May, 2024: Deprecated Conversions metrics
Table of Contents
Overview
Google Analytics 4 (GA4) has recently undergone changes, replacing "Conversions" related metrics with "Key events." To ensure the continued smooth operation of your reports and dashboards, it is crucial to update your Coupler.io GA4 integration to reflect these changes.
Changes to Google Analytics 4 Metrics
Google has replaced "Conversions" related metrics with "Key events." Below is a table showing the affected metrics and their replacements:
| Deprecated Metric | Key Event Metric |
|---|---|
| Cost per conversion (advertiserAdCostPerConversion) | Cost per key event (advertiserAdCostPerKeyEvent) |
| Conversions (conversions) | Key events (keyEvents) |
| First-time purchaser conversion (firstTimePurchaserConversionRate) | First-time purchaser rate (firstTimePurchaserRate) |
| Purchaser conversion rate (purchaserConversionRate) | Purchaser rate (purchaserRate) |
| Session conversion rate (sessionConversionRate) | Session key event rate (sessionKeyEventRate) |
| User conversion rate (userConversionRate) | User key event rate (userKeyEventRate) |
Timeframe of Changes
Google has recently started gradually introducing these metric deprecations to all GA4 accounts. Although your previously set up importers might still be working, the data for conversions could stop returning at any moment. This transition is controlled by Google and not by Coupler.io.
Action Required
To continue using your reports and dashboards smoothly, we recommend migrating to the new key events metrics as soon as possible.
How to Replace Deprecated Metrics
- Edit your GA4 importer.
- Navigate to the "Data sources" step and edit the GA4 source.
- Open the "Metrics and dimensions" step.
- Remove any deprecated metric that you have selected (e.g., Conversions).
- Select the new metric instead (e.g., Key events)
- Update your Transformation settings and Destination settings in case you have:
- join, union of data by deprecated metric column;
- formulas, filters, sorting settings with deprecated metrics.
Possible issues during migration:
You may receive next errors during your importer run and metrics update in case you did not apply changes to all importer settings (Conversions and Key events metrics are used as example):
Issue #1: You received error "Found duplicate metrics: conversions"
Reason: You added Key events the list of metrics, but did not remove Conversions metric and run importer.
How to fix: Remove Conversions from the list of metrics.
Issue #2: You received error about BigQuery Schema mismatch.
Reason: You used Append data saving mode in BigQuery destination, you changed metrics (removed Conversions, added Key Events) and run importer.
How to fix: Unfortunately, BigQuery does not allow to change schema if you used schema auto-detection. You will need to create new BigQuery table with new schema (using Replace data saving mode first and them change to Append mode), old data can be moved there using Coupler.io or native BigQuery mechanisms.
Issue #3: You received warning "The shape of the data in this source has changed."
Reason: You have old transformation settings and did not load fresh preview on data transformation step to select new column.
How to fix: Open Transformations step: click review details ->Click "Apply new" schema: 
Issue #4: You received error "Transformations could not be applied" due to missing column.
Reason: You used Conversions column in UNION, JOIN or Formulas in Transformations step and you changed metrics (removed Conversions, added Key Events), applied changes in the data shape and run importer.
How to fix: Change used column on transformations step to "Key events".