Decide what counts as a lead
Skip this and you will end up tracking forty things and reading none of them.
For most local businesses the list is short:
- Phone number clicks. On mobile, this is your single most important event. For a trade, it is most of the business.
- Contact and quote form submissions. The other half.
- Get Directions clicks. Matters for retail, restaurants, and anyone with a storefront. Ignore it if you are a service-area business.
- Booking or appointment starts. If you schedule online, this is the one that maps to revenue.
That is four events. Four is plenty. You can always add more once you are actually reading the first four, which most people never get to.
Note what is missing: pageviews, time on page, scroll depth. Those are interesting. They are not leads, and mixing them into your conversion list is how a report becomes noise.
Install the container
Go to tagmanager.google.com and create an account. Business name for the account, your domain for the container, and pick Web as the platform.
GTM then hands you two snippets. One goes in the <head>, the other right after the opening <body> tag, on every page.
On WordPress, do not paste those into your theme files. A theme update will wipe them and nothing will tell you. Use a plugin like GTM4WP, or your theme's own header scripts field if it has one. That way the install survives the next update.
Connect GA4 with the Google tag
Here is where older guides will send you looking for something that no longer exists.
They tell you to add a tag using the "Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration" template. That template was replaced by the Google tag back in September 2023. If you are hunting for GA4 Configuration in the tag list and not finding it, that is why. Nothing is broken.
What you want now: New Tag, tag type Google Tag, and your GA4 Measurement ID, which starts with G-. Trigger it on All Pages.
That one tag is the foundation. Every event below sends data through it.
Not GA4 Config
The "Google Analytics: GA4 Configuration" tag was replaced by the Google tag in September 2023. Guides still telling you to look for it are out of date, including plenty published since.
Track calls, forms, and directions
Phone clicks. Create a trigger of type Click, All Elements, and set the condition to fire when Click URL contains tel:. Point a GA4 event tag at it and name the event phone_click.
One catch worth knowing up front. This only catches taps on a linked phone number. Someone on a desktop who reads your number and dials it from their cell is invisible, and always will be. Make sure your number is an actual tel: link everywhere it appears, or you are undercounting your best channel.
Forms. Start with the built-in Form Submission trigger. It works on plain HTML forms and fails on plenty of modern ones, because most form plugins submit in the background without a real page submit.
When it fails, track the thank-you page instead. A pageview on /thank-you/ is a clumsier signal and a far more reliable one. If your form does not redirect anywhere, give it a redirect. It makes tracking simpler and gives you somewhere to say thank you properly.
Form tools with their own quirks need their own setup, which is covered in tracking Klaviyo form submissions.
Get Directions. A click trigger on links containing google.com/maps or maps.apple.com catches most of these.
Bookings. Embedded schedulers run in an iframe, so ordinary click tracking cannot see inside them. That needs its own approach, covered in tracking Calendly bookings.
Validate it, then validate it again
Tracking fails silently. It does not throw an error, it just quietly reports zero, and zero looks exactly like a slow month.
Preview mode first. GTM's Preview opens your site in a debug window showing which tags fire on each action. Click your own phone number. Submit your own form. Watch the tags fire before you publish anything.
Then GA4 Realtime. Preview proves the tag fired. Realtime proves the data arrived. Those are two different failures and you want to rule out both.
Then a sanity check a week later. Compare what GA4 says against what actually happened. If it shows fifty form submissions and you fielded ten inquiries, something is double-firing. If it shows zero phone clicks and your phone rang, the trigger is wrong.
That last check is the one everybody skips, and it is the one that catches real problems. Re-run it after any redesign or plugin update, which is when tracking tends to disappear.
One warning for medical and legal
If you run a medical, dental, therapy, or legal practice, read this part before you install anything.
Google is direct about it: "Google makes no representations that Google Analytics satisfies HIPAA requirements and does not offer Business Associate Agreements in connection with this service."
Read that twice, because it is the opposite of what a lot of marketing content implies. No developer, agency, or configuration makes Google Analytics HIPAA compliant. Google will not sign the agreement that would make it possible. There is no version of this you can buy your way into.
What that means in practice. Keep tracking off pages tied to a specific condition, a patient portal, or an appointment for a named service. Never pass a name, email, phone number, or anything identifying into an event parameter. If a page could reveal something about a person's health by the fact they visited it, leave it untracked.
Attorney-client work deserves the same caution for the same reason. This is worth an actual conversation with your compliance advisor, not a checkbox in a tag manager, and I am not one.
Common questions
What should a local business actually track?
Four events: phone number clicks, contact and quote form submissions, Get Directions clicks if you have a storefront, and booking starts if you schedule online. That's plenty. Pageviews, time on page, and scroll depth are interesting, but they aren't leads, and mixing them in turns reports into noise.
Why can't I find the GA4 Configuration tag in GTM?
Because it doesn't exist anymore. That template was replaced by the Google tag back in September 2023, and plenty of guides still point you at the old name. Nothing's broken. Create a new tag, pick Google Tag as the type, add your G- Measurement ID, and trigger it on All Pages.
How do I know the tracking is actually working?
Validate it three times. Preview mode proves the tag fired, GA4 Realtime proves the data arrived, and a sanity check a week later compares what GA4 says against what actually happened. That last one is the check everybody skips, and it's the one that catches double-firing and dead triggers.
Can a medical or legal practice use this setup?
Be careful. Google says plainly that Google Analytics isn't offered with the agreements HIPAA would require, and no configuration changes that. Keep tracking off condition-specific pages and patient portals, never pass identifying details into event parameters, and talk to your compliance advisor, because I'm not one.
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gravityGone sets up tracking, websites, and marketing automation for small businesses across Jacksonville and Northeast Florida, with websites starting at $250, no long-term contracts.
Mike is the founder of gravityGone, where he helps small businesses in Northeast Florida grow through Web Development, SEO, and Marketing Automation.
