What are Google Analytics 4 Custom Events?
How Can I Set Up Custom Events in GA4?
Setting Up Custom Events Directly in GA4
The Importance of Custom Definitions
Reporting on Conversions in GA4
What are the Limitations of Custom Events in GA4?
Start Tracking Your GA4 Custom Events With Narrative BI
Tracking custom events in Google Analytics 4 is one of the ultimate ways to unlock your marketing potential by leveraging analytics. However, there’s no denying that GA4 custom events come with a learning curve. You’ll have to invest time into understanding this process.
Beyond tracking crucial information to understand what matters, Google Analytics custom events hold several options to improve organizational performance. Setting up custom events for enhanced results is the first step to leveraging analytics like never before. While numerous opportunities are available through custom events, GA4 also has limitations you’ll encounter.
Read the following to set up custom events and dimensions in Google Analytics 4 to improve analytics, collect accurate data, and enhance business success.
Custom events are helpful for many organizations–but what are custom events in Google Analytics 4?
A custom event in GA4 is an event with set parameters defined by the user. Custom events allow users to collect data that Analytics doesn’t collect automatically. This provides a unique approach to your analytic capabilities.
Events involve any interaction or occurrence happening within a website or application. While Google uses some pre-configured events, a custom event requires the user to configure the parameter to measure user interactions.
There are four event types in GA4, broken down below:
These custom events are highly useful for website owners to better understand their audience. These events could cover anything from clicks on a specific button to the number of times a video has played and more.
Numerous examples of custom events in GA4 help businesses tailor their data collection and analytic capabilities. For instance, if you want to track the number of views or clicks on a specific image, you can set up a custom event with GA4 and Google Tag Manager. Other examples of custom events in GA4 that you might set up include the following:
Now for the tricky part: setting up custom events in GA4 to optimize your analytics and enhance your marketing. Below is a breakdown of every step you need to take to maximize your GA4 potential and make a difference in your business.
One option for setting up custom events in GA4 is to send your new custom events to GA4 from your Google Tag Manager account. This option is relatively simple, depending on the action you’re attempting to track. This process is possible through the following steps:
Setting up your custom events directly in GA4 is another option. Doing this allows you to trigger new events based on your current events, making creating new ones for conversions easier.
Before beginning the process, ensure you have editor/administrator permission for the specific property. You can set up events directly in GA4 in the following steps:
Any custom parameter created with Google Analytics 4 must be included as a custom definition in GA4. Custom definitions are crucial additions to your GA4 setup, especially when GA4 is tailored to your business needs.
Custom definitions are essential because they provide non-standard data in your GA4 reports, guaranteeing more thorough insights into your marketing performance. When built-in definitions are unavailable, a custom definition is the key to unlocking your potential. However, custom definitions will complicate your GA4 setup and
To register custom definitions, navigate to “Admin → Custom Definitions” in your Google Analytics 4 account and click the “Create Custom Dimension” button at the top right corner.
Enter the name of your parameter and select the “Event” scope to ensure that it’s applied to one event. Next, choose your event parameter as it appeared in your GTM tag.
Save your custom dimension.
Google Analytics 4 allows you to report on conversions in various ways. Users can use GA4’s pre-configured reports, which contain the “Conversions” metric, to identify the number of conversions across marketing channels, such as “Traffic Acquisition” report”:
Additionally, you can create custom exploration reports in GA4 to track metrics relevant to your goals:
By leveraging several reporting options, you can gain a thorough understanding of your overall performance. This information helps tailor your future efforts to better meet the needs and expectations of your audience.
While setting up custom events directly in GA4 has many advantages and is convenient, there are some limitations of custom events in GA4 to be aware of. Consider the following:
Custom events in GA4 have unique parameters that can collect key data not already collected by Google Analytics. By setting up and tracking custom events in GA4, you can understand your online performance and increase customer conversion rates. These metrics can help tailor marketing efforts to different customer segments. GA4 custom events can improve your analytics and promote accurate, real-time data for deeper insights.
Boosting your analytics capabilities using GA4 custom event tracking is best when you connect your Google Analytics account to Narrative BI.
Our platform provides a complete view of your crucial analytics. Narrative BI helps you automatically track crucial metrics to achieve your business goals and receive alerts to elevate your performance.
Narrative BI’s holistic platform provides everything you need to understand your marketing performance in a single glance.
Narrative BI helps you make accurate, data-driven decisions through solutions to bring your performance to the next level. Sign up with Narrative BI today for more marketing reports to optimize your GA4 capabilities.