Hey there, measurement, ladies and gentlemen.
So Google introduced automatic form tracking in GA4.
Is it a good solution?
Let's test it out together.
This is our website.
And here you can see this form.
I was checking our GA4 reports and I
was looking at the metrics for this freshly created landing page.
And this is what I discovered.
We have 22 users, and if you go to Event Count here
in the dropdown list, you can select Form Submit and we have 42 events.
I was a bit alarmed by this number.
Also, I did not implement this event.
I did not do it by Tag Manager or in the source code.
So how is it set up?
Well, it comes from the GA4 Enhanced measurement.
In other words, it is tracked auto magically.
Does it really work like a magic spell?
This is something that we will find out together right now.
Okay, so that we're on the same page, let's go to the Google documentation.
And here you can see enhanced event measurement.
And you already know that there are four event types in GA4.
We have automatically collected Events,
enhanced Measurement Events, recommended Events, as well as custom events.
And right now, we're talking about Enhanced Measurement.
You don't need to implement any code on your own.
So it's all tracked automatically.
Let's scroll down.
And this is our event.
Here we have form interactions that comprise form start and form submit.
So the Form Start event fires when a user interacts with your form for the first
time, whereas Form Submit fires when a user submits a form.
There are also some parameters.
So these are the attributes that describe your event in detail.
And we have form-id form name, form destination for the form start event
and additionally form submit text for the form submit event.
Great. How can you activate this?
So when you go to your analytics, here you have Admin.
You should go to Data Streams,
select your stream, and here you have Enhanced Measurement.
If you click here, we have four more.
In my case, it's enabled already.
And here you can see form interactions.
So I don't have to enable it because it's already activated.
But if you click here, Configure Enhanced Measurement,
you can either enable or disable Form Interactions.
Okay, so now the most exciting part.
Let's see how it works.
Of course, it has a great advantage if you don't want to modify the code,
if you don't have a developer who can help you with the implementation.
But is it a perfect solution?
Okay, in order to test this feature, we will use the Debug View.
So you should go to Configure.
And here Debug view.
To activate the Debug View, you should use either the extension
that is called the GA Debug or Tag Manager Preview.
So I will use the Tag Manager. Preview.
Let's click preview.
And here is my landing page.
Let's click connect. Okay.
Tag Assistant connected.
And let's have a look what we have here.
Continue.
And here in the Tag Manager you can see
that we have form Start, form submit, although I did not submit my form yet.
So let's have a look.
Let's just extend this part.
And here we have form destination Facebook.
This is a bad sign, so why is it happening?
So this is one of the first disadvantages of using this GA4 enhanced measurement
feature because Facebook uses a dummy data form to send GET data.
So Page View event is sent to servers
and is registered as a form submit by GA4.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure if you're also facing the same problem.
Just let me know in the comments.
And I do have my Facebook Pixel implemented via Tag Manager.
Let's go to Debug view.
And let's see here
we have form start, form submit and we have also form destination Facebook.
Yeah, these are unfortunately the implications that you might be facing.
Okay, anyways,
this is the first disadvantage, but let me go back to my page and let me
actually submit this form and let me provide the email.
But I will simply write test because let's say I want to exclude all false positives
because many people, they might miss the email sign or just make a mistake.
And this is absolutely natural, but we do not want to track that.
So let me click sign up now.
And my form, as you can see,
is a good form because it does not allow me to submit this input.
Let's go to Tag Assistant and let's see what happens here.
Yeah, we do have form submit again.
And here one more event.
So yeah, GA4 is also tracking false positives.
So this is a second.
Yeah, here we go.
Form submit, unfortunately, and we cannot
change it anyhow because we do not have any settings.
In the enhanced measurements,
you can either activate or disable this feature and we have no impact on that.
So if I submit my form for the third time
correctly, it should also be registered.
So as you can see,
we are tracking this event three times, unfortunately, and this is in my specific
case, of course, if you don't have a developer and you want
to have this tracking, you could use this feature.
But as you can see, in my case, this form is tracked three times because I
have Facebook Pixel and if you provide just submit the form with a mistake,
it is also tracked, although the form is not submitted in reality.
So you should be careful using this one.
You should always verify it.
You should test your event and I would
recommend sticking to the good old implementation way via Tag Manager,
let's say, because in my case I'm having Tag Manager.
So what should you do?
You should go to Admin and we have data streams again.
And my recommendation would be to go to your enhanced measurement
and to disable form interactions and to configure this event manually so
that you have correct data, so that you have everything configured in a good way.
So we explored automatic form tracking in GA4.
How do you like this feature?
Please leave a comment in the comments section below.
And if you like this video, please give it a thumbs up and see you next time.
Happy measuring.