Google Analytics is a tool that can help you find insights into what’s happening with your website. In-the-moment data reporting is what they’re all about. That way, you won’t have to wait around for hours at a time for data to process before being able to check reports and find out if your page is being correctly tracked. The real-time traffic sources report shows you how your active visitors found your website by categorizing visitors as organic, social, email, direct, campaign, referral traffic, etc. Using real-time reports in your campaigns Usually, the best insights from a campaign are gathered after it’s completed. However, there are a few limitations of these live reports that you should watch out for if you want to get the most out of Google Analytics. Real-time reports, which are a kind of standard report, can help you drive live sales and view data in real-time, as your visitors are taking action. There are several different kinds of real-time reports, including the overview report, events report, traffic sources report, content report, locations report, and conversions report. With the content/screens reports, you can view the particular pages that your website visitors are currently using. Real-time reports can be used in your campaigns for a number of reasons, like monitoring a social campaign or checking UTM parameters.
Google Analytics is a tool that can help you find insights into what’s happening with your website.
You can use it to access information about your traffic sources, engagement levels, the overall success of your campaigns, and so much more.
The majority of companies are using data analytics to make decisions for every marketing area of their business, so you’re the odd one out if you’re not.
But if you’ve never used Google Analytics before, the vast number of different reports that are available can be a little overwhelming when you’re just starting out.
Once you’ve set up the tool on your website, what reports should you run first? Where can you find reports that will help you drive sales?
You can find the answer to all of these questions in real-time reports.
Here’s how you can use real-time Google Analytics reports to drive live sales.
To begin, let’s talk about the different types of Google Analytics reports that are available.
The different types of Google Analytics reports
Reports on Google Analytics can typically be divided into two different types.
First, there are your regular, standard reports. These are the pre-set reports you’ll see listed on the left-hand side of the dashboard.
These are divided into the following segments:
- Real-Time
- Audience
- Acquisition
- Behavior
- Conversions
Google Analytics pre-sets the data appearing in these reports. But you also have the option to customize the data if you want.
This means that you can tweak standard reports to suit your brand’s specific needs.
Which brings us to the second kind of reports, known as custom reports.
These are reports created from scratch that target the data you want to gather, or they can be based on a standard report with additional segments added.
To create a custom report, “+ New Custom Report” button and complete the required fields.
Real-time reports are a bit different than custom reports.
They are a group of live reports that are pre-set by Google. In-the-moment data reporting is what they’re all about.
This means that you can get a view of how visitors are accessing and interacting with your website as it happens.
The data is available within two seconds of a visitor hitting your site, so there’s no waiting involved. You can get insights about your site in just seconds.
When there is an increase in active visitors on your site, the “Right now” number increases and is highlighted green.
When this number decreases, it will become highlighted in pink.
Real-time reporting is available to all Analytics users. No changes to your tracking code are needed.
To view real-time reports, start by signing into your Google Analytics account.
Then, navigate over to your account view.
Open “Reports” and click on “Real-Time.”
The benefits of real-time reports
Marketo is a marketing automation company that partners with more than 3,750 B2B and B2C companies like Charles Schwab, Curves, and GE.
The company used Google Analytics to boost conversions 10x more than traditional display marketing.
Their goals for using Analytics were to generate more conversions, boost customer engagement, and complete an online remarketing campaign.
Other results included a 117% YOY increase in their qualified leads and 200% more conversions for B2C with 150% more for B2B users.
You can find similar success with Google Analytics reports.
There are tons of opportunities for you to take action based on data and findings from these reports.
For example, if you’re planning to post a new article, you can use real-time data to publish your piece at a time when there is a large number of active viewers on-site.
This will boost its chances of being seen and shared and give your article maximum exposure.
You can also check that your tracking code is installed correctly on your website with real-time reports.
That way, you won’t have to wait around for hours at a time for data to process before being able to check reports and find out if your page is being correctly tracked.
Real-time reports also give you real-time insights about whether site visitors are bouncing off of your site quickly.
This will help you determine whether or not your content is engaging or effective without having to do a ton of research.
Next, let’s talk about each section of real-time reports, starting with the overview report.
Get a bird’s eye view with the overview report
The overview report serves as an overall view to help you get the big picture of what’s happening on your site at any given moment.
Think of this report as the “central hub” of all things real-time.
This report shows how many people are currently visiting your site, a list of the top most active pages, top sources of referral traffic, and top traffic sources.
It also shows the top locations that users are visiting your site from, which can help give you real-time insights into your customer demographics.
(If you want more in-depth data about the location of your site visitors, you can always head to the “locations” report, which we’ll talk about later on.)
Information about top keywords is also available within this report, which can help you find out if your keyword research efforts are actually paying off.
Next, we’ll go over the importance of the events section of real-time reports.
View all events in one place with the events report
The events report shows which events are currently taking place on your site.
It also shows which events have taken place for the last 30 minutes. The “Event Label” is hidden by default, but you can uncover it by clicking on one of the “Event Categories.”
Events help you view what active users are actually doing on your site while they’re online, which can help you move them further down your funnel.
For example, if you know that a ton of users are heading to a form submission but aren’t submitting the form, you can A/B test different versions to find out which one works best.
Then, you’ll capture more quality leads that can be used to make sales in the future.
This report is especially useful if you’ve ever used the Google Analytics’ Events feature to add custom events like downloads, clicks, or video plays on your site.
And the real-time traffic sources report lets you see how users got to your site.
Access real-time traffic sources
Understanding your traffic sources is important.
If you’re not sure how people are getting to your site, you won’t know where to focus your attention.
The real-time traffic sources report shows you how your active visitors found your website by categorizing visitors as organic, social, email, direct, campaign, referral traffic, etc.
This lets you see an instant picture when it comes to metrics like paid and organic search.
You can see exactly which…
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