Many users have already installed Google Analytics 4 (GA 4) on their websites, but they have noticed that the process of setting up goals and events has changed compared to previous versions. Let’s go through the process step by step.
➊ Google Tag Manager
The key difference from the previous version is the need to create a separate tag for events with enhanced options.
- Event name — this is what automatically gets pulled into the events in Google Analytics 4;
- Event parameters — here, you can add additional parameters that should be passed with the event information;
- Trigger — as before, this is the condition that triggers the tag to send event data.
➋ Events and conversions in Google Analytics 4
In GA 4, you will encounter both automatically created events and conversions (system defaults), as well as custom events set up by users.
A list of standard events appears right after you install GA4. To create a new event:
- Set up the event in GTM;
- Wait up to 24 hours, after which the event should appear in the general list of all events.
* Be sure to keep in mind the 24-hour delay. Events in Google Analytics 4 do not appear immediately. For testing, you can use the “DebugView” tool, which we’ll discuss later.
If you need an event to receive the conversion status, it's quite simple. Just move the slider to the right opposite the specific event.
One important thing to note about GA 4 is that events and conversions are shown as separate entities in the reports, unlike in previous versions.
➌ Testing events and conversions in GA 4
Google Analytics 4 is equipped with the DebugView tool, which allows you to see real-time event triggers when using Google Tag Assistant.
Enable both Tag Assistant and DebugView
Disadvantages of working with events and conversions in GA4:
- 24-hour data synchronization;
- limitation of arbitrary names;
- maximum binding to Tag Manager;
- simple conversions have become difficult to configure;
- obvious, late accounting.
Advantage, compared to Universal Analytics:
- maximum detailing of information on user characteristics of a specific event.
Setting up events and conversions in GA4 without Tag Manager
If, for some reason, you are not using Tag Manager, you will need to directly configure triggers in the gtag library, as GA4 operates on gtag.
For example, to track an event, you might use the following structure:
gtag('event', 'event_name');
Another important difference between GA4 and UA:
☝ GA4 focuses more on users, whereas UA was more focused on sessions when tracking conversions. This difference becomes clear when comparing reports across both systems.
GA4 provides more detailed data on user behavior and events, but it requires a more complex setup compared to Universal Analytics.
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