Lisda Ikhwantini Digital Marketing Consultation

Testing and experiment on Google Analytics dashboard

You have to do an experiment to know more about Google Analytics tools, since Google support maybe can make you confused. I posted many articles about Google Analytics, you can find it here to know more about this tools.

Where is Google Analytics Real-time Report?

1. Login to analytics.google.com.
2. You will see ‘Active user right now’ on Home, click Real-time report.
3. Or click Realtime tab on the left.

Google support said that,”Real-Time allows you to monitor activity as it happens on your site or app. The reports are updated continuously and each hit is reported seconds after it occurs.” The question is, “Is it true?”

What kind of activity that record a hit on Google Analytics Realtime and how many seconds it will take to get recorded? The answer is:

• Not all activity on site can make a hit on the dashboard.
• It’s about 3-4 seconds to make a hit on the dashboard.

I do this experiment on the Realtime dashboard, and maybe will give you a few insight

Based on my little experiment on active user report on my Blogspot site, you will see the result below.

Google Analytics is not counting an active user (a hit) on Realtime report when a user:

1. Only scrolling up and down.
2. Click ads.
3. Click image.
4. Click to share the article.
5. Play video embedded.

Google Analytics is counting an active user (a hit) on Realtime report when a user:

1. Click a title from the blog homepage.
2. Click links on the blog page.
3. Reload the page

If your visitor stay long enough on your page by playing your videos or clicking your infographics, Realtime report will never consider it a hit. Then maybe you will ask, that is my visitor’s activity but why Google Analytics thinks it is not an activity on Realtime reports? If there is a delay (3-4 seconds) to record a hit on Realtime report, then it will not called a real-time, right? Overall Google Analytics just a tool, maybe continue to be developed by Google in the future, but this realtime report data is one of that Google Analytics can not do as a real-time data right now.

You still can see my other post of what your visitors do on your website, what your visitors’ keyword on search engine and your audience report (Demographic, interest, location, device, etc.) to help you understanding your visitor on Google Analytics.