How to set up a funnel using event parameters as steps
I’m trying to set up a funnel exploration using certain event parameters as “steps”. But when I set it up, I can’t see any data in the funnel.
My use case is I have a form on my website, and every time someone reaches the next step in the form it sends an event to GA. This event has different parameters based on whether they are on a question page or an answer page – one parameter for question and one for answer. Then the parameter properties are the names of the question/answer.
I’ve successfully set up the funnel with the events and parameters above, but I can’t see any data. We started firing events around 24 hours ago. I’ve read that it can take 24-48 hours to see the data in a funnel (?) but wanted to check whether I’ve missed something. I’ve read about custom dimensions and wasn’t sure whether that was something I needed to set up.
The short answer is:
It sounds like you’re encountering the common delay in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) data processing, especially for Explorations.
While the raw data hits (like those from your form steps) usually appear quickly in the Realtime report, it can take 24-48 hours for the aggregated data to be fully processed and available in standard reports and Explorations, including Funnel Explorations.
Given you started firing events about 24 hours ago, waiting another day or so might resolve the issue.
However, you’ve hit on the critical next step: yes, you absolutely need to register those event parameters as custom dimensions in GA4 to use them effectively as segments, filters, or as “steps” in an Exploration’s comparison view, or as step components themselves, depending on how you’ve structured the funnel.
Without registering them, GA4 only processes them for basic event counting and they won’t be available in the Exploration interface for detailed analysis beyond the event name itself.
The long answer is:
The 24-48 hour delay is very likely the primary issue right now.
GA4 Explorations pull from the complete, processed dataset, which simply takes time to build.
If you check your Realtime report right now, you should see those form-step events with their question and answer parameters coming through, confirming your tracking setup is working.
If you don’t see them there, you have a tracking issue to fix first.
Assuming they’re in Realtime, patience is key for the Funnel Exploration data to populate.
Regarding your custom dimensions question, it’s a necessary step.
When you send an event parameter like, say, question_name
To use the specific values of your question_nameanswer_value
You do this in Admin -> Custom definitions.
You need to create an Event-scoped custom dimension for each unique parameter name you want to analyze (e.g., one for question_nameanswer_value
Once you’ve created these, it can take up to another 24 hours for data from that point forward to start appearing against those dimensions in reports and explorations.
Data collected before the custom dimension was created won’t be retroactively processed.
Your current successful funnel setup likely uses the event name itself as a step, but since your funnel logic relies on the parameter values (e.g., “Event = “) to define the specific step, you must have the parameter registered as a dimension to use it that way in the Funnel Exploration builder’s step configuration.form_step AND Parameter question_name = Name
For a robust, real-time, and budget-friendly solution to overcome the GA4 delays and custom dimension limits, you could consider bypassing the GA4 interface entirely for funnel visualization.
An excellent and cheap solution involves using Google Tag Manager (GTM) for initial data collection, a server-side tagging solution like Stape or your own Google Cloud Platform (GCP) setup to process the events, and then sending the data directly to a data warehouse like Google BigQuery.
BigQuery is where the real power lies, as it receives the raw, unsampled event data very quickly via the free GA4 BigQuery export.
Once your data is in BigQuery, you can use the Google Analytics Data API (for smaller, summarized datasets) or, more powerfully, query BigQuery directly.
You can then use Looker Studio (which has a very generous free tier) to connect to BigQuery and visualize your funnel in real-time using custom SQL queries.
This setup is superior because BigQuery gives you immediate access to the raw data, bypassing the 24-48 hour GA4 processing delay and the limitations on the number of custom dimensions you can register in the GA4 interface.
Stape or GCP acts as a resilient data pipeline, and Looker Studio provides a flexible, powerful, and free front-end for visualization.
The cost is minimal: Stape has a free/cheap tier, GTM is free, BigQuery has a massive free tier for storage and querying, and Looker Studio is free.
This approach not only solves your current issue but future-proofs your analytics by giving you full ownership and control over your event data.
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