My website had Google Analytics 4 without a single key event for months. Meanwhile I was posting “measure or do nothing”. And a form someone submitted on 22 April 2026, I read in August. Four months.
I’m Nico, a freelance digital marketing consultant in Seville. My GA4 now measures what matters. I do the same on my clients’ websites, as part of my digital consulting service. Here’s the full process, with the real time each step takes.
What is a key event and why does it come first?
A key event is an action on your website that you mark as a business result. A form submitted, a click on the phone number, a click on WhatsApp, a booking. GA4 records dozens of events on its own: page views, scrolls, clicks to other sites. None of them tells you whether someone wanted to hire you. Key events do.
Until March 2024 they were called “conversions”. Google renamed them, and now you mark them with a star in the events list. You can mark up to 30 in a standard property. For a small service business, two or three is plenty.
Without key events, the monthly report says “340 visits”. With key events it says “340 visits, 6 forms, 4 from Google and 2 from Instagram”. The first sentence doesn’t help you decide much. With the second you decide where to invest. I explain which numbers I check every month in the digital marketing KPIs that matter for a small business.
Step by step: set up GA4 in an afternoon
Seven steps and about two hours if it’s a service business website that already has a form. The times are mine, with the auvenico.es property.
| Step | What you do | Where | Time |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Create the account, the property and the web data stream | analytics.google.com › Admin | 15 min |
| 2 | Install the tag with prior consent | Your website (code or plugin) + cookie banner | 45 min |
| 3 | Turn on enhanced measurement (forms, downloads, outbound clicks) | Admin › Data streams › your website | 5 min |
| 4 | Mark two or three key events | Admin › Data display › Events | 30 min |
| 5 | Link Search Console | Admin › Product links › Search Console | 10 min |
| 6 | Increase data retention to 14 months | Admin › Data settings › Data retention | 2 min |
| 7 | Test with a real submission and log it in the measurement plan | Your form + DebugView | 20 min |
Step 1. The property. Account, property and a web data stream. Google warns that data collection can take up to 30 minutes to start. Use the time for step 2.
Step 2. The tag, with permission. In Spain, analytics cookies need consent. The AEPD says so in its May 2024 guide. The GA4 tag only loads when the visitor accepts analytics in the cookie banner. On my website, “reject” means GA4 doesn’t load, and consent expires after twelve months. Do you use Google Ads with audiences or remarketing? Then Google requires Consent Mode v2 for users in the European Economic Area, since March 2024.
Step 3. Enhanced measurement. One switch. GA4 starts recording form_start, form_submit, file_download and clicks to other domains without touching any code. It’s what turns your form into a measurable event.
Step 4. Key events. In Admin › Data display › Events, click the star next to form_submit. For the phone and WhatsApp, create a new event based on click. The condition: the link starts with tel: or contains wa.me. Mark it as key. Google has a tutorial for creating generate_lead from the thank-you page; it works just as well. Key events take up to 24 hours to show up in reports.
Step 5. Search Console. Once linked, two reports appear inside GA4: organic search queries and organic traffic by page. You have to publish the collection from the library; it’s hidden by default.
Step 6. Retention. GA4 comes set to two months. Raise it to 14 months: it’s the free maximum and you need it to compare one year with another in explorations.
Step 7. The test. Submit the form yourself. Tap the phone number yourself on your mobile. Watch it arrive in DebugView. And note down in a spreadsheet which event measures what, on which page and who checks it each month. That spreadsheet is the measurement plan, and it’s what you can download below.
Which key event to mark for your business
The rule: mark the action that gets people to call you or buy from you, and one or two that come before it. Nothing more.
| Business | Main key event | The ones that come before it |
|---|---|---|
| Services (advisory firm, insurance brokerage, installer) | Form submitted | Click on phone, click on WhatsApp |
| Clinic or practice | Appointment booking | Click on phone |
| Online shop | Purchase | Add to basket, begin checkout |
| Business-to-business services with a long sales cycle | Meeting booked | Document download, form |
If you mark ten key events, the report goes back to telling you nothing. Collecting metrics and measuring have little in common.
What I see with my clients
Of the 30 Diagnostic Sessions in 2026, 14 arrived with a website that had no key events in GA4. Almost half. They had Analytics installed, in many cases for years, and were counting visits.
And 9 of those 30 websites had the phone number as an image or in the footer without a link. A phone number you can’t tap on a mobile can’t be measured either. Before setting up anything in GA4, the number goes in as text with its link tel:.
In my case the failure was different, and worse. GA4 was there, the events weren’t, and the form notification was almost certainly dying on the mail server. Now every submission arrives, counts as a key event and I know which channel it comes from. Late. But no longer blind.
Monthly review: 30 minutes, three numbers
With the setup done, the monthly work is short. On the same day each month:
- Enquiries by channel: key events report, broken down by traffic source.
- Impressions and position for your 20 target searches, in Search Console.
- One row in your spreadsheet: what changed and what you decide.
Start by knowing where you stand
If you don’t know whether your GA4 measures enquiries or just visits, 30 minutes is enough to find out. In the Diagnostic Session I review your website, your events and your Search Console before the video call. And I tell you which three numbers to watch from tomorrow. If you want the setup done and documented, it’s included in the digital presence audit. Two slots a week. Book yours.
Sources
- Google Analytics Help, Set up Analytics for a website and/or app: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9304153?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Mark events as key events (limit of 30 and menu path): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13128484?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Conversions and key events (name change, 27 March 2024): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13965727?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Tutorial: set up a key event: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/12966437?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Enhanced measurement events: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/9216061?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Verify and update your consent settings (Consent Mode v2, EEA, March 2024): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/14275483?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Connect Search Console to Google Analytics: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/10737381?hl=es
- Google Analytics Help, Data retention (2 or 14 months): https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/7667196?hl=es
- AEPD, Guide on the use of cookies (updated May 2024): https://www.aepd.es/guias/guia-cookies.pdf
- My own data: 2026 Diagnostic Sessions log (30 sessions, as of 24/09/2026) and GA4 for auvenico.es (property 414817043, 2026).
Freelance digital marketing consultant in Seville. I work on the digital presence of professionals and small businesses with one simple principle: your website as your operations hub. Building websites, doing SEO and running social media with my own hands since 2018.
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