Setting up events and conversions in GA4 correctly

Google Analytics 4 tells you how many people visit your website. Nice, but visitor numbers alone don't pay any bills. It gets interesting only when you see what people do: do they call? Do they fill in the contact form? Do they click on your email address? These exact actions are what you record in GA4 as events, and the most important of them you mark as conversions. Here I'll show you how to do it without technical frustration.

What events and conversions actually are

An event is simply an action on your website: a page view, a click, a scroll, a submitted form. GA4 records some of these automatically out of the box. A conversion (called a "key event" in newer GA4 versions) is an event that you declare especially valuable, because it means a real step towards a job.

The difference matters: you don't want to drown in a thousand clicks, but to see the few actions that move your business forward. For most SMEs that's one or two handfuls, no more.

Which actions are worth tracking

Before you set anything up, answer a single question: what should a visitor ideally do? Your events follow almost on their own from that. For a typical SME these are:

• Click on the phone number: whoever taps your number on mobile is keen for a conversation.
• Submitting a contact form: the classic enquiry, usually your most important conversion.
• Click on the email address: another direct way to make contact.
• Click on a "book appointment" or "quote" button: clear buying interest.
• Download of a document: such as a price list or brochure.

Everything else, how far someone scrolls, how long they stay, is nice to know but not a business goal. Concentrate on the actions that lead to a job.

How to set up an event

The good news: thanks to "Enhanced measurement", GA4 already records some things automatically, page views, scrolls, outbound clicks, file downloads. You switch this on in the data stream settings with one click.

For the truly important actions there are two convenient routes:

• Create an event without code: in GA4 you can build a new event from an existing one under "Admin → Events → Create event". Example: whenever the thank-you page after the form (say /danke) is opened, the event "formular_gesendet" should be triggered. No programming needed.
• Event via Google Tag Manager: for clicks on phone, email or buttons, Tag Manager is the cleanest tool. It detects the click and reports it to GA4 as an event. A bit of setup, but very reliable in return.

Give your events meaningful names, "anruf_klick", "offerte_klick", "formular_gesendet". In six months' time you'll be grateful you don't have to read "event_3".

From event to conversion

Once an event has been triggered a few times, it appears in GA4 in the event list. Now the decisive step: mark the important events as a key event (conversion). A toggle next to the event name is enough for that.

From that moment on, GA4 treats this action as a business goal: you see it in dedicated reports, can break it down by channel and finally answer the question that really counts, where do my enquiries come from? Suddenly it becomes visible whether visitors from Google, from Instagram or from the newsletter actually end up enquiring.

Common pitfalls

A few things often go wrong, and then cost you weeks of reliable data:

• Too many conversions: if everything is important, nothing is important. Keep the list short.
• Never tested: check with the GA4 realtime report whether an event really fires when you click yourself. Many setups look finished but fire into the void.
• Bots and your own visits counted: filter out your own traffic, otherwise your test clicks distort the numbers.
• Cookie banner forgotten: in Switzerland and the EU, GA may only load after consent. Without a clean consent setup, data is missing, or it becomes legally tricky.

What this really gives you

With cleanly set-up events you stop guessing. Instead of "we have lots of visitors" you know "last month 14 enquiries came in, most via Google search". That's the basis for steering your marketing budget to where it works, and not to where it merely feels good.

If that sounds like effort: it is a bit, at the start. But it's a one-time setup that afterwards delivers honest numbers month after month. If you like, I'll set up GA4 cleanly for your website, including the right events, the conversions and a correct cookie banner. Feel free to also look at more posts or get in touch directly via the contact form.