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GTM & GA4 glossary

GA4 · Google Ads glossary

Key event

A GA4 event you have marked as important to your business, such as a lead or a purchase. Key events were called "conversions" in GA4 until 2024.

Also known as: Conversion, GA4 conversion

On this page
  1. In plain English
  2. Example
  3. Official documentation
  4. Related terms

In plain English

Marking an event as a key event tells GA4 to count and report on it separately, so you can see which channels and campaigns drive the actions that matter.

In March 2024 Google renamed GA4 "conversions" to "key events". The word "conversion" is now used for actions measured in Google Ads.

Only mark a handful of events as key events. If everything is important, nothing is.

Example

A plumbing business marks generate_lead and phone_click as key events, while scroll and file download events stay as normal events. Reports now show exactly which campaigns produced leads and calls.

Official documentation

Last reviewed

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