What is Key Event?
The GA4 terminology (formerly 'Conversions') used to designate the most important user actions that drive business success.
In early 2024, Google Analytics 4 renamed "Conversions" to "Key Events" to align better with Google Ads terminology. A Key Event is simply an event that you have manually marked as important in your GA4 property settings.
How they work:
Every action in GA4 is an event (page_view, scroll, click). A Key Event is just a regular event that you've told GA4 to count in a special column. Common Key Events include:
purchasegenerate_leadsign_upbegin_checkout
Why they matter:
If you do not mark events as Key Events, you cannot import them into Google Ads for bid optimization, and they will not appear in the 'Conversions/Key Events' columns in your standard acquisition reports.
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