click on “Tag Configuration”



4. Then select “Google Analytics: GA4 event”



5. The “Tag Configuration” window will pop up; you’ll need to click on “Select Configuration Tab”



6. A drop-down menu will appear; choose “None-Manually Set ID” from the drop-down menu



7. The next step is to enter the GA4 measurement ID in the input box



You can find your measurement ID in the “Admin” section under “Data Streams”



8. Specify the event name that you created in the “Conversions” tab



9. Then create a trigger condition that causes this event to fire with the following conditions:
   • Trigger type: Page View
   • This trigger fires on: Some Page Views
   • Condition: Page URL contains “contact-us”
10. And click “Save”

Now you can quickly review and check if the tag is firing correctly. If you visit the contact-us page, you’ll see your conversion happening in real time. All you need to do is go to your GA4 property and click “Realtime“.

Once you complete the debugging process, you can publish the GTM container. And if you go to your “Conversions” tab in the GA4 reporting menu, the “Lead_genrated” conversation is tracked.

Congrats! You’ve successfully set up conversion tracking by creating a new conversion event using Google Tag Manager.

Now let’s figure out how to set up conversion tracking by using the “create event” functionality.

Creating a New Event in GA4 through the “Create Event” Functionality

With Google Analytics 4, you can modify and create events in the analytics console only. We already have a page-view event firing on our contact-us page. And we can use these basic parameters of the page-view event to set up our conversion event.

To create a new event with these conditions, follow the steps below:

1. Navigate to the admin area of your GA4 property and click on “Events”



2. Click on “Create event”



3. Next, click on “Create”



4. The “Configuration” window will pop up; enter a custom event name as “Lead_genrated”



The event name must be the same as the event we created earlier in the new conversion event.

5. Now, add the matching conditions; click on “Add Condition”



6. Next, click on “Parameter” to define your condition; in our case, we’ll select the “page_location” parameter



7. Now click on “Operator,” where you’ll get another drop-down menu with different conditional operators; we’ll select “Contains,” and in the “Value” input box, type “contact-us“



8. Now select “Create“



9. Click on the “Reports” tab



10. Go to the “Events” report; you’ll be able to see the “Lead_genrated” event

When someone visits the “contact-us” page, Google Analytics 4 will fire a page view and mark it as a conversion event. You can also check this in your “Conversations” tab of the “Reporting” menu.

That is how you can set up conversion tracking in Google Analytics 4.

About Conversion Counting Method in GA4

GA4 added a new option to change the counting method of conversions. Now you have two available options:

• Once per event
• Once per session

If you’d like to see which counting method each of your events uses, follow the steps below:

1. Go to the admin area of your GA4 property and click on “Conversions”



2. Look at the conversion events table, and if you see an icon next to the conversion event, its counting method is “once per session”

How to Change the Counting Method for a Conversion Event

Here’s a short guide:

1. As usual, go to the admin area of your GA4 property and click on “Conversions”



2. Click on the three dots near the conversion event



3. And choose “Change Counting Method”

You’ll then see a screen like the one below:

If you want to change the counting method to “Once per event“, click on the button and then select “Save“.

Conclusion

Setting up and tracking conversions in Google Analytics 4 can be a complex process, but it’s essential for businesses of all sizes to understand how their website visitors are interacting with their content and taking action. By following the steps outlined in this article, businesses can ensure that they are collecting the data they need to make smart decisions about their marketing strategies.

If you have any questions about setting up or tracking conversions in Google Analytics 4, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We would be happy to help you get started.