What is the User Key Event Rate in GA4 (Google Analytics 4)?

The GA4 User Key Event rate (formerly known as ‘user conversion rate’) is the percentage of users who triggered one or more key events (aka conversion events).

Following is the formula to calculate the User Key Event Rate:

User Key Event Rate = Number of users who triggered one or more key events in a particular time period / total number of users in the same time period.

For example, 

Suppose the number of users who triggered one or more key events in the last 30 days = 50

The total number of users in the last 30 days = 2000

Then, the User Key Event Rate would be calculated as = 50 / 2000 = 2.5%

Note: Once you have set up conversion tracking in your GA4 property, the ‘User Key Event Rate’ metric is populated automatically in your GA4 reports.

The ‘User Key Event Rate’ metric has user scope.

The ‘User Key Event Rate’ metric has user scope. This means this metric is calculated only once per user, regardless of how many times a user triggers a conversion event.

Scenario:

• You have set the ‘newsletter signup’, file download’ and ‘purchase’ events as key events in GA4.
• Over the course of a week, your website has 2000 unique users.
• Out of 2000 users, 25 users made a purchase at least once during that week. Out of those 25 users, 20 users made several purchases on different days within the same week.
• Out of 2000 users, 25 users signed up for your newsletter. Out of those 25 users, 15 users signed up for your newsletter as well as downloaded files. 

Calculation of ‘User Key Event Rate’:

The ‘User Key Event Rate’ metric focuses on whether each unique user triggered a key event and not on the number of key events per user or type of key event (‘newsletter signup’, file download’ and ‘purchase’). 

So, the total number of users who triggered one or more key events in a week

 = 25 users who made a purchase at least once during the week + 25 users who signed up for your newsletter during the week.

= 50 users

So, assuming no overlap between the purchasers and newsletter sign-ups/file downloads, 50 users triggered one or more key events in a week. 

Therefore, the User Key Event Rate is calculated as  = 50 / 2000 = 2.5%

How to find and use the GA4 User Key Event Rate metrics

Let’s calculate the User Key Event Rate for default channel groups in GA4:

Follow the steps below:

Step-1: Navigate to ‘Explore’ in your GA4 property:

Step-2: Click on the ‘BLANK’ report template to create a new exploration report from scratch.

Step-3: Name your report ‘User Key Event Rate – default channel group’:

Step-4: Import the following dimension and metric to your report: 

Dimension – First user default channel group

Metric – User key event rate

Step-5: Double-click on the dimension ‘First user default channel group’ to add it to the canvas on the right. Similarly, double-click on the metric ‘User key event rate’ to add it to the canvas on the right. 

Your screen should now look like the one below:

That’s how you can use the ‘User key event rate’ metric.