Hey there, Benjamin from Loves Data here! Welcome back! Today we're talking all about conversions
in Google Analytics 4 (GA4). I have covered conversions before, but since then Google has
updated the interface and I also wanted to go into more detail about how you can track
and report on your conversions in GA4. I'm going to show you how you can configure
conversions inside Google Analytics and when you might want to use Google Tag Manager.
You can use conversion to report on important actions taking place on your website or in your
app. For example, you might want to report on the number of people completing a form
on your website, making a purchase, or another important action. And once you've configured
conversions in GA4 you will be able to understand the performance of your marketing channels,
make use of the attribution reports, and more. Okay, let's head to Google Analytics...
I'm in my GA4 demo property, so let's select 'Configure'...
We're now looking at all of the events that have been collected. And we can see
a number of different events. These include page view, purchase, scroll, video events and more.
Most of these, like page views and scrolls are automatically tracked by Google Analytics
using the GA4 enhanced measurement feature. I have edit-level permission for the property so
you will notice there is a column on the right that lets us mark any event as a conversion in
Google Analytics. If you don't have the option to mark events as a conversion, then you'll need
to have your permission increased, or get someone who does have edit-level permission to configure
conversions for you. And if you're sending purchase events to GA4, these are automatically
marked as conversions, so you will notice the option is greyed out because you can't disable
this. Okay, so if you see the event you would like to report as a conversion, and you have edit-level
permission, you can simply click the button to enable the event as a conversion. Once enabled,
every time the event is collected into GA4 a conversion will also be counted in your reports.
This is perfect if you wanted to track people watching videos, or scrolling,
but if we were to enable the page view event as a conversion, then every time someone views a page
on our website a conversion would be counted. However, this doesn't work if you only want
to track a thank you page (or confirmation page) as a conversion in Google Analytics.
If you want to track a specific page as a conversion, like your thank you page, then
you will need to track that individual page as a unique event first. There are two ways to do this.
The first option is to create a new event inside Google Analytics based on an existing event.
For example, we can trigger a new event when a page view is reported for our thank you page.
This is the easiest option since everything can be set up inside Google Analytics. The second option
is to configure a new tag in Google Tag Manager that will send an event every time someone views
the thank you page. For example, we could send an event called 'generate lead' when someone
completes the form on our website. We're going to start by looking at the first option where we
trigger a new event inside Google Analytics. Let's head back to Google Analytics... Let's select
'Create Event'... And now let's click 'Create'... I want to track people viewing my thank you page
as a separate event, so I'm going to name my event 'generate', 'underscore', 'lead'... And now we
need to configure the conditions for when we want this event to be triggered. Let's enter 'event',
'underscore', 'name'... Then 'equals'... And let's enter 'page', 'underscore', 'view'...
This ensures that we're only matching page view events. Now let's click 'Add
Condition'... And we're going to enter 'page', 'underscore', 'location'... Then 'contains'...
And let's enter 'thank', 'dash', 'you'... This will mean our new event will trigger every time
someone views a page on our website that has a URL containing 'thank you'. Let's leave 'Copy
parameters from the source event' selected... This will mean all of the parameters from the original
page view event are also available in the new event when it's triggered. And here's an optional
step. Let's click 'Add Modification'... And let's enter 'value' as the parameter name... And '50' as
the value... Now let's click 'Add Modification' again... And let's name the parameter
'currency'... And enter 'USD' as the value... Adding these two parameters to our new event means
we're assigning a value of fifty US dollars every time someone converts. You can adjust this to the
value of your particular conversion and your preferred currency. Now let's click 'Create'...
We've now created a new event that will be triggered when someone views a page with a URL
containing thank you on our website. I've had people ask how long does it take for the
conversion event to show up in Google Analytics. It's a great question! Once someone views a page
that matches our condition, you will be able to see the event in the real time reports straight
away. However, the standard reports, including the events report we were looking at previously,
typically takes 12 to 24 hours for data to show up. So if someone visits the thank you page now,
I recommend checking back tomorrow to see it in your reports. Okay, let's close this... Since you
won't see your new event in this report straight away, you can wait until it shows up to enable it
as a conversion, or you can pre-configure your event as a conversion in advance.
This means that once the event is triggered it will also be marked as a conversion.
To do this, let's navigate to 'Conversions'... And let's click 'New Conversion Event'...
Now we need to enter the name of our conversion event exactly as we named it when it was created.
Continuing our example, this would be 'generate', 'underscore', 'lead', all in lowercase... Now we
can click 'Save'... Once our event is triggered it will also be counted as a conversion.
And if you're wondering, you can enable up to 30 unique events as conversion in GA4,
so you should have plenty of scope to track all of those important actions as conversions.
And if you start to get close to this limit, then you can consider reducing the number of
uniquely named events you're using and make use of a custom parameter to view more granular details,
but that's a topic for another day. Now you will see conversions in this report,
but I also want to show you where you can see them in the standard reports. Let's select 'Reports'...
Then 'Engagement'... And then 'Conversions'...
I previously configured the conversion we've been looking at today, so this means I already
have data in my demo property. If you've only just configured your conversion, then you will
need to wait until it's been triggered before you begin to see conversion in this report. We
can see all of our conversion events, and we can select an individual event to see more details...
We can now see the 'Source' or how people are finding our website before they convert... And we
can see the total number of conversions, and any conversion value we've defined for the action...
You can change the dimension used for the report... So you might want to change this
to medium, campaign, or one of the other options... And you can also
find your conversions in the other reports. For example, let's select 'Acquisition'... And then
'User Acquisition'... If we scroll to the right... We can also see conversions
in this report... And selecting the drop-down, let's you choose an individual conversion event...
Okay, but what if you want to trigger an event based on a custom action and use
that as a conversion in Google Analytics? Well in that case, you're probably going to want to
use Google Tag Manager. Let's head to my demo site to take a look at how we can track a popup form...
We're going to look at how to track people completing an ajax popup form on Squarespace.
And I'm going to show you how to do this using an element visibility trigger in Google Tag Manager.
There are different ways to achieve this, so if you're interested in exploring other options,
then I recommend watching my video covering button tracking too. I've included a link in the
extra resources below this video. To start, I'm going to open the form... Fill in some details...
And click 'Submit'...
We can see that there is a thank you message. So let's right click and select 'Inspect Element'...
This shows us that the thank you message is contained in a div, and the div has a
class of 'form', 'dash', 'submission', 'dash', 'text'... Let's copy this because we will use
this to configure our trigger in a moment... Now let's head to Google Tag Manager...
We can see we have an existing GA4 configuration tag. This tag automatically sends events,
including page views, to Google Analytics. Take a moment to ensure you also have a GA4 configuration
tag in Google Tag Manager. Now let's create a new tag... Let's name the tag 'Form Submission GA4'...
Select 'Tag Configuration'... And let's choose 'GA4 Event' as the 'Tag Type'... We need to select
our existing GA4 configuration tag... And let's name the event 'generate', 'underscore', 'lead'...
Now let's select 'Event Parameters'... And let's click 'Add Row'... We're going to assign
a value for each conversion like we did for the conversion we configured inside Google Analytics,
so let's enter 'value' as the 'Parameter Name'... And let's enter '50' as the 'Value'. This means
we will be reporting $50 as the average conversion value. Again, this is optional.
Now let's add another row... And enter 'currency' as the 'Parameter Name'... And 'USD' as the
'Value'... And let's add one more row... Let's enter 'page', 'underscore', 'location' as the
'Parameter Name'... And let's click the variable icon... And choose 'Page URL'... Now let's select
'Triggering'... And we need to create a new trigger that will only fire our GA4 event
tag when someone views the thank you message on our website. Let's click the blue plus sign...
Let's name the trigger 'Form Submission'... And select 'Trigger Configuration'...
Let's choose 'Element Visibility' as the trigger type... And let's change the selection method to
'CSS Selector'... Now we need to enter the class we found for the thank you message.
So let's enter 'dot', then 'form', 'dash', 'submission', 'dash',
'text'... This will mean that when the thank you message is visible in someone's browser we
can then trigger our GA4 event tag. Let's click 'Save'... And let's save the tag...
Now let's click 'Preview' to see if our new tag fires when the form is completed...
We enter the URL for our website... And click 'Connect'...
Now let's open the form... Enter some details... And click 'Submit'...
Now we can open the tag assistant tab... Let's select 'Element Visibility' on the left...
We can see our tag has fired. This means our event has been sent to Google Analytics.
We can now head back to Google Tag Manager and publish our container to the website.
You can apply the same technique to any other actions you want to track as conversions into
Google Analytics. The main thing is that you need to create a trigger that will fire
the GA4 event tag once someone has completed your desired action. So this could be a form,
like we've covered, it could be clicking a button, viewing a page, or any other action you choose.
Now I want to show you how to create a funnel visualization for the steps leading to your
conversion. Let's head back to Google Analytics... And let's select 'Explore'... You can start with
the template to create a funnel visualization, but let's click 'Blank' to start from scratch...
Let's name our report 'Conversion Funnel'... And let's select 'Free Form' and change this to
'Funnel Exploration'... Now let's click the pencil icon next to 'Steps'... Let's
name the first step 'Register'... And let's add a condition... Let's search for
and select 'Page Location'... Now let's click 'Add Filter'... And enter 'register', 'dot', 'html'...
And click 'Apply'... Let's add a step... And let's name the step 'Registration Complete'... Let's add
a condition... Let's search for and select 'Page Location' again... And let's click 'Add Filter'...
And enter 'registersuccess', 'dot', 'html'... And click 'Apply'... And click 'Apply' again...
We've now created a simple two-step funnel visualization in Google Analytics.
To learn even more about the options available in this report, I've included a link to my dedicated
funnel visualization video in the description below this video. I encourage you to check it out.
So that's how you can configure conversions and report on them in GA4. Remember that you
will need to start by ensuring that you have the action tracked as an event into Google Analytics.
You can do this inside Google Analytics by creating a new event based on an existing event.
Or you can use Google Tag Manager to send an event to Google Analytics for the particular
action you want to track. Then, once you've enabled the event as a conversion, you will
see it reported as a conversion. What events are you going to track as conversions? I'd love
to know! Let me know in the comments below. And if you found this video helpful please like it,
so I know to make more videos like this one. See you in the next video!