Complete Guide to Events in Google Analytics 4

Discover more about events in Google Analytics 4 including the different types of events, how to create them and more. 

One of the most important things you can do with Google Analytics 4 is track events, but what are events in GA4, and how are they different from Universal Analytics?

Stick around, and you’ll find out. 

Stick around to find out:

• What an event is in GA4 
• Why use events in GA4
• What type of events you can track 
• How to set up an event in GA4 

💡 Pro Tip

Google Analytics is a great starting point, but it gives you little to no information about your leads and how they interact with your business. With tools like Ruler, you can view how different marketing channels contribute to leads and pipeline generation, allowing you to allocate resources effectively and make data-driven decisions.

Book a demo to learn more about Ruler’s lead tracking

What is an event in Google Analytics 4?

An event is an action that a user takes on your website. Events can be anything from clicking a link to filling out a form. 

They help you track and understand how users interact with your website and content.

It’s important to know that events work differently in Google Analytics 4 from how they worked in Universal Analytics. In UA, events were made to track actions within a page. 

Related: Key differences between UA and GA4

For GA4, events are used to send a wide range of data to your reports. 

This is anything from actions on site, to details about users and more. 

Previously, this type of data was sent as a ‘hit’, and you had a set list of hits that you could send, which meant you couldn’t collect any custom information. 

Hit types in Universal Analytics were: 

• Pageview hit
• Event hit
• Ecommerce hit
• Social interactions hit
• Exception hit
• User timing hit
• Screen hit (for apps)

Now hits have been replaced by events, you can collect data for anything you like.

Why use events in Google Analytics 4?

If you’re serious about tracking the interactions of your website visitors and leads, then you absolutely need event tracking. 

Without event tracking, you’re in the dark. You have no idea whether or not you’re driving meaningful interactions for your business.

By tracking events, you can gain valuable insights into how users are using your website or app, and you can use this information to improve your landing pages, content, and marketing campaigns.

Here are some examples of how you can use events in Google Analytics:

• Measure clicks on buttons and links: See which buttons on your website or app get the most clicks and help convert more users into leads or sales. 

• Analyse scroll depth: Measure how far users are scrolling down your page and improve the content and layout of your pages.

• Track downloads: Track your downloads and link them back to your landing pages and traffic sources (e.g. organic search, email, social, etc.)

• Track form submissions: Capture form submissions in GA4 to understand how your marketing campaigns and content influence your buyer’s journeys. 

Form submissions are generally the most common event tracked in Google Analytics.

But while Google Analytics event tracking is a great starting point, it’s not the best tool for tracking form submissions or leads. Here are some of the reasons why:

• Google has removed most rule-based attribution models from GA4. This limits the way marketers attribute forms to pages and traffic sources in GA4.

• Google Analytics only tracks the number of forms submitted. It doesn’t track personally identifiable information. This makes it difficult for marketers to close the gap between marketing and pipeline activity. 

• Out-of-the-box, Google Analytics doesn’t track offline conversions. This is fine if most of your leads are generated through forms. But if calls are an important part of your lead generation, chances are you’re massively underestimating the value of your marketing.

If you’re looking to track form submissions and leads, there are better options available. One option is to use marketing attribution tools. 

Marketing attribution tools like Ruler are better for tracking form submissions because they provide more detailed information about the journey that leads to a form submission or conversion. 

For example, Ruler can: 

• track any interaction that a user has with your website. This can include things like visiting your website, clicking on an ad, or opening an email.

• Link the real user data back to their marketing touchpoints whenever they convert into a lead and sale.

• Attribute closed revenue back to your inbound efforts, allowing you to accurately measure marketing effectiveness and ROI.

Ruler also uses impression modelling, powered by machine learning, to help you see how your upper-funnel spending influences bottom-of-the-funnel results, like conversions from brand and direct searches.

Google’s tracking often misses the impact of upper-funnel efforts due to limited tracking and a short attribution window, which makes it tricky to allocate budgets effectively.

With Ruler’s insights, though, you get a much clearer picture.

💡 Pro Tip

Ruler’s attribution tracks every step in your customer’s journey, giving you a clear view of your campaign performance. Plus, its impression modelling leverages advanced stats and machine learning to capture the impact of all your channels—even high-impression platforms like Meta and TikTok.

Book a demo to see how it all works

What types of events are available in Google Analytics 4?

Let’s get back on topic. In Google Analytics 4, there are four different types of events:

• Automatically collected events 
• Enhanced measurement events 
• Recommended events 
• Custom events 

Google Analytics allows you to have up to 500 defined events in your account. 

But remember, you can’t delete any events so be sure to consider what data you need before you set up a new event. 

1. Automatically collected events 

Automatically collected events are tracked by default in Google Analytics 4. 

These events provide basic information about how users interact with your website or app, such as the pages they visit, the actions they take, and the time they spend on your site. 

Here are some of the automatically collected events in Google Analytics 4:

• first_visit: This event is triggered when a user visits a website or launches an Android instant app with Analytics enabled for the first time.
• session_start: This event is triggered when a user starts a new session on your website or app.
• User_engagement: When the app is in the foreground or webpage is in focus for at least one second

You can find a list of automatically collected events in Google Analytics 4 here. 

2. Enhanced measurement events 

The main difference between “automatically collected events” and “enhanced measurement events” in GA4 is that automatically tracked events are collected by default, while enhanced measurement events can be enabled or disabled.

Also, enhanced measurement events provide more detailed information about how users interact with your website or app. The best part—these events are collected automatically without additional configuration or code.

To find enhanced measurement events, go to Admin > Data Streams > Select the web data stream. A window will open, and you should see: Enhanced Measurement. 

Here are some of the enhanced events in Google Analytics 4:

• Video engagement: This event is triggered when a user watches a video on your website or app.
• File download: This event is triggered when a user downloads a file from your website or app.
• Search: This event is triggered when a user searches for something on your website or app.
• Checkout: This event is triggered when a user starts the checkout process on your website or app.
• Purchase: This event is triggered when a user purchases on your website or app.

As mentioned, you can disable/enable enhanced events at any time. To do this, click the gear icon in the Enhanced Measurement section and then click the toggle buttons.

You also have the option to personalise certain events to your specifications using “advanced settings”.

3. Recommended events 

Recommended events in Google Analytics 4 are a set of events that Google recommends tracking for specific types of businesses. 

These events provide valuable information about how users interact with your website or app and can help you improve your marketing campaigns and website design.

Google Analytics recommends the following for all properties and business verticals:

Google has also published several events for tracking online sales and the gaming industry. 

You can find a list of these events here. 

It’s worth noting that recommended events aren’t automatically triggered and logged unless you manually implement them.

Custom events 

These are a deeper level of customisation within your events. 

Custom events don’t show up in standard reports, so you need to set up custom reports in order for the data to pull through. These events also require custom coding to enable them.

How to set up an event in Google Analytics 4

For this example, we’re going to show you how to set up an event directly in Google Analytics 4. To set up an event with Google Tag Manager, go to our guide on setting up Google Analytics 4 with Google Tag Manager.

Log into your Google Analytics 4 account. Head to Admin > Data Display > Key Events.

Hit the “Create Event” button.

Start by naming your event. 

For example, something straightforward like demo_booked works well if you’re tracking visits to a thank-you page after a demo form submission.

In the Matching conditions section, set the Value to page_view to specify the type of event you want to track.

If your thank-you page URL is www.mybusiness.com/thank-you, you’ll want to track page views specifically for this page. 

To do this, click “Add Condition.”

For the parameter, enter page_location. Then, select “contains” from the dropdown menu and type your page path (e.g., /thank-you) in the value field.

To copy all the details from the original page_view event, leave the “Copy parameters from the source event” box checked—this is generally recommended.

After configuring everything, click “Create.”

Your custom event will now appear in the custom events table. Just toggle it to mark it as a “key event,” and you’re all set.

Next, go to Key Events under Data Display to find your new event listed. 

It may take some time—up to 24 hours—for it to appear, so don’t worry if it’s not visible right away.

Track more than conversions and events in GA4 

There you have it, our guide on tracking events in Google Analytics 4. 

If you’re looking to track user behaviour on your website, then Google Analytics 4 is the perfect tool. 

With its advanced capabilities, GA4 allows you to gain valuable insights into user behaviour and interactions.

For conversion events, your best bet is to use a marketing attribution tool.

Google Analytics 4 doesn’t provide a complete picture of the customer journey. It only tracks data from your website. In other words, it can’t tell you how leads came in, how they interact with your brand, or how far they made it down the funnel.

But marketing attribution can fill this gap. 

Unlike GA4, marketing attribution takes into account the different touchpoints in a user’s journey and can assign revenue back to your landing pages, traffic sources and ads based on their importance. 

When you’re backed by Google Analytics and marketing attribution data, you can’t go wrong.

And with impression modelling, you gain insights into your upper-funnel investments—something GA4 alone can’t offer.

Could Ruler be the marketing attribution tool you need to measure your conversion events? Book a demo and learn more about our data attribution solution. Unlock the full potential of your data tracking.