GA4 not tracking conversions: a checklist that finds the cause

When GA4 shows zero conversions, or far fewer than you expect, the cause is almost always in one of three places: the event never reaches GA4, it arrives but is not marked as a key event, or it is counted but you are looking in the wrong report or too soon. Work through the checks below in order. Each one rules out a layer.

In 2024 Google renamed GA4 "conversions" to "key events". The word "conversion" now means an action used to measure ads, such as one imported into Google Ads (Google). If a guide tells you to find Conversions in the GA4 admin, look for Key events.

1. Does the event fire at all?

Open Admin, DebugView, and turn on debug mode for your own browser: install Google's Tag Assistant, or use Preview in Google Tag Manager. Then do the action yourself: send the form, finish a test purchase.

• The event appears in DebugView. Good. Move to check 3.
• Nothing appears. The tag or trigger is the problem. Go to check 2.

Realtime works too, but DebugView shows each event with its parameters, which you will need for later checks.

2. Why the event does not fire

• The trigger never matches. A Tag Manager trigger on "Page path equals /thank-you" misses /thank-you/ and /thank-you?order=1042. Use "contains" or a regular expression, and check what the URL really is after a form sends.
• The form does not load a new page. Many form tools show a success message in place. A pageview trigger never fires. Use the form tool's own callback, a form submission trigger, or the tool's built-in GA4 integration.
• The form is in an iframe. Embedded booking and form widgets (Calendly, Typeform, HubSpot and others) run on another domain. Your page's tag cannot see inside the frame. Use the vendor's GA4 integration or its message events.
• The checkout runs on another domain. Shopify's checkout does not run theme code, and Shopify's order status page stopped running script tags in August 2026 (Shopify). Use Shopify's Google channel app or a web pixel under Settings, Customer events.
• The tag is blocked until consent. If your banner holds the GA4 tag until the visitor accepts, declined visits never send anything. Test with consent accepted.
• The tag is not published. Changes in Tag Manager do nothing until you click Submit and publish the container. The free tag checker shows which analytics and ad tags your live home page actually loads, with their ids.

3. Is the event name exactly right?

GA4 event names are case sensitive: generate_lead and Generate_Lead are two different events (Google). A key event marked as purchase will never count Purchase. Compare the name in DebugView, letter by letter, with the name in Admin, Events.

4. Is it marked as a key event?

In Admin, Data display, Events, find the event and turn on Mark as key event. If the event has not arrived yet, create the key event by name under Key events, New key event.

Marking an event only counts it from that moment on. GA4 does not go back and count past events as key events. If you marked it today, expect zero for every day before today.

5. Have you waited long enough?

Standard GA4 properties typically take 12 hours to process a day's data, and Google says daily data is ready in reports around mid-afternoon the next day in the property's time zone (Google). Attribution credit for key events can still change for up to 12 days after the event. Realtime and DebugView are the only places to see today's events today.

6. Are you reading the right report?

• Traffic acquisition splits key events by the session's source. User acquisition splits them by the source that first brought the user. The same key event shows under different channels in each.
• A comparison or segment left on from an earlier visit can hide everything. Clear filters in the report's top bar.
• In Explore, a date range that ends today shows partial data for today.

7. Is data being filtered out?

Check Admin, Data collection and modification, Data filters. An internal traffic filter set to Active drops every event from matching IP addresses, including your own test purchases. A developer traffic filter drops events sent in debug mode. That is why test events can appear in DebugView and still never reach reports.

8. Is data thresholding hiding small numbers?

When Google signals or user-provided data is on, GA4 can withhold rows with small counts from reports to protect identity. A key event with a handful of hits can show as missing. Look for a warning icon in the report header. Switching the reporting identity to device-based, under Admin, Reporting identity, can bring the rows back, because thresholds are tied to Google signals and user-provided data.

9. Is consent mode reducing the count?

With consent mode, visitors who decline analytics cookies send cookieless pings or nothing. GA4 can model the missing behavior, but only for properties that collect at least 1,000 events a day with analytics storage denied for at least 7 days, and have at least 1,000 daily users who granted consent on at least 7 of the previous 28 days (Google). A smaller site gets no modeling, so declined visits are simply not counted.

10. Missing in Google Ads, not GA4?

• The GA4 property and the Google Ads account must be linked, and the key event imported in Google Ads under Goals, Conversions, Summary, New conversion action, Import, Google Analytics 4 properties.
• Imported GA4 conversions can take up to a day or more to appear, and Google Ads puts them on the date of the ad click, not the date of the conversion (Google).
• Auto-tagging must be on in Google Ads, so the gclid reaches your site. A redirect that drops query strings breaks it. Check that a test click lands with gclid= still in the address bar.

A five-minute test you can repeat

1. Open your site in a private window with consent accepted, from a link with ?utm_source=test&utm_medium=test&utm_campaign=ga4_check.
2. Complete the action.
3. Confirm the event in DebugView or Realtime within a minute, with source test.
4. The next afternoon, confirm the key event in Traffic acquisition under source test.

If step 3 passes and step 4 fails, the problem is a filter, thresholding or the key event setting. If step 3 fails, it is the tag.

Common questions

Why does GA4 show the event but zero key events?

The event is not marked as a key event, the name differs in case, or it was marked after the events you are looking at. Marking only counts new events.

How long does GA4 take to show key events?

Realtime and DebugView show them within seconds. Standard reports typically have the full previous day by the next afternoon, and attribution credit can still change for up to 12 days.

Why are my GA4 conversions lower than Shopify orders?

Some buyers block the tag or decline consent, Shopify's checkout pages do not run theme scripts, and GA4 credits sales by its own rules. See why analytics numbers never match.

Why does Google Ads show different conversions than GA4?

Google Ads puts conversions on the click date and counts only paths with a Google Ads click, while GA4 reports by event date across every channel with its own attribution model.

Sources

• Google Analytics Help: Conversions vs key events, Event naming rules, Data freshness, Consent mode behavioral modeling. Checked October 2026.
• Google Ads Help: Conversions by time. Checked October 2026.
• Shopify: Order status script tags. Checked October 2026.