Navigating Custom Events in GA4

The ability to capture and analyze user interactions that deviate from the norm is crucial for staying ahead.

Now, we are able to meet requirements with Custom Events in GA4. It’s a powerful feature that gives marketers and analysts the flexibility to track unique user behaviors.

These custom events are tailored to meet specific business objectives, enhancing targeted analytics efforts.

What Are Custom Events?

Google Analytics Custom events are user-defined actions that are not automatically tracked. Additionally, they do not directly fit into the category of recommended events. Even though, they might not deviate much from them.

If you are looking for information on either of these aforementioned collection categories, have a look at one of my other articles:

• Enhanced measurement
• recommended events

Let’s continue

Custom events offer the ability to monitor interactions that are unique to your website or app. They provide insights into specific areas of user engagement and behavior.

Any custom event can be marked as a conversion. For example, if saving the configured product is important to the success of your business, you might mark the custom event ‘save’ as a conversion.

Custom events can range from tracking form submissions on a landing page to interactions within a complex web application, giving businesses the versatility to measure what truly matters to them.

The Significance of Implementing Custom Events in GA4

Custom events hold a great importance in the realm of digital analytics. They act as the backbone for businesses seeking to delve deeper into the nuances of user behavior that generic tracking tools overlook.

They provide an essential layer of specificity and relevance, enabling marketers and analysts to tailor their data collection strategies to align precisely with unique business goals and user interactions.

This bespoke approach to analytics ensures that every action tracked is of strategic value, offering insights that can lead to targeted improvements.

These improvements can be regarding user experience, product development, and marketing strategies for example.

By harnessing the power of custom events, organizations can move beyond surface-level metrics to uncover the rich, actionable data that drives competitive advantage and fosters innovation.

When to Use Custom Events

Custom events should be employed when tracking needs to extend beyond the capabilities of automatically collected or recommended events. They are ideal for:

• Capturing interactions unique to your business or industry.
• Tracking complex user journeys or multi-step processes.
• Gathering data on non-standard or highly customized web applications.
• Capturing specific (key) events to your website.

Custom events provide the detailed insights necessary for optimizing user experience, improving engagement strategies, and making informed decisions that drive success.

Custom dimensions and metrics

Within the realm of custom events, the concepts of custom dimensions and metrics offer a deeper layer of data customization and analysis.

These elements allow you to access and report on the diverse values assigned to event parameters, enriching your understanding of user interactions.

For instance, by creating a custom dimension or metric, you can categorize and quantify the information collected through event parameters, such as ‘value’.

This means if you track a ‘value’ event parameter during user transactions, a custom metric named ‘Value’ can be established to display the specific monetary values tied to those transactions in your reports.

This capability not only enhances data granularity but also provides actionable insights tailored to your unique analytics needs.

Custom dimensions and metrics thus serve as powerful tools in leveraging the full potential of custom events, enabling you to view and analyze your data through a more focused and relevant lens. This can also impact data sampling and thresholding.

Example Journey

Building and Purchasing a Custom Gaming PC

Let’s explore a user journey involving custom events, as we did before to elaborate on recommended events.

However, this time, it’s a customer named Alex who customizes and purchases a gaming PC on an e-commerce platform.

1. Starting the Customization Process (start_customization)

Alex initiates the customization tool on the website, triggering the start_customization event.

Parameters Captured:

• session_id: “xyz123”
• start_time: “2024-02-19T10:00:00Z”
• product_category: “Gaming PC”

2. Selecting Components (select_component)

Each component Alex selects (e.g., GPU, CPU) fires the select_component event, capturing detailed preferences.

Parameters Captured:

• component_type: “GPU”
• component_id: “gpu789”
• component_name: “NVIDIA RTX 4090”

3. Previewing the Build (preview_build)

The preview_build event is recorded when Alex reviews their custom PC configuration.

Parameters Captured:

• session_id: “xyz123”
• build_id: “build456”

4. Saving the Build (save_build)

Alex’s decision to save the build for later triggers the save_build event.

Parameters Captured:

• session_id: “xyz123”
• build_id: “build456”

5. Adding to Cart (add_to_cart_custom)

The custom gaming PC is added to the cart, captured by the add_to_cart_custom event. However, you could opt to use the recommended add_to_cart event for this instance too. Also, keep in mind, that you could even set this event as a key event if it’s of value to your business.

Parameters Captured:

• currency: “EUR”
• value: 3250.00

6. Completing the Purchase (complete_purchase_custom)

The purchase completion is marked by the complete_purchase_custom event.

Parameters Captured:

• transaction_id: “order789123”
• value: 3250.00

What’s Needed in the Data Layer

For custom events to be tracked accurately, specific information must be pushed to the Data Layer.

The data layer acts as a bridge between your site or app and Google Tag Manager, allowing for the seamless transmission of data to GA4.

dataLayer.push({
  'event': 'select_component',
  'component_type': 'GPU',
  'component_id': 'gpu789',
  'component_name': 'NVIDIA RTX 4090',
  'selection_time': '2024-02-19T10:05:00Z'
});

This snippet demonstrates how to push a custom event, select_component, to the dataLayer, including all relevant parameters about the component selection.

Debugging events

When setting up custom event triggers and tags to capture the data surrounding custom events, that it is important to ensure correct functioning.

Debugging is essential to ensure correct firing of tags and validating the captured information is as expected.

For an extended article on how to debug, read our article on ‘Debugging in Google Tag Manager‘.

Viewing custom events in GA4

After you’ve implemented custom events on your site or app and ensured they’re correctly firing, it’s time to dive into GA4 to start analyzing the data.

Here are the five crucial steps to follow:

1. Navigate to Your GA4 Property: Log in to your Google Analytics account and select the GA4 property associated with your website or app where you’ve implemented the custom events.
2. Access the “All Events” Report: On the GA4 home dashboard, look for the “Events” section in the left-hand menu and click on “All events”. This section aggregates all events tracked by GA4, including automatically tracked, recommended, and your custom events.
3. Identify Your Custom Events: Within the “All Events” report, you’ll find a list of all event names being tracked. Your custom events will be listed here by the names you’ve assigned to them during implementation. This is where you can quickly see if your custom events are being recorded as expected.
4. Analyze Event Details: Click on a custom event name to drill down into more detailed data about that specific event. GA4 provides a comprehensive overview of event metrics, including the number of events, event value, and user engagement metrics. Additionally, if you’ve added event parameters, you can view and analyze these for deeper insights into the context of each event.
5. Leverage Custom Reports for In-Depth Analysis: For more advanced analysis, utilize GA4’s “Explore” tab to create custom reports. This feature allows you to combine data from your custom events with other metrics and dimensions for a holistic analysis. Whether you’re comparing event metrics over time, segmenting event data by user demographics, or analyzing the user journey leading to a custom event, the “Explore” tab provides the tools you need for detailed insights.

Optional:

Integrate with BigQuery for Further and Deeper Data Analysis: For those who require more advanced data analysis capabilities, integrating GA4 with BigQuery offers unparalleled depth and flexibility.

This integration allows you to export your GA4 data, including custom events, into BigQuery. Here, you can perform complex queries, merge data from multiple sources, and conduct in-depth analyses that go beyond the capabilities of GA4’s built-in reports.

Analyze large datasets. Apply machine learning models. Create custom data visualizations. BigQuery provides the tools and scalability to meet your needs.

And let’s not forget, custom events can also be utilized to further deepen your marketing personalization.

It enables you to build audiences to target via Google Analytics 4, by creating audiences based on conditions that comprise of Custom Event definitions.

Turning Data into Strategy

A Final Word on Custom Events in Google Analytics 4

Custom events in Google Analytics 4 are not just about tracking; they’re about transforming data into actionable insights.

By meticulously setting up and analyzing these events, you unlock a new realm of analytics, tailor-made to fit your unique business needs.

As we’ve navigated through the process of viewing custom events, it’s clear that the power of GA4 lies in its ability to provide a detailed lens through which we can observe our visitors journeys.

Embrace the flexibility and depth offered by custom events, and utilize them to guide you to informed decisions that propel your business forward.

Ps. For an even more granular level of insight into you data, consider setting up the GA4 to BigQuery data export connection.

Thanks!

If you found this guide helpful, subscribe to our LinkedIn to receive updates whenever we post a new blog!

Share your experiences or questions about the Facebook Pixel in the comments below!