GA4 no longer has "conversions". Google renamed the metric to key events in 2024, and the word conversion now belongs to Google Ads. To track one, open Admin, then Data display, then Events, and mark the event as a key event. Marking is not retroactive, a standard property holds 30 key events, and the totals will not match Google Ads. GA4 reports sessions and events, never a named person.
If you came here looking for the conversions toggle in Google Analytics, it is not there. You are not missing it. In 2024 Google renamed the GA4 metric "Conversions" to "Key events", and the setting you want now carries the new name.
That rename is the single biggest reason people get stuck on this topic. They search for a button that no longer has that label, find a tutorial from 2022 that describes it, and conclude their property is broken. It is not. This guide explains what the names mean now, how to mark a key event, and what the numbers can and cannot tell you. For how this fits next to tracking that names the lead, see conversion tracking software.
The rename: conversions are now key events
In GA4, a key event is an event you have flagged as important to the business, such as a form submission or a purchase. Before the rename, flagging an event made it a "conversion". Now it makes it a key event, and reports show a Key events column where the Conversions column used to be.
The word conversion did not disappear. It moved. In Google Ads, a conversion is a counted outcome inside your ad account. The two products used to share the term, which blurred the difference between what GA4 measured and what Ads bid on. The rename separates them. A key event is a GA4 idea. A conversion is a Google Ads idea.
The rename was not applied everywhere at once. Some screens, particularly in the Google Ads linking flow and the Advertising workspace, still use the old word. If a screen says conversion while the report says key event, they are describing the same thing from two products.
How to mark a key event
There are two routes, and both live in the same place. In GA4 open Admin, then Data display, then Events.
- The event already exists. Find it in the list and switch on the star in the key event column. That is the whole change.
- The event does not exist yet. Use Create event, define the event from an existing one, and turn on the Mark as key event toggle while you create it.
Event names are case sensitive. "Generate_lead" and "generate_lead" are two different events, and marking one does nothing for the other. If your form tool sends one spelling and you marked another, your key event count will read zero while the form works perfectly.
Check the event appears at all before you mark it. An event only shows in the Events list after GA4 has received it at least once, so submit a test form first, then look.
Marking is not retroactive
A key event counts from the moment you mark it. It does not go back and relabel past data. If a form has been collecting submissions for six months and you mark the event today, your Key events column starts at today.
The practical lesson: mark your important events before you need the numbers, not when someone asks for a report. If you inherit a property, check how long each key event has actually been marked before you compare periods, or you will read a setup date as a performance drop.
Limits worth knowing
Google publishes configuration limits for GA4. A standard property can have 30 key events, and a Google Analytics 360 property can have 50.
Thirty sounds generous until a property has been tagged by three agencies. If you are close to the limit, audit before you add: archive the key events nobody reads.
Which events deserve the star
Mark outcomes, not activity. A key event should be something you would be glad to see more of, and sorry to see fewer of. A completed enquiry form is one. A scroll past 50 percent of a page is not, however satisfying the chart looks.
A good test is to imagine the number going up by half next month and ask what you would do about it. If the answer is "spend more on whatever caused that", the event earns its star. If the answer is a shrug, it belongs in ordinary event reporting, where it will not crowd out the ones that matter or drown them in a column of noise.
It also helps to mark one event per outcome. If the same form submission fires a click event, a validation event and a thank-you page event, marking all three reports one lead three times. Pick the one that fires once, after the submission succeeds, and mark that.
Name the event for the business action, in lowercase with underscores, and keep the spelling identical everywhere it is set up. Because names are case sensitive, a consistent convention does more to protect your numbers than any report filter.
Sending key events to Google Ads
If your GA4 property is linked to a Google Ads account, you can import key events into Ads, where each one becomes a conversion you can bid on. That is the path described as the third option in Google Ads conversion tracking setup, which covers when to use it and when a native tag is the better choice.
The import brings GA4's counting rules with it. The conversion in Ads reflects the key event GA4 recorded, not an independent measurement made by an Ads tag. That is convenient, and it is also why the two products can disagree.
Why GA4 and Google Ads never agree
You will see a different number for the same form in GA4 and in Google Ads. This is normal. It is not a fault in either product, and chasing a perfect match is a waste of an afternoon. The usual causes:
- Different scope. GA4 counts a key event from every source of traffic. Google Ads counts only the outcomes it attributes to your ads.
- Different attribution. The two products can credit the same event to different sources, so the same lead counts for one channel in GA4 and another in Ads.
- Different timing. One product can date an outcome by when it happened, the other by when the click took place, so a month's totals do not line up.
- Different counting rules. A Google Ads conversion action can count once per click or every time. A GA4 event counts each time it fires unless you configure it otherwise.
- Different data loss. Consent choices, blocked scripts and browser privacy controls remove data from each product in different ways.
Treat each number as an answer to a different question. GA4 answers "how often did this event happen on my site, from anywhere". Ads answers "how many outcomes does Google credit to my ads". Use Ads numbers for bidding decisions inside Ads, and GA4 numbers for the site as a whole.
The limit of the model
GA4 is built around sessions and events. A key event tells you that something happened in a session. It never tells you who the person was, because GA4 is designed not to hold personal data. You can say "forty form submissions came from paid search". You cannot say which forty people they were, or which of them became customers.
That is a design choice, and it is the right one for an analytics product. It means a key event answers how many, not who. The question that decides where the money goes, which channel produced the customers worth having, needs a record at the level of the lead. The comparison with Google Analytics sets out the difference, and content analytics versus web analytics explains why the two kinds of measurement answer different questions.
Lead Source works at that level. It records the source channel, campaign, landing page and full page journey behind each form submission, first touch and last touch, and names the person when the form captures a name. It sits beside GA4. Keep your key events exactly as marked above. The conversion tracking page shows the two side by side.
If the vocabulary is still new, what conversion tracking is defines it in plain English.