What are the marketing benefits for real-time traffic date in Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is one of the most widely used website tracking tools available. It is totally free to use, and more importantly, highly effective. Like most technology, however, it is not perfect, which in this case, mainly refers to the functionality it lacks. Many users would probably cite the ability to track website performance as the activity occurs as the one feature they would like to see. Well, we can now cross that off the list as Google has given its analytics program a major update.
It was recently announced that Google has added real-time traffic to its popular software program Google analytics. Thanks to the new feature, users can now view their reports to find out how their marketing efforts are performing in real time. As John Jersin, Product Manager of Google Analytics, put it in a blog post, this is a feature the user base has anxiously been awaiting. The update serves up live statistics in the following areas:
Visitors
Number of unique and returning visitors
Page views
Traffic sources
Active pages
The addition of real-time traffic data in Google Analytics is great news from a marketing perspective. For example, if you are trying to gauge the impact of a blog post or even an email campaign beyond the inbox, the information it provides can tell you how it is performing based on the immediate activity you are tracking. Not only can learn how much traffic that campaign drove in, but when it stopped coming in. This insight is extremely useful as it could come in handy for optimizing your existing initiatives, or creating entirely new content that results in better performance.
Availability
The real-time traffic reporting in Google Analytics is being rolled out to the user base in pieces. However, it is important to note that for now, its availability is limited to administrators using the recently introduced interface in the latest version of the program. This is straightforward enough being that accessing the new feature is reportedly as simple as clicking the “New Version” at the top of the interface, which as the title suggests, takes you to the new version. From there, you can start viewing real-time data by clicking “Real Time” on the left side of the interface. Google says the feature will be available to all users over the coming weeks.
Google Analytics is not the only software to bring real-time traffic data to the table as this is a feature that can be found in a growing number of solutions on the market. However, the search company is offering it for free, while other vendors are charging a hefty fee for this information. On a similar note, it has been reported that Google recently launched Google Analytics Premium, a paid version of the program. This one is said to offer additional perks such as advanced reporting, better performance, and dedicated technical support. Still no word on how much this one will set marketers back in terms of price.
Louis Slade and is a marketing consultant for a major Email Marketing Company
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