How to Track Clicks with Google Analytics 4 (2 Options)

Updated: July 7th, 2025

If you are starting to get a grip on Google Tag Manager, click tracking is probably one of the most demanded things you want to implement. Your website has many clickable elements, and you want to understand how website visitors interact with them.

In this blog post, we will look at how to track clicks with Google Analytics 4 and Google Tag Manager.

First, we will look at some automatic click-tracking capabilities in GA4, and then we will extend the list of tracked events with the help of GTM.

If you are entirely new (or just starting) with Google Analytics 4, download my free GA4 e-book here.

Ready? Let’s get started.

Table of contents

– Here’s what you will learn in this article –

• Why track clicks?
• Automatic click tracking in GA4 (Enhanced Measurement)
• Track custom clicks with Google Tag Manager
• Register custom definitions
• Test your click tracking in Google Analytics 4
• Track clicks with GTAG
• Track button clicks
• Mark important clicks as key events
• Final words

Video tutorial

If you prefer YouTube videos, here’s one from my channel. If you haven’t yet, consider subscribing to stay up-to-date with Google Analytics 4.

Looking for tips specific to Button Click Tracking? Here you go.

Why track clicks at all?

Think about this: what are the most common interactions you do on any website? It will *probably* be page views, scrolling, and clicking. You click links and buttons to navigate from one page to another and reach a particular goal. Your website visitors do that as well.

That’s why tracking such interactions is crucial – to better understand user/visitor behavior. Capture clicks, send their data to your analytics tool(s), like Google Analytics, and analyze the data.

By understanding what your visitors are clicking on, you can start to answer business questions. For example, is anyone actually using the main navigation links, or do they prefer using the search bar? Are promotional banners getting attention, or are they being ignored? These insights are not just interesting; they are actionable. They can guide your website design, improve your user experience, and help you place your most important calls to action where they will have the most impact.

Here are some of the popular use cases for click tracking in Google Analytics 4:

• Button click tracking (say “Add to cart” button clicks)
• Outbound link clicks (track when a visitor clicks a link leading to an external resource (3rd party website))
• Contact link clicks (e.g., clicks email addresses or phone numbers)
• File downloads (when someone clicks a link that contains a file extension, e.g., .pdf, .docx, etc.)

In this blog post, we’ll look at how Google Analytics 4 can automatically track outbound link clicks and file downloads. Then I will show you an additional example when you might want to track other clickable elements on a website (that are links). And if that is not enough, I will provide additional resources related to button click tracking.

Automatic click tracking in Google Analytics 4

When configuring a web data stream in Google Analytics 4, you can use Enhanced Measurement. It is designed to help marketers get as many events in the reports as possible without cooperating with developers or configuring them in Google Tag Manager.

If you go to Admin > Data Streams > Select the web data stream, the following window will open, where you will see a section called Enhanced Measurement.

By default, this feature is enabled and will automatically track the following events:

• Page view (event name: page_view)
• Scroll (event name: scroll)
• Outbound link click (event name: click with the parameter outbound: true)
• Site search (event name: view_search_results)
• Video Engagement (events: video_start, video_progress, video_complete)
• File Download (event name: file_download)

Enhanced Measurement is a fantastic starting point, and for many websites, it might be all you need for basic click tracking. However, it is important to understand its limitations. It is designed to track clicks that lead users away from your site or trigger a download, but it will not track clicks on internal elements like a specific “Add to Cart” button, a “Read More” link, or a tab in a navigation menu. For those crucial internal interactions, we need the more granular control that our second option, Google Tag Manager, provides.

If you want, you can disable/enable events individually by clicking the gear icon in the Enhanced Measurement section and then clicking the toggle buttons.

Also, some events can be customized additionally. Let’s take a quick look at those events related to clicks.

click. This is an event for the outbound link click (when a clicked link redirects a visitor to another domain. With this event, an additional parameter outbound (with the value “true”) is sent. The event with this parameter means that there was an outbound link click. With this event, a bunch of other parameters is sent: link_classes, link_domain, link_id, link_url.

If your business operates on several domains, you can go to Configure tag settings (of that very same event stream) > Configure your domains and then enter the domains of your business. All the domains listed there will not trigger the outbound link click event.

file_download. This event is sent to GA4 when a link is clicked, and that link contains one of the following file extensions: .pdf, .xls, .xlsx, .doc, .docx, .txt, .rtf, .csv, .exe, .key, .pps, .ppt, .pptx, .7z, .pkg, .rar, .gz, .zip, .avi, .mov, .mp4, .mpe, .mpeg, .wmv, .mid, .midi, .mp3, .wav, .wma. In other words, if the link opens/downloads a file. Currently, it is not possible to update the list with other extensions in the GA4 interface.

Once you select which events you wish to track, hit Save in the top right corner and then make sure that Enhanced Measurement is enabled (the toggle is blue).

From that moment, your Google Analytics 4 will start automatically tracking the events. Use DebugView to check if everything is captured properly.

But what if you want to track clicks on other elements (that are not file or outbound links)? Well, let’s move to the next chapter.

Track custom clicks with Google Analytics 4 and GTM

Tip: If you want to learn more about tracking events with Google Analytics 4, read this extensive guide (including a video).

Here’s an example (that I’ve already mentioned in several of my other event-related GA4 guides). Let’s say I have a demo website and want to track clicks in the menu bar.

Note: Menu link click tracking trigger conditions differ on most websites (because of different click classes, IDs, etc.). Try to do your best to apply this example.

First, I need to create a trigger with the correct conditions that distinguish any click from a menu link click. Enable Google Tag Manager’s Preview mode and try clicking any of the menu links on a website. Once you click the first link, you should see the Link Click event in the Preview mode’s left sidebar.

If you don’t see it, you should:

• have at least one Just Links GTM trigger activated on a page
• or have “File download” or “Outbound links” tracking enabled in your Enhanced Measurement Settings

Let’s say that you don’t use Enhanced Measurement in GA4. In that case, we should create a link click trigger. Go to Google Tag Manager > Triggers > New > Just Links. Keep the trigger set to “All link clicks” and save the trigger.

By creating this trigger, we will enable the link-tracking functionality in Google Tag Manager.

Then go to Variables > Configure (in the “Built-in Variables” section) and enable all Click-related variables.

Refresh the preview mode (by clicking the Preview button once again).

Then go to your website and click any of the menu links. Actually, click at least two of them. Return to the preview mode and you should start seeing Link Click events in the preview mode. Click the first Link Click event, and go to the Variables tab of the preview mode.

Then click on the second Link Click event. I am currently looking for a variable that I could use to distinguish a menu link click. I don’t want to fire my GA4 event tag on any link click. I want to fire it precisely on a menu link click.

After taking a closer look, I see that both links contain the same Click Classes value, site-nav__link site-nav__link–main. By the way, nav means “navigation” in this context. Great! I will use this in my Just Links trigger.

Go back to the list of triggers in your GTM container and click the previously created trigger for All Link Clicks. We’ll edit it and add a condition: Click Classes contains site-nav__link–main

You might wonder why we need to be so specific with these conditions. The goal is to create a clean signal. If you set up a trigger that is too broad, like one for all clicks, your reports would be flooded with meaningless data from every random click on the page. By creating a trigger for a very specific button, like your “Request a Demo” button, you are telling Google Analytics to only record the interactions that truly matter to your business. This focus is what turns raw data into useful insights.

Save the trigger. Now, it’s time to create a Google Analytics 4 event tag. But before that, I will show you one good practice that will help you in the future.

Let’s create a constant variable that contains our Measurement ID. Go to Variables > Variable Configuration > Constant and paste your Measurement ID.

Save the variable. Then, go to Tags > New > Google Analytics > Google Analytics: GA4 Event.

Insert your newly created constant variable, and you should see a green checkmark. If you don’t see it, then cut and paste the constant variable name in that field (to trigger the validation).

Then enter the event name. Its value is up to you. Any of the following options are perfectly fine:

• menu_click
• menu
• menu_item_click
• menu click
• etc.

These are just some examples. Since we are working with a custom event, we can name it whatever we want (as long as we follow the limitations of name length, for example).

In my case, I used the menu_link_click event name. But this time, sending just the event name is not very useful. You’d probably want to know which exact menu items are clicked more often. How about we also send the name of the menu item and the URL?

We could do that by sending additional event parameters. Even though you could use parameters that are already mentioned in the documentation of the Enhanced Measurement (like link_url and link_text), let’s create two custom parameters (because I just want to show you how to configure them).

I am going to pass two parameters, menu_item_url, and menu_item_name. I made these parameter names up, and you can do it too. That’s what the flexibility of the data model offers.

To send custom parameters, you must expand the Event Parameters section in the Google Analytics 4 event tag and then click Add Row.

Enter the name of the first parameter. In my case, that is menu_item_url. In the Value field, I will insert a variable that returns a clicked URL. Luckily, GTM already offers such a variable. It’s called Click URL. Click the Insert Variable button and then select the {{Click URL}} variable.

Let’s add another parameter, menu_item_name. For that purpose, GTM offers another built-in variable, {{Click Text}}. Insert it as well. Since visitors of your website can translate your page, {{Click Text}} value will also change, hence you will see a more diverse list of collected values in your GA4 reports.

If you want to send more parameters, you can do that. You can send up to 25 custom parameters with a single event.

Assign the previously created Just Links trigger to this tag. Save the tag. Refresh the GTM Preview mode and click a couple of your menu items. Go back to the Preview mode and click those Link Click events. Check if the GA4 event tags for Menu Link Clicks have fired.

Now, you must go to Google Analytics 4 and check the DebugView. You will learn more about that in this blog post.

IMPORTANT: even though you will see your custom parameters in Real-time reports and DebugView in GA4, you will not be able to see them in other GA4 reports. Unless you register those parameters as custom dimensions in Google Analytics. Read the next chapter of this blog post.

Register custom definitions (optional)

This applies to any custom parameter that you send to Google Analytics 4.

Standard parameters (such as link_id, link_url, etc.) do NOT require being registered as custom dimensions. You can use them in places like Funnel exploration, Free Form without a problem.

But if you want to see custom parameters in reports (e.g., menu_link_url), you must register them as custom dimensions.

In Google Analytics 4, go to Admin > Custom Definitions. Since we sent two custom parameters with the menu link click, we must register them here.

Click the Create Custom Dimensions button and then enter:

• The name of the parameter. You can enter whatever you want. This is just how the dimension will be displayed in your reports. You can name it “menu_item_url”, “Menu item URL”, or anything else.
• Scope. Since we want to apply this parameter only to one event (and not to all events of the same user), we need to select Event
• Event parameter. This is where you have to enter its name precisely as you entered it in the GTM tag. If your parameter name is menu_item_url, you must enter it here exactly like that. Don’t worry if the autocomplete feature of that field does not show your parameter yet. Just enter it and save the dimension

Then, register a second parameter (in my case, that was menu_item_name) and save it. By the way, I sometimes use the words “custom parameter” and “custom dimension” interchangeably. In general, custom metrics and custom dimensions are both grouped as custom parameters.

And now we wait. Within the next 24 hours, the custom parameters will start appearing in your Google Analytics 4 reports.

Test your click tracking in Google Analytics 4

Once you configure your custom events, it’s time to test them. The primary feature built for debugging GA4 data is the DebugView section. You can find it by going to Admin > DebugView.

That’s the place where your debugging should take place. Do not mix this with the GTM Preview and Debug mode. They are two different beasts.

To enable the debug mode in GA4, you have several options (any of them will work):

• Enable the GA debugger Chrome extension
• Send a debug_mode parameter together with an event
• Have enabled Google Tag Manager’s Preview mode on a page that you’re debugging

But since we are working with Google Tag Manager, having the GTM Preview mode enabled automatically enables the debug_mode, thus the data will start appearing in the GA4 DebugView.

When you start seeing data in the DebugView, you can click on every individual event, and then a list of parameters will be displayed.

Click on that parameter to see the value that was received by GA4. Now, that is some granular debugging!

Also, make sure that you have selected the correct Debug device in the top left corner.

If multiple visitors have enabled the debug view (e.g., they all have enabled the Chrome extension), you will see multiple devices there, and it might require some time to find yourself.

Anyway, once you start seeing data in DebugView, things will look like this.

Events are marked with blue icons, and key events are marked with green. In your case, the menu_click event will be blue (not green).

IMPORTANT: Please ignore the fact that I treat menu_click events as key events. This is just for demonstration purposes. 

If you click the event, you will see the parameters that were sent together with an event. Click on the parameter to see its value.

Once you have made sure that the data is coming in and displayed properly, you should submit your GA4 changes in the GTM container and publish it.

You can do that by clicking the SUBMIT button in the top right corner and then completing all the other steps that the user interface asks you to do.

After that, you should soon start seeing the new data in your real-time reports.

How to track clicks with GTAG

What if you are not using Google Tag Manager? And instead, you prefer working with GTAG (GA4’s native tracking code). In that case, watch the video tutorial below where I explain event tracking with GTAG and the example there is related to link clicks.

Track button clicks

On some websites, buttons are coded as simple links that have the style of a button. But on other websites, they are coded as other elements (e.g., with HTML <button> element).

If that’s your case, the aforementioned examples will not help. Then you should refer to this blog post where one of the chapters specifically explains how to track button clicks).

Mark important clicks as key events

Some clicks might be more important to your business than others. Thus, they should be configured in Google Analytics 4 as key events. If you want to learn more about key events (previously known as “conversions”), here is a blog post (+ video) on how to do that.

Frequently asked questions

If you just skimmed this article and are looking for some quick answers, this section might help.

Can Google Analytics track clicks? Yes, Google Analytics 4 tracks clicks. It offers built-in event tracking for document links and outbound links. If you want to track other clicks, you will need to do additional configuration. Everything is explained in this guide.

Can Google Tag Manager track link clicks? Yes, Google Tag Manager can track link clicks, but you will need to have enabled the Just Links trigger and include additional conditions in the trigger. Read this guide carefully, and you will learn how to do that.

Can Google Tag Manager track button clicks? Yes, Google Tag Manager can track button clicks, but you will need to have enabled the All Elements Click trigger and include additional conditions in the trigger. Read this guide carefully, and you will learn how to do that.

Where can I see click data in GA4 reports? First, you will need to register click data as custom dimensions (if you use custom parameters). Then, you will see them in reports like Explorations or Reports > Engagement > Events. Read more here and here.

How to Track Clicks with Google Analytics 4: Final words

And that’s the end of yet another Google Analytics 4 tutorial. This time, we learned how to track clicks with Google Analytics 4 (and, obviously, Google Tag Manager). To sum up, the process looks like this:

• If you want to file downloads and outbound link clicks, then use the built-in feature of GA4, Enhanced Measurement.
• Want to track other link clicks? Create custom triggers in GTM and link them to GA4 event tags (like we did with menu link clicks)
• Want to track buttons (that are not links HTML-wise)? Use the All Element Clicks trigger in GTM (I have linked to another tutorial of mine with some examples).

Also, don’t forget to register click event parameters as custom definitions (if you plan to use them in your GA4 reports).