The Marketing Guide to Real-Time Reports in Google Analytics

Remember the time when you eagerly waited for likes and comments on your Facebook post. A bunch of encouraging comments under the blogs made you instantly happy.

Similarly, every marketer wants to watch the real-time progress of his digital campaigns. Undoubtedly, the real-time reports feature by Google Analytics is the best tool for this!

It is the right fit for every marketing task. For example, you can analyze the growing engagement in your blog section. You can check how many people clicked on your ad campaign on tweeter. Or you can watch the growing reach of your email campaign! Every little metric would be updated just like a live cricket match.

This real-time feature gives you a quick view of your hard-earned results. It also allows learning the behavior of the audience more closely.

So, here we are going to delve deep and learn more about this tool. We will tell you the useful metrics you can track through this feature. And of course, how to reap the best out of it.

But how to access this data on Google Analytics?

To get the real-time report, you must have launched a new event in the last five minutes.

Next, the process is very simple. Just find the reporting tab, click on it and select the Real-time option. And you would reach the destination.

On this page, you will get detailed information about a set of metrics. Let us check what these individual reports have in store.

Overview

In this section, there would be real-time info about visitor activities on your website. Like how many visitors are checking out the site right now! Which pages they are navigating?  From where you are getting the richest flow of traffic? Is it the paid ad you are sponsoring on Google, or the Facebook ad you invested in last week? Which country do these visitors belong to?

Locations Report

This report is specially made to know the whereabouts of your audience. You will be presented with an interactive map that highlights the source of your traffic. You can tap anywhere on the map to gain detailed insights. All the info will also be available in a list format. Using this report, you can target your campaigns to only specific geographical areas.

Traffic Report

This report tells you the digital source from which traffic is incoming. You will know how many visitors you are getting through the blog networks & sponsored ads separately. Analyzing the data, you can close the campaigns that are not benefitting you much. And focus and invest more on profitable channels.

Content Report

Here you will know which page on your site is getting the maximum attention. Where most of your traffic loves to hang out? You will get detailed info about the page views and percentage of active users. The tool shows data specifically for each page title with its URL. So that you get a clear and accurate picture.

Events Report

You can create custom events on Google Analytics to live track the engagement! Several types of events can be created like downloads, ad clicks, video plays, CTA button clicks. Then, Google Analytics would present you real time data on these events. You will know how have you performed in the last 30 minutes.

Conversions Report

Here you can set specific goals for your visitors like signing up for the newsletter and downloading the ebook. The report will intimate you with how many users completed the goals. This comes in handy when you are testing the efficacy of a campaign or trying to drive more conversions.

Create Shortcuts

It is a beta feature that saves a lot of time. You can create a shortcut for the metrics you will be viewed more often. The shortcut will be easily visible. You don’t have to navigate through many reports that are not so important.

To activate this feature, filter the most prior metrics from the reports section and click ‘create a shortcut’. After this, you can access the data directly by clicking the shortcut option. No more hustle now!

4 productive ways to reap the most out of real-time reports

1. Use the tool to check events and UTM parameters

When you launch a new campaign or want to measure the performance of a webpage, you take the help of UTM. UTM is actually a shortcode added after the URL. The real-time feature will show you whether all the parameters are working or not. If you are getting average page views and interaction, then take a deep breath. You have done the right configuration for the online event!

2. Track the progress of newly launched campaigns

The best case is a social media post or campaign. Monitor the audience reaction through the tool, and see if you can edit it for the better. You can even show the data to your audience and encourage them for more views, likes and shares.

In case you have just posted a tweet, track its metrics. If its performance is below average, you can retweet it to gain more engagement.

3. Remodel your content strategy according to trend

For this, you have to regularly monitor your metrics. Suppose you have an old blog or piece of content, that is suddenly gaining more views. This means the topic is currently trending. Reap the most by dragging that post to the top of your site. Or just create a few more content on this trending issue. You will surely get rich traffic by following this strategy.

4. Do A/B testing

It is recommended only for those sites that have a large number of audience. Because the more is the data, the better will be your decision.

A/B testing is ideal when you want to know the best suitable color for your CTA. By comparing the clicks you got for two different buttons, you can finalize the most effective colour.

Or if you are thinking to make a significant change in your site design, go for A/B testing. You will reach the best possible conclusion.

So, this sums up our tips on the real-time tracker by Google Analytics. Never spent all day looking at the number of views and shares. Instead, use the tool productively to extract meaningful insights. This tool can be a boon if applied rightly to enhance your marketing strategies.