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.