How to Track Multi-Step Form Submissions as Conversions (Without a Thank You Page)
If you’ve ever tried to track conversions from a multi-step form—especially one that doesn’t send users to a thank you page—you know it can be a headache. Most tutorials assume you get a nice, clean URL change at the end, but that’s rarely how it works with modern forms.
Here’s how I actually get these forms tracked for clients, step by step, without relying on a thank you page.
Step 1: Figure Out What Actually Happens on Submission
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If you’ve ever tried to track conversions from a multi-step form—especially one that doesn’t send users to a thank you page—you know it can be a headache. Most tutorials assume you get a nice, clean URL change at the end, but that’s rarely how it works with modern forms.
Here’s how I actually get these forms tracked for clients, step by step, without relying on a thank you page.
Step 1: Figure Out What Actually Happens on Submission
First, you need to know what “success” looks like. Does the form show a confirmation message? Fire a custom event? Change a bit of text? Open your browser’s developer tools and submit a test lead. Look for any new elements, JavaScript events, or dataLayer pushes that only show up after a real submission.
Step 2: Set Up a Trigger in Google Tag Manager
Once you know what to look for, open Google Tag Manager. If the form fires a custom event—say, `formCompleted`—create a trigger for that event. If it just shows a message, use the Element Visibility trigger and point it at the confirmation message’s CSS selector.
Step 3: Fire Your Analytics Tag
Now, create a GA4 event tag. Call it something obvious like `multi_step_form_submission`. Attach your new trigger. If you want to include extra info (like which form was completed), add it as an event parameter.
Step 4: Test Everything
Before you call it done, use GTM’s Preview mode and submit the form a few times. Make sure your event only fires when the submission is real. Double-check in GA4’s real-time view that your event is coming through.
Step 5: Mark as a Conversion in GA4
In GA4, find your new event under “Events” and flip the switch to mark it as a conversion. Done.
A Few Tips:
If your form uses AJAX, you’ll need to listen for the right event or DOM change—pageview triggers won’t work.
If nothing obvious happens on submission, ask your developer to push a custom event to the dataLayer. It makes life much easier.
That’s it. No thank you page required, and you’ll finally have reliable numbers on your multi-step forms.