I was so used to the old Google Analytics interface that it was really hard for me to come around to the new version… In the beginning it was really hard because the new beta version looked so unfriendly and different…

But after few days I found a few really good features in the new Google Analytics version and I stopped complaining.

Did you know that now you can see the real time data in Google Analytics?

Google launched the real time data in Google Analytics about month ago. The real time data reports are of course available only in the new version of Google Analytics. To have access to it you need to be administrator of the Google Analytics account.

What can do you need real time data for?

I think the most obvious reason is to see the immediate impact (like increase in traffic, traffic sources, most popular pages etc.) of your marketing campaigns like emails, TV commercials or blogging in social media.

I’m sure that everyone will find something interesting with these reports.

What information is available in the real time reports in Google Analytics?

With the real time data you can see how many visitors are on your site right now, how they get there and what they are looking for. These reports are processed in real time – every second.

The real time data report section can be found under the Home tab in the new version of Google Analytics.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Under the real time (beta) section you can find the following reports:

• overview
• locations
• traffic sources
• content

Let’s take a little deeper look on real time reports.

 

Real time overview report

On the overview report you can see how many people are on your site right now. You will also find the amount of new and returning visitors.

The report on the top right shows number of pageviews per minute and per second.

 

 

 

 

You can also see the most popular content at this moment (top active pages), where visitors are coming from (top referring sites and organic/paid keywords they used to get to your site) and a top locations map showing from which country/city the visitors are coming from.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Time location report

The location report will show you a country breakdown of your visitors. You can also go deeper in this report and check from which city your visitors are coming from.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the location report you are able to see also the country breakdown using the Google Earth map.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Real Time traffic sources report

This report shows you where all the current visitors are coming from. You will see the medium and source of this traffic.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You can also go deeper in this report by clicking on the traffic sources.

Clicking on the organic and paid traffic source will break the results by keywords which visitors used to get to your site. Referral traffic source will break the results by site and direct traffic sources will break the results by landing page.

 

 

 

 

 

Real time content report

On this report you can view how many active users are viewing a specific page right now. Clicking on each page reveals the traffic sources for each.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With the content report you can also see the overall data for the last 30 minutes.

 

 

 

During analyzing the real time data you can notice that some rows of the data are mark in green and red. These colours indicate if the numbers have increased or decreased.

And the last thing to remember – Real Time data does not support filters! So even though you’re looking on the filtered profile (with ie. exclude IP addresses filters, search and replace filters, full URL display filter etc.) the data, you will see on the real time reports, won’t be filtered.

Unfortunately the real time reports do not include ecommerce data or goal reports but I hope you will find these reports really interesting as I did!

If you would like to find out more about Google Analytics please visit our website www.web-behavior.com or contact us on (+44) 0207 190 3311 or info@web-behavior.com.