Google Analytics Goes Real-Time

All publishers, businesses and internet marketers who really want to know where their money is going online and how effective their spend is need to have some sort of website analytics systems in place, be it for examining traffic on their own site, their ad performance, or in many cases both.

For many online brands, Google analytics is the first exposure they have to analytics packages.  Up until now, Google Analytics has focused on keeping users updated with what has already happened - yesterday, last week, last month - and highlighting trends over time.  

However, it looks like that is set to change.  On a post on the Google analytics blog, noting that "the web is getting faster", Google announced Google Analytics Real-Time, intended to "show what's happening on your site as it happens".

This set of new reports will allow users to monitor, for example, most active pages right now, percentage of return visitors vs. new users that your site currently has, and the geographical location of current visitors.  Google suggests this new data would have a number of uses, such as tracking social media - looking at how a tweet propagates across the web, for example - or testing of campaign tracking, by very quickly making sure that you are tracking the right things.  

Everyone using the new version of Google Analytics should shortly have access to the real time capabilities.  Of course, no amount of real time data will be of any use if you lack the will or staff to implement the implied changes though, so do not get too excited - can your organisation really deal with real time?