Turn the success actions in your measurement plan into key events in GA4.
GA4 records hundreds of events and treats none of them as more important than another until you mark the ones that count. Start with the success actions from your measurement plan in lesson 1.3. For each one, make sure it is recorded reliably, give it an estimated value, and then mark it.
Priya runs a business that offers trial classes and takes enquiries from parents. Her main tools are her website builder and a booking tool. Her GA4 property already records page views, scrolls and file downloads. She wants to know how many parents asked about a trial class this week and where they came from, and none of those events can tell her that.
An event you mark as important in GA4 is called a key event. Until 2024, GA4 called these conversions. Google renamed them key events in 2024, partly to keep them separate from Google Ads conversions, which are counted differently and used for bidding. In GA4, the toggle and the reports use the term "key events". Google Ads still uses "conversion". You can import selected GA4 key events into Google Ads, where they show up as conversions.
Older guides, videos and agency reports from before the change say "conversions" where GA4 now says "key events". Treat the two as the same thing.
Once an event is a key event, it appears in the key events columns of the acquisition reports, so you can see which channels and campaigns produced it. Key events also count towards engagement, which lesson 4.2 explains.
You can mark any event as a key event with one switch in the admin settings. Because it is so easy, it is also a trap. If an event fires at the wrong time, GA4 still counts it as a result, and every report built on it will be wrong.
Enhanced measurement can record form interaction events, but its form submit event may fire when someone presses the button even if the form showed an error and nothing was sent. If you mark that as a key event, failed attempts count as enquiries. A button click event has the same problem: it can fire when someone taps "Book a trial" and then closes the booking window.
Before you mark an event as a key event, check that each real enquiry, booking or purchase makes it fire exactly once. If the answer is no, or you don't know, fix the event first. Lesson 3.4 shows how to check this.
The first is the thank-you page method. After the form is sent, the site sends the visitor to a page, such as /thank-you, that nobody can reach any other way. In GA4 admin you create a new event based on page views of that address, name it generate_lead, and mark it as a key event. This method is simple and works on almost any website builder. Its weaknesses are that a visitor who reloads or bookmarks the page is counted again, and if people can reach the page by other routes, the count is ruined.
The second is a form submission event, which fires when the form is actually sent. Many form tools and website builders send this event to GA4 themselves. If yours doesn't, you set it up in Google Tag Manager to fire on the form's success message. This method is more precise, but it takes more setup and depends on how your form tool works.
Priya's website builder already sends visitors to a thank-you page after the enquiry form, so she uses the thank-you page method. Her trial bookings run through an online booking tool that has its own confirmation page, and she tracks bookings the same way. Her WhatsApp button needs a click event, whatsapp_click, set up in Google Tag Manager to fire when someone clicks a link that opens a chat.
A key event can carry a value parameter, which is a monetary value with a currency attached. For a shop, the purchase event usually carries the order value automatically through the shop platform's integration. A service business has no order value, so it estimates one.
Priya reckons about 60 percent of her enquiries book a trial (an example figure, like the others in her case), and about half of those trials enrol. That means roughly 30 percent of enquiries become students (60 percent x half). One new student brings about S$1,920 of gross margin in the first year. So 0.3 x S$1,920 = S$576 is the estimated value of one enquiry. She rounds it to S$550 and sends that as the value of generate_lead, with the currency set to SGD.
The same method works for any service business:
Estimate the share of enquiries that book a trial. Estimate the share of trials that enrol. Multiply the two to get the share of enquiries that become customers. Work out the first-year gross margin per new customer, using the method in lesson 8.2. Multiply the share by the margin to get the value per enquiry. Round the result and send it as the event's value with a currency. Write down how you got the number, so you can update it when you have better data.
The value will be wrong in its details, and that is acceptable, because its purpose is comparison. With values attached, GA4 can show which channels produced the most value as well as the most events. A channel that brings fewer but better enquiries then stops looking like a loser.
A WhatsApp click is further from a real enquiry than a form, because some people tap it and never send a message. Give it a lower value or no value, and add a note explaining why. Priya gives whatsapp_click no value and notes the reason.
Go through every success action in your measurement plan and decide these in order. Choose the event name, using a Google recommended name from lesson 3.1 where one fits. Decide exactly what triggers the event. Decide whether it carries a value and, if it does, how much. Check that each real action fires the event exactly once, and if it doesn't, fix it first (lesson 3.4). Then mark the event as a key event in the GA4 admin settings.
Priya's list has 3 lines. The first is generate_lead, triggered by the thank-you page, with a value of S$550. The second is whatsapp_click, triggered by clicks on links that open WhatsApp, with no value. The third is a trial booking event, triggered by the booking tool's confirmation page, with its own estimated value.
That list is what you will build and test in lesson 3.4, and drafting your own version is the step that comes next. Write one line for each success action in your plan, giving the event name, the exact trigger, and the value as an amount or none.
Go through each success action in your measurement plan and write down the event name, what will trigger it, and whether it will carry a value.
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