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Guide 128 · Setup · GA4 + Tag Manager

Turn on outbound click tracking: the click event that leaves your domain

Checked 11 November 2026 · Verification: outbound click parameters counted (5 parameters on the click event) · Steps traced to Analytics Help, read 11 November 2026 · 5-minute read

Outbound click tracking is the toggle that shows where visitors go when they leave. Every click on a link to another website fires a click event carrying the link's URL, domain, and ID. Links to domains listed in cross-domain measurement do not trigger it, because those are not really leaving. This guide confirms the toggle and shows what the event carries.

Expected signal

After step 3, the Outbound clicks option is on, and clicking a link to another domain sends one click event with link_url set to the destination and outbound set to true.

Download the reference: the outbound click reference (JSON) (644 bytes, MD5 788da5bcee30751c31cd8f1ce860c81a). The click event parameters from Google's enhanced measurement page, counted in Python: 5 parameters on every outbound click.

What you need

  • A web data stream. Enhanced measurement applies to web streams, and Outbound clicks is one of its options.
  • The Editor role or above at the property level. Google requires Editor or above to enable or disable enhanced measurement events.
  • At least one link to another domain on the site. Without an outbound link there is nothing to test the toggle against.

The trace

  1. Open the stream. In Admin, under Data collection and modification, click Data streams, then click the name of the web data stream.
  2. Open the enhanced measurement options. Under Enhanced measurement, click the settings icon to edit individual options.
  3. Check Outbound clicks. Confirm the Outbound clicks option is on. It is on by default when the stream is created. Save if you changed anything.
  4. Know the trigger. The click event fires each time a user clicks a link that leads away from the current domain to another website. By default it fires for all links leading away from the current domain. Links to domains configured for cross-domain measurement do not trigger outbound click events, because the visitor is still inside the measured journey.
  5. Know what the event carries. The click event carries 5 parameters: link_classes, link_domain, link_id, link_url, and outbound. That is 5 values on every outbound click: the link's classes, its domain, its ID, its URL, and outbound set to true. Those parameters fill the Link classes, Link domain, Link ID, Link URL, and Outbound dimensions in the reports.
  6. Find the event in the reports. Open Reports, then Engagement, then Events, and look for click with the Outbound dimension set to true. Standard reports can take 24 to 48 hours to show new data; Realtime and DebugView show the event sooner.

Dead ends

DEAD END — COUNTING CLICKS TO YOUR OWN SUBDOMAINS AS OUTBOUND. A link from www.example.com to shop.example.com stays inside the domain, so it is not an outbound click. If subdomain clicks never appear as click events, that is the toggle working as documented, not a fault.

DEAD END — EXPECTING OUTBOUND EVENTS FOR CROSS-DOMAIN LINKS. Domains listed in cross-domain measurement are excluded from outbound click events by design. If a partner domain stops producing click events after it is added to the cross-domain list, the list is the cause.

DEAD END — READING EMAIL AND PHONE LINKS AS OUTBOUND CLICKS. The documented trigger is a click on a link that leads away from the current domain to another website. Email and phone links are not website links, so they do not fire the event; they need their own tracking if the business wants them counted.

End state

Outbound clicks is on. Clicks to other websites send one click event each with the link URL, domain, ID, and classes, and the Outbound dimension marks them true. Clicks to cross-domain measurement domains do not fire the event.

Sources

Checked 11 November 2026. The trigger and parameters above are the ones in Google's enhanced measurement page, opened 11 November 2026, and the cross-domain page, opened the same day. No step in this guide was run inside a live Analytics property, because that needs a Google sign-in and this site does not sign in as anyone. The reference file was checked in Python: its figures were recomputed from the documentation values and match the numbers on this page. Google moves menu items without warning; if a path on this page no longer matches, the linked help page is the current map.