Last Updated: December 28, 2024

The key events report in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) allows you to measure and report on key events (aka conversions) that are considered critical for understanding the success of your website, app and/or marketing campaigns.

Key Events can include user interactions, such as form submissions, sign-ups, add-to-carts, purchases, and other significant activities you want to track as user engagement or conversion indicators.

Don’t create Key Events in GA4 via the ‘New Key Event’ button.

GA4 allows you to set up conversion tracking by creating a new key event and then logging that event.

However, this approach is not recommended because unless your event is logged, you can continue to see (not set) values for your key event.

Depending on your website traffic, your GA4 property may have already recorded a considerable amount of (not set) values by the time your key event is recorded and reported in your GA4 reports.

And what if your key event is not logged because of an implementation error?

While you fix this issue, your property will continue to record (not set) values in the background.

You need to first make sure that your event is recorded before you upgrade it to the key event.

The best practice is to log/record your desired event first and then mark it as a ‘key event’.

By default, the ‘Key Events’ report is no longer available in GA4.

Earlier, it was available under ‘Reports’ > ‘Engagement’:

But fear not.

You can still create and use this report via the exploration report template.

Follow the steps below to create the ‘Key Events’ report in GA4:

Step-1: Login to your GA4 property and then click on ‘Explore’:

Step-2: Click on the ‘Blank’ template:

Step-3: Name your report ‘Key Events Report’.

Step-4: Add the ‘Event name’ dimension by clicking on the + button:

Step-5: Add the ‘key events’ metric by clicking on the + button:

Step-6: Double-click on the dimension ‘Event Name’ so that it is automatically added to the Rows section:

Note: When you double-click on the dimension, you won’t see any change to the canvas on the right. But the dimension has been added to the canvas. Only when you start adding metrics to the canvas will you start seeing the dimension(s) added to the canvas.

Step-7: Double-click on the ‘Key events’ metric so that it is automatically added to the blank canvas on the right:

You should now see a screen like the one below:

That’s how you can create the ‘Key events’ report in GA4.