GA4 tells you nothing useful? Set up key events, step by step

Plenty of small businesses have Google Analytics installed and cannot answer the one question that matters: did the website bring in any enquiries last month? The reports show visitors, pages and countries, and a column called key events full of zeros.

Almost always, the reason is simple. GA4 counts page views and a few interactions by itself, but it does not know which of them matter to you. Until you tell it, by marking an event as a key event, it has nothing to report. For a website, Google marks only one event as a key event by default, purchase, which a business that takes enquiries rather than online payments may never send (Google, set up key events).

This guide sets that right, in order, using Google's own help pages as they read on 28 September 2026.

First, the names, because most advice online is out of date

GA4's vocabulary has changed twice, and a lot of guides, videos and plug-ins still use the old words.

• Goals. Universal Analytics, the previous version, called your important actions goals. Google says standard Universal Analytics properties stopped processing data from 1 July 2023 (Google, Universal Analytics has been replaced). Any guide that mentions goals is about software that no longer collects anything.
• Conversions. GA4 at first called them conversions, and older GA4 guides tell you to "mark as conversion".
• Key events. On 27 March 2024, Google's release notes announced the change that still applies: "From now on, events that measure actions that are important to the success of your business are now called 'key events.'" (Google Analytics release notes, archived May 2024)

The word conversion did not disappear. It now means something narrower: "A 'conversion' now refers to an important action that you want to use to measure the performance of your ad campaigns and optimize your bidding strategy" (Google, conversions vs key events). In plain terms: key events are for understanding your business, conversions are for running Google Ads.

Even the buttons have moved. Google's current help describes a star beside an existing event, where older guides describe a switch. If what you see does not match a guide, check the date on the guide before you check your settings.

Step 1: decide what counts

Pick two or three actions that genuinely mean business, not ten that merely mean activity. For most small firms that is:

• an enquiry form sent;
• a booking made, if you take bookings online;
• a purchase, if you sell online.

Taps on your phone number or email address are worth recording too, but as separate events, because a tap is not the same as a call. Google allows up to 30 key events on a standard property, and you will not need anything like that many.

Step 2: make sure there is an event to mark

A key event is an ordinary event with a label on it, so something has to send the event first. There are three routes, from least to most work.

If your form sends people to a thank-you page

This is the easiest reliable route, and it needs no change to your website. GA4 already records a page_view every time someone lands on the thank-you page; you create a new event from it. Google's guide to creating events walks through exactly this case:

1. In Admin, under Data display, click Events.
2. Click Create event.
3. Give it a name with no spaces or special characters, such as enquiry_sent.
4. Choose Create without code, pick page_view as the event, and enter the address of your thank-you page.
5. Click Create. You can mark it as a key event on the same screen.

The page address must be one that only appears after a successful enquiry. If people can reach the thank-you page by browsing, the count will be wrong.

If there is no thank-you page: the automatic form events

GA4's enhanced measurement can record form interactions without any code, as form_start and form_submit (Google, enhanced measurement). Google describes form_submit as firing "when the user submits a form".

Notice what that does not say. It does not say the form was sent successfully, and it fires for every form on the site, a newsletter box as much as your enquiry form, told apart only by its form_id and form_name details. Test it with a real enquiry, and look at which forms it fires on, before you rely on it.

The most reliable route: an event your website sends

Ask whoever built your site to send an event at the moment the form confirms it has been sent, either in the site's code or through Google Tag Manager. Google's list of recommended events includes one made for this, generate_lead, described as when a user "submits a form or a request for information". Using Google's own name keeps your set-up in line with its documentation.

Step 3: mark it as a key event

You need the Marketer role or above in the property. Then, from Google's key events set-up page:

1. In Admin, under Data display, click Events.
2. Find your event in the list.
3. "Mark the event as a key event by clicking the star icon next to it."

A new event may not appear in the list until GA4 has received it once. You can still mark it in advance by creating it with the same name.

Step 4: test it

Send a real enquiry through your own form, then open the Realtime report. Google says Realtime updates "a few minutes after a user triggers a key event", while standard reports can take "up to 24 hours".

If nothing arrives, the usual suspects are a thank-you page address that does not match exactly, a form that does not reload the page (so form_submit never fires), or a consent banner that stopped GA4 recording your own visit because you declined.

Then check it against reality for a month. If GA4 counts twelve enquiries and your inbox has twenty, something is not being recorded.

Reading the results

Marking an event is not retrospective. Google is explicit: "It doesn't change historic data." Last year's enquiries will stay invisible; the count starts from the day you set it up.

Once it is running, many standard reports gain a useful column. Google names the Landing pages and User acquisition reports among those with a Key events column, and you can pick one key event from its menu to see which channels and pages bring enquiries. Our guide to the five GA4 reports you need covers reading them.

If you run Google Ads, the key event is also what you build an Ads conversion from, so both tools count the same thing. Google explains how in creating Google Ads conversions from key events; whether the ads are worth running is a separate sum, which we set out in is Google Ads worth it for a small business?

Consent changes the numbers

GA4 only records visitors whose data it is allowed to collect. If your site asks for consent before analytics runs, which is still the safe reading of the UK rules for GA4, people who decline are not counted, and your key events will undercount real enquiries. That is expected, and it is not a reason to switch analytics on without asking; Google's Consent Mode, and why its advanced version is unsettled in the UK, is covered in Google Consent Mode, explained. We cover the rules, and why the question is not settled for GA4, in do you need a cookie banner for analytics?. It is also why your own inbox, not GA4, is the final word on how many enquiries you had.

Where the evidence is thin

• The interface keeps changing. Menu names, buttons and even Google's own help pages have changed since 2024, and two of Google's pages today describe the same step differently (a star in one, a switch in another). What is above matches Google's help on 28 September 2026.
• The automatic form events. Google does not say whether form_submit waits for a successful send or how it treats forms that do not reload the page. We treat it as a starting point to test, not a measure to trust.
• Phone taps. Google's list of automatic enhanced measurement events does not include taps on a phone number, and it does not say whether a tel: link counts as an outbound click. Test it in Realtime, or have a dedicated event set up.

If you would rather have it set up and checked properly, our GA4 and tracking fix is a fixed £2,500 and takes about two weeks.