Also called: GA4 conversions, key events, conversion events GA4
Any GA4 event can be promoted to a key event by toggling it in Admin › Events. There is no separate tag to install: you send the event, then mark it. GA4 allows up to 30 key events per property.
The rename has practical consequences. Reports, the Data API, and third-party connectors migrated on different schedules, so a dashboard built before the change may be reading a field that no longer populates, showing a flat zero rather than an error.
Marking an event as a key event is not retroactive in the reporting UI in the way people expect — the underlying event data is preserved, but key-event-specific reports begin from the moment you flag it.
A key event that stops firing looks identical to a genuine drop in demand. Teams routinely spend a week investigating a "conversion decline" that was a broken tag, because nothing in GA4 distinguishes zero purchases from zero purchase events received.
Key events are events you mark as important inside GA4. Conversions, in current GA4 terminology, are the conversion actions defined in Google Ads and imported for bidding. The same user action can be both, counted under different attribution rules.
Up to 30 per property on the standard tier. Because the limit is per property rather than per data stream, multi-brand setups sharing one property run out faster than expected.
They use different attribution models and different windows. GA4 defaults to data-driven, last-click-within-property attribution; Google Ads counts a conversion against the click that led to it, within its own lookback window. A gap of 10–30% between the two is normal, not a bug.
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