<b>Q: What's the actual difference between an event, a conversion, and a Key event in GA4 now?</b>

<b>Q: What's the actual difference between an event, a conversion, and a Key event in GA4 now?</b>

A: The naming changed, so here's the clean version.
— Every interaction is an <i>event</i> (page_view, click, your custom ones).
— Mark an event as a <b>Key event</b> in Admin → Events → toggle 'Mark as key event'. That's what GA4 calls a goal.
— 'Conversion' now only means a Key event that's also imported into Google Ads.

So: all Key events are events; only Ads-linked Key events show as conversions in Ads.

Don't mark page_view as a Key event unless every visit is truly a win, or your rates become meaningless.

TL;DR: Event → mark as Key event → optionally export to Ads as a conversion.

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