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Tag: Real Time Analytics

  • Google Analytics Real Time API Launches In Beta

    Google has just extended an invitation to developers and marketers to take part in the beta for the Real Time Reporting API for Google Analytics.

    Google first launched real time analytics back in 2011. Since then, it’s been a must-use feature of Google Analytics, giving people a glimpse at where there traffic is coming from as it is happening.

    “Manually taking action and being informed about the immediate performance of your site is fantastic, however it’s not realistic to sit at your computer 24/7 and take advantage of these insights,” Google says in a blog post. “Also and perhaps more importantly, your reflexes can never be as fast as computers. So the next logical step has always been to programmatically take action using real-time analytics.”

    With the API, you can make queries about real-time data and use the info in various apps to suit your needs.

    “One of the immediate use cases is to manage the content on your webpage,” the company says. “For example, you can query the API for the top visited URLs to construct a top trending content widget with the number of active readers. A site can also use what I call the ‘web counter 2.0’, meaning to display the active visitor count in real-time. Seeing the number of visitors also viewing a piece of content has a number of subtle effects such as creating a sense of community and credibility.”

    Check out how Clancy Childs is using it to display realtime visitors on a pebble smart watch (pictured). That gives you a good idea of the possibilities this API really opens up.

  • Google Analytics Real Time Reports Get Even Better

    The real-time feature is probably the best thing Google has done for Google Analytics in a long time, at least for publishers like us. Now the feature is getting even better.

    Google announced some improvements to its real-time reports, including the ability to analyze Events in real-time, breakdown real-time by Desktop/Tablet/Mobile traffic, create shortcuts to your favorite real-time segments, and compare real-time filtered data against overall real-time data.

    “With the real-time events report, you can now not only see the top events as they occur but also filter on particular event categories (and actions),” the Google Analytics team notes in a blog post. “Additionally, you can see whether particular segments of visitors trigger different events and debug your events deployment in real time.”

    “If you are trying to see what events a particular segment of visitors generate, that is easy as well,” Google adds. “Any filters you set up in any part of real-time are preserved in the Events report. For example, in the above screengrab we have set up a filter here to see what events are triggered from visitors coming via organic search.”

    The breakdown by Desktop/Tablet/Mobile feature is going to be an interesting one to watch, and will give publishers a better sense of their current audience at any given second.

    More on the changes here.

    Earlier this week, Google also launched some new social reports for Google Analytics.