People visit your website every day.
But how do you know if they performed an action that is important to the growth of your business?
You can create goals in Google Analytics to measure critical actions on on your website and learn how effective your website is performing.
What is a goal in Google Analytics?
In Google Analytics 4 a goal is now referred to as a “Key Event.”
A Key Event is a way to measure important actions completed by your website visitors.
You can use Key Events to measure both macro conversions (made a purchase, requested a quote) and micro conversions (downloaded a white paper, watched a product video).
Key Events measure how well your site or app fulfills your target objectives.
A Key Event represents an important activity that contributes to the success of your business.
Examples of Key Events include making a purchase (for an ecommerce site), completing a game level (for a mobile gaming app), or submitting a contact information form (for a marketing or lead generation site).
Examples of actions you might want to measure as Key Events:
- Requesting a Quote
- Scheduling an Appointment
- Downloading a White Paper
- Signing up for a Newsletter
- Watching a Video
- Making a Purchase
Why do I need to set up Key Events?
Key Events measure important actions people can take on your website.
Key Events help you determine the effectiveness of your website traffic sources, content, and calls to action.
Key Events will help you gauge how well your website is performing and can give you insights into what improvements you can make to drive more of the desired behaviors.
Without Key Events it’s difficult to connect the dots between the traffic sources that bring people to your site and the important actions that those visitors complete on your site.
This will make it almost impossible to optimize the performance of of your marketing campaigns and website.
Common Key Events
The most common Key Events are:
- a “Contact Us” Form Submission
- a “Schedule a Demo” Form Submission
- a Newsletter Signup
- a type of content consumption (e.g. file download, or video play
- a Purchase
Every Event in Google Analytics can be marked as a Key Event.
But only events important to your business should be marked as Key Events.
And Google DOES NOT know what events are important to the success of you business.
The only default Key Event in Google Analytics is “purchase.”
So if you don’t sell products online then you will have to set up custom events that are important to your business.
How do I set up a Key Event in Google Analytics?
First you have to create the Event in GA4.
I prefer doing this in Google Tag Manager.
This video shows how to create a new Custom Event that will appear in GA4.
The final step of marking an Event as a Key Event is simple.
Go to your Events report in GA4.
Most of you can follow this menu path: Life Cycle > Engagement > Events
Then find the Event you want to mark as a Key Event.
In the image below I’m choosing “outbound_click.”
1) Click the “Three Dots” at the end of event row (row 7 in the example).
2) Click “Mark as Key Event.”
Easy peasy.
Need help setting up your Key Events?
If you are struggling to set up your Key Events in GA4, then let’s schedule a quick call to get you unstuck.
You can do that here >> https://calendly.com/kyleakerman
