In this article, you will learn the difference between GA4 Conversions and Key Events.

Previously, in GA4, you could mark important events as conversions:

Google Ads also uses the ‘Conversions’ metric, which is processed differently than in GA4. 

This used to create discrepancies between the Google Ads and GA4 conversion count. 

To fix this problem, in March 2024, Google renamed GA4 Conversions to ‘Key Events’. 

Going forward, you mark important events as ‘Key Events’ in GA4:

Since ‘Key events’ replaces’ conversions’ in a GA4 property, all metrics related to conversions have been renamed.

For example, 

‘Conversions’ metric is renamed to ‘Key Events’:

‘session conversion rate’ is renamed to ‘session key event rate’. 

‘User conversion rate’ is renamed to ‘User key event rate’

The ‘Is conversion event’ dimension is renamed to the ‘Is key event’:

The ‘Days to Conversion’ metric is renamed to ‘Days to key event’:

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The ‘Touchpoints to conversion’ metric is renamed to ‘Touchpoints to key event’:

Note: You don’t need to change your existing tracking setup to accommodate the name change, and it will not affect your existing tracking or reporting.

Google has automatically renamed ‘conversions’ to ‘key events’ wherever you were using the ‘conversions’ metric.

For example, if you were using the ‘conversions’ metric in the formula meant for a calculated metric, your formula now uses the ‘key events’ automatically:

Going forward, you will need to mark events as ‘key events’ to track them as conversions in your GA4 property.

However, the term ‘conversions’ will still be used in your GA4 property, but only for Google Ads conversions.

Any key event that is imported to Google Ads will be labelled as ‘conversions’ in GA4. In other words, conversions are those key events that are imported to Google Ads. 

You can see the conversions data in GA4 through the ‘Conversion Performance’ report:

Note: A GA4 event can be a Key Event and a Conversion at the same time.