Naming Your Events So Reports Stay Clean (Event Taxonomy)

Why this matters

A poorly named event taxonomy accumulates technical debt that is nearly impossible to clean up — every downstream report, alert, and dashboard depends on the names you pick today. Designing the taxonomy before implementation is the highest-leverage analytics decision you will make.

Try it yourself

1. List every interactive element on one page of your site; draft a GA4 event name for each using the object_action convention (e.g., form_submit, video_play) and check all names are under 40 characters.
2. Identify two events on your list that could be merged into one with a parameter distinguishing them (e.g., cta_click with a cta_id parameter) and rewrite the taxonomy entry.
3. Cross-reference your draft taxonomy against GA4's recommended events list and mark which of your events can be replaced by a recommended event name to gain automatic reporting.

References

• https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/13316687