How to measure reservation buttons on accommodation sites using GA4 | Differences from telephone calls and inquiries

You have installed Google Analytics 4 (GA4) on your inn’s homepage, but are you only looking at the number of page views? What you really want to know on an inn website is whether people who looked at the guest room and prices proceeded to the reservation page, tried to make a call, or completed their inquiry.

These can be measured as “events” in GA4.However, the number of times you press the reservation button and the number of reservations actually made are two different things.After moving to an external reservation service, you may not be able to find out by using GA4 on your own website.

In this article, the host, who is not familiar with IT, will explain how to decide at what level to measure reservation buttons, phone calls, and inquiries, and how to safely send requests to AI and production companies.

Conclusion: Initially, only one “proceed to the reservation page” will be measured.

If you try to measure reservation completions and sales from the beginning, things like coordination with external reservation services, consent management, personal information, and double counting become complicated. First, proceed in the following order.

1. Check the current GA4 installation method
2. Divide the reservation flow into “view, click, input, and completion”
3. Measure one click that leads to an external reservation page
4. Check in GA4 real time or DebugView
5. Record the meaning and limitations of numbers in operational notes
6. Expand calls and inquiries only when necessary

Even if you set “Reservation button click” as a key event, the display name and report do not say “Reservation completed”, but instead use the actual measured action such as “Transition to reservation page”.

Divide the reservation process into four stages

An increase in Stage 2 does not necessarily mean an increase in Stage 4. You may drop out midway due to full occupancy, fees, input difficulties, payment errors, etc. Conversely, people who make reservations by phone or OTA will not be recorded as completed reservations on the inn’s website.

GA4 events and key events

In GA4, actions such as page viewing, link clicking, and form submission are called “events.” Among these, actions that are particularly important for business can be designated as “key events.” Google Analytics key event explanation explains that you can set the events being collected as key events and check important actions in reports.

For accommodation sites, the name and meaning are separated as follows.

Marking an event as a key event does not change the fact of the event. Simply setting a reserved click as a key event does not count as the “number of reservations.”

The external reservation button may be confirmed with extended measurement.

If the reservation button is a normal link that moves from your own domain to a reservation service on another domain, you may be able to capture external link clicks with GA4’s extended measurement. Google’s official external click measurement guide states that if you enable extended measurement, links that go outside the current domain can be detected as click events.

The items you want to check are as follows.

• Linked domain
• Link destination URL
• Must be an external link
• Clicked page
• Number of occurrences of the event

However, the behavior will be different if the reservation button is powered by JavaScript, is inside an iframe, the reservation service is subject to cross-domain measurement, or goes to a reservation page within the same domain. Don’t assume that you can get everything just because you turned on extended measurement, but test it with the actual button.

Reservation buttons within the same domain require different design

Internal links like going from example.jp/rooms/ to example.jp/reserve/ are not external clicks. Confirm that the reservation information page has been reached by viewing the page, or set a click event for a specific button using Google Tag Manager (GTM), etc.

We do not recommend that the beginner host paste code from the Internet directly into the theme. There is a possibility that the same tag may disappear when the theme is updated, the same tag may be duplicated, or all buttons may be incorrectly measured.

First, have the production company or AI investigate the following.

• Is GA4 installed with a theme, plugin, or GTM?
• Is the same measurement ID entered twice?
• Is the reservation button a regular link, JavaScript, or iframe?
• Is the reservation destination the same domain as your own your inn or a different domain?
• Has a click event already been sent?

Depending on the investigation results, additions will be made to the existing management method. There is no need to install it just for this one case on sites that do not use GTM.

What you can learn by tapping your phone

Phone links for smartphones usually start with tel:.Clicks on this link can be counted as an indication of the number of phone calls attempted.

However, only taps can be measured.

• Canceled on call screen
• The call was not connected
• It was a sales call or a wrong call.
• Pressed multiple times by the same person
• I saw the phone number from my computer and called it from another device.

These cannot be distinguished using GA4 alone. Treat this as a “tap on a telephone link” rather than a “number of telephone reservations,” and avoid mixing it up with telephone reception records or reservation ledgers.

There is no need to include the phone number itself in the event name. When distinguishing between multiple facilities or multiple counters, consider a classification that does not identify individuals, such as front_desk, rather than individual numbers.

Inquiries are separated into clicks and completions.

In the inquiry form, even if you press the send button, input errors or communication failures may occur. Therefore, rather than “clicking the send button,” it is clearer to measure when WordPress processes normally and displays a completion screen or success status.

On the other hand, if the completion screen is a URL that anyone can open directly, views without inquiries may be counted. Check the form plugin’s success event, completion page conditions, and double submission behavior.

Also, even if the form is completed, there is no guarantee that the email will reach the inn. Since GA4 does not monitor email delivery, it will be considered separately from How to check the sending, receiving, and authentication of WordPress inquiry emails.

Do not send personal information to GA4

Google’s official guide to avoiding sending personal information requires that Google not send personally identifiable information to Analytics. Please be especially careful as accommodation sites handle personal information for reservations and inquiries.

The following cannot be included in the event name, additional information, URL, or page title.

• Name
• Email address
• Phone number
• Address
• Reservation number, membership number
• Information linking the date of stay and name
• Inquiry text
• Free text entered in the form
• Detailed location information that can identify individuals

For example, if you send a complete URL like /thanks/?email=... or /booking-complete/123456 as is, personal information or identifiers may be mixed in. The data editing function is a supplement, and we prioritize designs that do not include personal information in URLs or events from the beginning.

Reasons why measurement is interrupted with external reservation services

Our website and reservation service may operate using different companies, domains, cookies, and consent screens. If If your inn GA4 tag is not included in the reservation service, inputs and conversions after the move will not reach your inn GA4.

If you want to track the reservation until it is completed, check the official features of the reservation service.

• Is it possible to set the GA4 measurement ID?
• Does it support cross-domain measurement?
• Can I send a reservation completion event or purchase event?
• How to handle amounts, taxes, currencies, cancellations, and refunds
• How to unify consent management and privacy guidance
• Can you distinguish between test reservations and real reservations?
• Is it a specification that does not send personal information?

We do not embed codes into unsupported services without permission, nor do we automatically manipulate screens to create success numbers. There is also a way to compare the number of clicks using GA4 and the number of closings using the reservation system.

Notes on measuring reservation completion

Google’s recommended events include generate_lead, which is used for inquiries, and purchase, which indicates purchase completion.Official List of Recommended Events explains that defined meanings and additional information make the report easier to use.

However, the design of sending accommodation reservations as purchase requires formal coordination and testing with reservation services.

• Do not double count when reloading the same reservation
• Do not use personal information for unique transaction IDs
• Unify definitions of amounts and currencies
• Distinguish between on-site payment and advance payment
• Decide how changes, cancellations, and refunds will be reflected
• Check with actual reservation management data

If this is not necessary, it is safer to limit externally booked clicks to improvement indicators.

Create measurement design table

Before setup, share the following table with the host, production company, and AI.

If you write down the things you cannot say, you will be less likely to overestimate the numbers in your monthly report.

Read-only survey before configuration

Let the AI investigate the current state without changing GTM or WordPress from the beginning.

Please investigate the accommodation site's GA4 and reservation line in read-only mode.

Make sure:
- GA4 tag installation method and whether measurement IDs overlap or not
- Public page with reservation button
- Destination domain for each button
- Distinction between regular links, JavaScript, and iframes
- Possibility to capture external clicks with extended measurement
- Existing click and key events

Please do not change WordPress, theme, plugins, GTM, or GA4 settings yet.
Please do not complete reservations, inquiries, or payments.
Please do not output confidential information or user information other than the measurement ID.
Please report confirmed, guessed, and questions to the host separately.

Request text to implement only one thing

After the investigation, we will limit the target to one.

I would like to measure only the clicks on the button that proceed to the external reservation page.
Based on the following survey results, please create a proposal to add to the existing GA4 management method.
[Survey results]

Requirements:
- Choose a measurement name that will not be misunderstood as a reservation being made.
- Do not send your name, phone number, email, reservation number, or form details.
- Do not double count the same click
- Do not count other external links as reservations
- Shows the difference before and after the change and how to restore it
- Try in the validation environment or just one button first

Please do not make any actual changes yet, but please provide a configuration proposal and confirmation procedure.

How to check after setting

1. Open the correct properties in GA4
2. Display real-time or DebugView
3. Check the consent status and open the your inn website
4. Press the target reservation button only once
5. Check whether the expected event is recorded once.
6. Check if another external link is recorded as a reservation
7. Check on PC and smartphone
8. Check whether personal information is included in the event or URL
9. Check the regular report from the next day onwards.

Google recommends DebugView and real-time reporting as ways to check recommended events. Your actions may not be recorded due to ad blocking, cookie consent, browser restrictions, etc., so instead of adding multiple tags, investigate the cause one by one.

Monthly numbers

Rather than increasing the number of small events, look at the next few under the same conditions.

• Number of visitors to reservation information page
• Number of external booking clicks
• Number of phone link taps
• Number of completed inquiries
• Each entrance page
• Differences between PC and smartphone

If there are fewer clicks, the location of the button is not the only cause. Not knowing the price, not knowing how to spend time with the cat, full occupancy, season, closing, and an influx of advertisements can also have an impact. Don’t make a conclusion based on the small number of cases. Actually operate the reservation page and consider the details of your inquiry to the inn.

Please refer to Introduction to Google Search Console for information on which page is the entry point for Google search, and Introduction to Google Analytics 4 for the host for the overall implementation and permission management of GA4.

Checklist

• [ ] Separate click, input, and reservation completion
• [ ] At first, I selected only one transition to the reservation page.
• [ ] Confirmed duplication with current GA4 installation method
• [ ] Distinguish between external links and links within the same domain
• [ ] Reservation clicks are not called the number of completed reservations.
• [ ] You have not sent your name, email, phone number, or reservation number.
• [ ] Separate inquiry click and processing completion
• [ ] Tried once in real time or DebugView
• [ ] Confirmed that another link is not recorded by mistake.
• [ ] Confirmed on PC and smartphone
• [ ] The meaning and limitations of measurement were recorded in the operational memo.

Summary

The important thing with GA4 is not to increase the number of things that can be measured, but to correctly determine what the numbers mean. For accommodation sites, by first measuring one behavior at the entrance, such as “proceeding to an external reservation page,” you can improve whether people are proceeding from the guest room or article to the reservation path.

A phone tap does not constitute a call, and a reservation click does not constitute a reservation. Completing an inquiry is also different from receiving an email. The AI ​​will be responsible for investigating the current situation, planning settings, and sorting out the test results, and the host will check the meaning of the event, personal information, and comparison with the official number of reservations.

Reference materials

• Measure external clicks (Google Analytics Help)
• About key events (Google Analytics Help)
• Recommended events (Google Analytics help)
• Avoid sending personally identifiable information (Google Analytics Help)