Trying to set up your GA4 property to get you the same data as your Universal Analytics view can feel daunting. It’s no secret that the two products have some huge differences. But the SEO community keeps hearing it’s a best practice to set up a GA4 property now to give you better historical data when we have to make the full leap after Google sunsets Universal Analytics.
Setting up GA4 Conversion Events to mimic Universal Analytics Goals is top of mind for a lot of us, especially as we think about data we’ll want for comparison in the future. Today we’ll look at how to match a Universal Analytics Destination Goal in a GA4 Property.
Universal Analytics Destination Goal
Here’s an example of how your destination goal probably looks in Universal Analytics.
Goal setup is set to custom. Goal type is set to Destination. And in Goal Details, you have some combination of URLs entered and have selected either “Equals,” “Begins with,” or “Regular Expression,” depending on the complexity of your site, the number of confirmation pages you have for different forms, etc.
Step 1. Configure Events Screen in GA4
To match this destination goal in GA4, we won’t need to go into the Admin Panel. We’ll start in the “Configure” section.
There are a few options on this screen that will let you create a conversion event. You can accomplish the same thing in a couple of ways, but we’re going to talk about creating a custom event, then marking it as a conversion.
Step 2. Create a Custom Event
Select “events” on the bar at the left and click “Create event.”
Click “create” on the next screen. Up first, we have to name our event.
Naming Events in GA4
This is a little more complicated than naming a goal in Universal Analytics. Lots of names for events are reserved or already configured by Google in the events that come set up “out of the box.”
You can see a list of events Google automatically collects here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9234069?hl=en&ref_topic=9756175
Here’s a list of Google’s recommended events for all properties:
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9267735?hl=en&ref_topic=9756175
You can also see a list of recommended events by vertical on the right siderail on that page.
This matters because we don’t want to name our custom event any of the names Google has “reserved.” We also want to use those recommended names and conventions where possible when Google has recommended a way to track a certain behavior.
A simple “thank you” page for a form submission isn’t included on this list anywhere. It doesn’t quite fit in the “generate lead” category and isn’t a perfect fit for any of the other recommended events. This means we’re in the clear to set it up on our own.
We’re going to name this event “confirmation” in all lowercase, like the rest of the event names recommended by Google.
Event Matching Conditions
We’ll add two matching conditions. To start, we want event_name equals page_view. This lets us base our custom event on the automatically collected page_view event.
Next click, “add condition.” This is how we’ll specify which page_view events we want to measure with this custom event.
In Universal Analytics, this is where we would add the URL. But GA4 doesn’t offer URL as an option for parameter.
In this case, our closest equivalent is the “page_location” parameter, so we’ll use that.
GA4 offers a lot more options in the operator box than we get in Universal Analytics Goal setup.
For this setup, we’re going to use “contains (ignore case)” to work with the page_location parameter best.
The page_location parameter actually captures the full url for a page – https://exampledomain.com/thank-you/, so it’s best to use a “contains” operator to mimic the destination goal. If we use “equals” or “starts with,” we’ll need to include the full url including domain, not just the slug.
Notice in the screenshot that the value is “thank-you” without any “/” characters. In several attempts to set up conversion tracking in GA4, none of my events using a “/” in a page_location value have been successful.
Now we’ll save the event and start measuring.
Step 3. Mark Our Custom Event as a Conversion
The basics of marking an event as a conversion are extremely simple. Once an event is showing up in your events list on the Configuration > Events screen, you just toggle the switch in the “Mark as Conversion” column.
Then you’ll be able to see this event in your “Conversions” configuration screen. It should also start being tracked in all your reporting.
But it isn’t usually that immediate or simple.
First, if there’s anything wrong with your event set up, it won’t track and therefore won’t show up in your “Existing Events” list. You can go into the “Conversion” configuration and indicate you want it to be marked as a conversion by name alone. But that still won’t show up in your reporting until it’s configured correctly.
Troubleshooting Custom Events and Conversions
GA4 gives you a couple of options to test if your events are firing in close to real time. You can use the DebugView in the “Configure” section or the Realtime overview in the “Reports” section.
If you don’t see your event firing with these tools, don’t panic. I’ve seen several events not take effect immediately. There have been a few times that I check the regular Events report 24 hours later and see the event is actually recording. If that’s the case, it’s easy enough to go back into Configure > Events and mark your event as a conversion.
If you’re still not seeing the event fire and want to check the setup, it’s a little less intuitive than with Universal Analytics.
To find events you’ve created that aren’t firing, you need to go to Configure > Events > Create Event. You’ll see the event you set up listed there and will be able to click in and edit the setup.
Conclusion
There are other methods to set up this same type of event in GA4, but this is the one I’ve found works best for testing and troubleshooting along the way. By setting this up, you can have historical data on destination goals in both GA4 and Universal Analytics, and even compare the two measurement systems.