Google Analytics Real-Time monitors visitor activity as it happens, providing constantly updated data. Analytics users can watch instant traffic shifts, see visitor geographic locations, monitor which pages are being viewed, and more.
Assess Real-Time through any Google Analytics account. There are no requirements, and you don’t have to change your tracking code. To view Real-Time reports, go to the Home tab in your Google Analytics dashboard and select Real-Time from the left-hand column.
Real-Time Reports
Here you can access four reports: Overview, Locations, Traffic Sources, and Content.
Overview. View websites and keywords that generated visitors to your site, as well as which page on your site they entered.
Locations. See the geographic locations of visitors on your site - along with how many pages were viewed from each city - in the previous 30 minutes.
Traffic Sources. This report shows which channels and campaigns referred visitors and lets you monitor the percentage of active visitors that were referred by a specific site or campaign.
Content. See the pages that were viewed within the previous 30 minutes. Also, view the number of page views and active visitors on each page right now.
Benefits to Real-Time
Real-Time helps websites in many ways. For example, if your store is unveiling a new product that’s only available online for this holiday season, you can monitor visitors to your site, which Google AdWords keyword (or other sources) brought them there, and how they move through it. Your can track instant changes in your traffic to see what is working in a campaign, for example. You can view the influx of traffic compared to the start of the promotion.
Another benefit of Real-Time is the ability to connect with social media and blog posts. Through this feature, you can monitor the effects on traffic as you tweet or post to the company blog about current events.
For a new product launch, if you didn’t see the traffic you want on the first day and want to try a follow-up campaign, you can test that campaign with a well-designed landing page, and monitor traffic to that page instantly.
Additional Uses of Real-Time
Here are a few additional uses for Real-Time.
Monitor campaign performance as campaigns go live.
Monitor social media campaigns.
Track email campaign performance as emails are sent.
Monitor television and radio campaigns.
Test new Google Analytics code - such as for a mobile app - as it is deployed.
Real Time Monitoring on your Mobile Phone
Google recently announced the Analytics App for Android. Through this app, users can access the same accounts and profiles as on a desktop browser, but are now optimized for the Android phone. Real-Time is a feature within this program that allows you to see the number of visitors currently on the site and a list of pages or screens that are popular.
Summary
The next time you’re thinking "I wonder what is going on right now on my website?", you have the ability to find out. Real-Time is another feature within the Google Analytics family of tools that makes your digital marketing and data management easy to track. You can utilize it on your next big campaign - Track, tweak, and re-message to boost sales, donations, or conversions.
