GA4 Realtime Reporting – DreamHost

Waaay back — not less than it feels that way — in 2019, Google unveiled Google Analytics 4 (GA4),  its eventual alternative for Universal Analytics (UA).

As of March 2023, Google began moving web sites that weren’t opted out from UA to GA4. When July 2023 rolls around, Universal Analytics will stop working with any latest website data once and for all, though previously-processed data shall be available for export for some time longer.

Why the switch from Universal Analytics to GA4?

In this text, we’ll cover what’s special about GA4 and its cutting-edge Realtime Reporting feature.

What’s So Special About GA4 and Realtime Reporting?

It is a move we’re enthusiastic about, because GA4 marks a significant shift in how website owners can monitor and use data from visitor activity.

While UA records every individual request to the web site server, GA4 almost immediately tracks each user interaction across each web sites and apps — and captures richer context around them. These interactions are called GA4 events. This approach enables website owners, marketers, and developers to deeply understand the user’s actual journey as they interact with off-site ads, on-site content, conversion points, and more.

GA4 also provides more metrics about visitors and is less complicated to make use of with each web and app data visible on the identical screen. And there’s another critical difference — the real-time factor.

GA4’s Realtime reports are the one place where you’ll be able to view users interacting along with your website or application practically because it’s happening. 

Which means that, for the primary time, you’ll find a way to know, within the moment, who your users are (from the user’s device, what channel they’re coming from, their location, etc.), in addition to what they need from their visit (see the pages they’re interacting with, the events they’re triggering, etc.).

While it’s true that there are some limitations on this real-time feature, which we’ll uncover next, this depth of reporting is invaluable for anyone who uses a web site or application to drive purchases, downloads, contact form entries, and conversions of some other sort.

Keep reading for our insights into the highest features, caveats, and use cases of GA4 Realtime.

A Few Caveats When It Involves GA4

Understandably, while you see a reputation like “Realtime” on a feature, you’re going to have certain expectations.

On this section, we’ll cover some slight eccentricities and differences from UA that website owners and managers should know as you begin using GA4.

Expect a Slight Delay With Some Data

Google says that data from apps is batched to save lots of battery life. Meaning data shall be served at a delay, nevertheless it should only be a number of minutes behind. In our opinion, this isn’t anything to fret about, but we would like to be clear that within the case of applications, “Realtime” is a slight misnomer.

Filters Mean Traffic May Look Different From UA

GA4 intends to filter out traffic coming from spam and bots. While that is a superb thing, it might cause your traffic reports to look slightly lighter than they did in UA, which can take some getting used to (and educating in case you’re handling analytics on behalf of the location owner.)

Limits on Personalization

The Realtime reporting screen in GA4 isn’t very customizable. You possibly can actually dig into the information using their comparison and snapshot features — which we’ll show you easy methods to do shortly — but that’s where the personalization ends.

The Nature of Realtime is That It’s Fleeting

Considered one of the core features of Realtime reporting is that it displays user activity over the past half-hour, and you’ll be able to only share this reporting via a link. There isn’t a choice to export data, because the minute it’s downloaded, it could now not be real-time.

As such, it might be difficult to assemble and report in your learnings from Realtime the identical way you may have with UA previously.

Realtime vs. DebugView

Interestingly, one other feature referred to as DebugView was added in GA4. This feature permits you to have a look at data much like the best way Realtime does.

While each support web and app data streams, Realtime uses comparisons to display data for a selected stream, and DebugView permits you to filter by device. DebugView may also display user activity for longer than half-hour, nevertheless it doesn’t have the intriguing user snapshot view that Realtime does (which we’ll speak about in additional detail later.) DebugView requires more setup, which is why it’s most frequently utilized by developers and tech-inclined marketers who’re laser-focused on detailed metrics.

Whether you select to make use of Realtime or DebugView is as much as your preferences and goals, but when you would like to explore more, here’s Google’s guide to getting began with DebugView.

The way to Navigate to GA4’s Realtime Reporting

Able to take a peek inside your individual GA4’s Realtime reporting dashboard?

First off, in case you haven’t converted from UA to GA4 just yet, here’s all the pieces you could know.

When you’re sure you’re up to this point, start by navigating to the account and GA4 property/app which you would like to analyze. On desktop, find this within the upper left corner of the screen near the Analytics logo. You wish it to say All accounts > The account you would like to work with today.

Now you need to be at GA4 Home. Within the sidebar, click the Reports icon to open the Reports snapshot page.

Look to the left sidebar again and select Realtime to finally pop open the Realtime overview!

What you’ll notice listed below are a bunch of “cards,” a few of which could be modified via a dropdown menu, displaying all the information a GA4 Realtime report has to supply:

• Users in last half-hour: Variety of users on desktop, mobile, and tablet within the last half-hour
• Users by source: View energetic users by a large number of filters — first user source, first user medium, first user source/medium, first user source platform, and first user campaign.
• Users/Latest users by Audience: The audiences to which users belonged when triggering events in the course of the report’s date range. (Learn more about audiences here.)
• Views by Page title and screen name: Variety of app screen/web page views, counting repeats.
• Event count by Event name: How often visitors trigger certain events. (See easy methods to create events here.)
• Conversions by Event name: The variety of times web or app visitors triggered a conversion event. (More on measuring conversions here.)
• Users by User property: Audience attributes you would like to track, like location, language, etc. Google Analytics already tracks some predefined dimensions, but you too can add custom properties while you go to Admin > Custom definitions.

Dots on the map will show you where users are positioned, and you’ll be able to click on these to learn slightly more about visitors in several areas. Clicking on a dot also creates a comparison — so let’s go ahead and explore that feature now.

Digging Deeper: Realtime’s Advanced Features

GA4 Realtime reporting may not have the identical customization we’re used to with UA, nevertheless it does have a number of capabilities that can help you slice and dice the information in interesting ways.

Comparisons

Comparisons enable you to match specific subsets of users. Add a comparison by navigating to the “Add comparison” button at the highest left of the Realtime screen.

A sidebar will slide out on the best, where you’ll be able to select dimensions equivalent to age, region, device, time, traffic source, etc. You may even select dimension values. So if the chosen dimension is Platform, value options will include Android, iOS, and Web.

While you hit Apply, you’ll see the Realtime overview page displaying the default All Users group and the comparison you simply created. You possibly can create and consider as much as 4 comparisons without delay, and you’ll be able to remove the default All Users group and replace it along with your own custom comparison.

User Snapshots

Realtime lets you see the actual, live(ish) behavior of an anonymous, random user in its user snapshot screen. Navigate there using the “View user snapshot” button on the upper right of your screen.

Here, it’s best to get a visible showing the events this user has triggered along a timeline and data equivalent to their device, location, and properties.

The way to Get the Most Out of GA4 Realtime Reporting

Use Realtime to totally understand your audience and their preferred journeys, deliver the form of content and features they honestly need to interact with, and implement campaign tracking that makes it easy to repeatedly iterate and improve.

Fund the Most Effective Features and Campaigns

Yelling into the void is perhaps an efficient tactic for letting off steam after an especially long week at work, nevertheless it’s decidedly ineffective in terms of marketing and have creation.

With GA4 Realtime, you may have one of the vital accurate looks you’ll be able to get into what your audience actually engages with in your website or app. Use it to launch content and features and run extraordinarily fast tests to find out in the event that they’re landing with the intended audience.

No more guessing. No more releasing rigorously crafted digital marketing messaging or cool latest app experiences into the void and crossing your fingers that they’ll connect along with your audience. Just real-time guidance on where to pivot away from what isn’t working and where to double down on the articles, CTAs, buttons, product pages, and other elements your audience goes nuts over.

Nail Your ICPs

Speaking of your audience, knowing your businesses’ core ideal customer profiles (ICPs) is one other critical think about constructing campaigns and products that land with the oldsters you would like to convert and retain.

Realtime provides insight into your real ICPs by uncovering user demographics and patterns, preferred channels, the kinds of tech they use, the sorts of content they relate to, and so forth.

Ensure Campaign Tags Are Working Properly

With Google Tag Manager, marketers can use tracking codes to “tag” campaigns and see who’s clicking on their content and from which channel (social media, guest blog posts, email marketing, etc.).

Realtime gives you a quick and easy strategy to ensure your campaigns, and campaign tags, work as intended. In case you launch a brand new campaign and aren’t seeing any traffic — your configuration might have slightly work. Or, in case you are getting traffic but not the type you would like, you’ll be able to quickly adjust it to hit the best ICP and boost impact very quickly.

Learn more about using Google Tag Manager so as to add events to Google Analytics.

Construct for *Actual* User Journeys

Again, Realtime reporting is all about eliminating guesswork, cutting through the noise, and constructing what moves the needle for your corporation.

User snapshots are considered one of the various touches that makes GA4 so distinctive in comparison with other analytics tools. You get insight into an actual, real-life user journey that tells you exactly how visitors behave and what they need to interact with — unhampered by remark bias and more accurate than third-party heat mapping and other tracking tools.

With that, you’ll be able to construct features and content for the journeys your users are literally on, not aspirational ones based on old data and best guesses.

The insights from and the use cases for GA4 Realtime reporting are incredibly robust — but we understand if the period of time left in your work day isn’t.

Admittedly, it might take quite a little bit of effort and time to get on top of things on GA4 and apply Realtime to its maximum potential. For a helping hand, schedule a marketing consultation or start a chat with our team of marketing pros. At DreamHost, our mission is to make it easier to succeed.