How to Find Conversion Rate in GA4

Following Google’s switch from UA (Universal Analytics) to GA4 (Google Analytics 4), there has been a lot of  discussion around how to find your conversion rate metric in GA4, as the process is now different from the previous version.

Start on your GA4 homepage, which can be accessed by visiting https://analytics.google.com:

If you need to set up your GA4 account, you can use our GA4 setup guide.

Next, hover over the Analytics logo on the top-left-hand side of your screen. This will bring up GA4’s toolbar:

From there, you should click on the “Reports” label. This will bring up your Reports dashboard:

Once you have accessed this dashboard, click on the “Acquisition” label and then click on the “User Acquisition” label:

This will bring up your User Acquisition Report. Once here, scroll down to the graph below, and you will find your User Key Event Rate listed on the right-hand side:

We’ll talk more about the User Key Event Rate later.

If you want to access your session conversion rate (referred to as Session Key Event Rate within GA4), then you can do so by clicking on the “Traffic Acquisition” label instead of the “User Acquisition” label when following the steps above:

You can then scroll down and see your Session Key Event Rate listed on the right-hand side of the data:

See, not too complicated, is it? We’ll now explore exactly what conversions are and the types of conversion rate that can be monitored with GA4.

This article covers

• ​​What is a conversion?
• What is a conversion rate?
• The two types of conversion rates in GA4
• Conversion Rate or Key Event Rate

What is a conversion?

A conversion is any user action on your website that aligns with your business’ goals. Examples of conversions may include:

• Completing a purchase
• Submitting a form
• Signing up for a newsletter
• Downloading an asset

However, each business will have different ideas for conversions.

Within GA4, conversions are tied to specific events you define as critical for tracking your objectives. These are known as Key Events.

You can learn more about key events in our guide on setting up conversions in GA4.

As an example, let’s  look at what a conversion would look like for our website, SEOTesting.

Our business is a SaaS (Software as a Service) business, so our conversion will look different from an E-commerce business. You can see on our Homepage we have a CTA directing people to sign up for a trial of SEOTesting:

If a user were to click this CTA, fill in their details, and start a trial of our software, we would classify this as a conversion. Following this, our team can work to give them the best experience possible so the user can choose to purchase a subscription. This would be another conversion for us, but this would be app-based rather than website-based.

What is a conversion rate?

Your conversion rate measures how effectively your website or app encourages users to take desired actions. It’s expressed as a percentage.

In UA, you would have calculated your conversion rate as follows:

Sessions with Conversions / Total Sessions x 100

In GA4, the calculation is more flexible and focuses on key events. This flexibility allows businesses to define conversions that match their unique goals. GA4 has two conversion rate types, which we will explore in the next section.

The two types of conversion rates in GA4

GA4 tracks conversion rates using two metrics:

• Session Conversion Rate
• User Conversion Rate

Let’s explore each one in detail below.

Session Conversion Rate

The Session Conversion Rate metric within GA4 measures the percentage of sessions with at least one conversion. Here’s the formula you can use to work this out:

Sessions with Conversions / Total Sessions x 100

For example, if your website had 1,000 sessions over a month and 200 of those sessions resulted in at least one conversion, your Session Conversion Rate would be 20%.

User Conversion Rate

Your User Conversion Rate calculates the percentage of users who complete at least one conversion during a selected period. Here’s the formula you can use to work this out:

Users with Conversion / Total Users x 100

For example, if 800 separate users visited your site during a month and 300 completed a conversion, your User Conversion Rate would be 37.5%.

Why the change?

Following the switch from UA to GA4, GA4 introduced two separate conversion rate metrics:

• Session Key Event Rate
• User Key Event Rate

This was done to provide more detailed and flexible insights into user behavior. This change aligns with GA4’s event-driven model, which focuses on tracking specific actions or Key Events instead of general sessions.

GA4 allows businesses to analyze behavior at different levels by segmenting the metric into sessions and users.

The Session Key Event Rate measures the frequency of conversions during individual visits, and the User Key Event Rate tracks the number of unique users who convert over time.

This approach offers better granularity and flexibility, catering to businesses with diverse goals.

Conversion Rate or Key Event Rate

You may have seen throughout this article that we have referred to conversion rate as “Key Event Rate,” and there is a good reason for this.

In GA4, “Conversion Rate” has been rebranded as “Key Event Rate.” Similarly, all mentions of “Conversions” within GA4 have now been renamed “Key Events.”

This change reflects GA4’s event-driven data model, which allows for more granular tracking and analysis.

Your Key Event Rate provides insights into specific user actions that you have marked as conversions. This helps you better understand the different performance metrics related to your business goals.

Wrapping Things Up

Finding and understanding your conversion rate in GA4 is essential for tracking your website or app’s performance.

The shift from Universal Analytics to GA4 introduces more flexibility and precision by focusing on Key Events rather than generic conversions. By exploring both Session Conversion Rate and User Conversion Rate, you can better align your analytics with your business goals.

GA4’s event-driven approach allows you to analyze user behavior more deeply and optimize your strategies effectively. You can take advantage of these features to measure and enhance your success.

If you want to begin SEO testing for your business, try SEOTesting. Our GA4 integration allows you to track key events alongside your SEO tests, allowing you to track the impact that various SEO changes have on conversions. Start your free 14-day trial today.