Real-Time Google Analytics Alerts

Last updated 2024-03-21
TL;DR Short on time?
Key things to know:

If you're running a business or are responsible for one, every lost opportunity can affect you. You need to know about every conversion as soon as possible so that you can fix unexpected things fast. Google Analytics real-time alerts will be a handy tool for you. Check out this guide, and soon you'll become a real-time data expert capable of solving lots of different problems.

realtime alert setup

Contents

What is real-time data?

When Google Analytics 4 collects data from your website (or app), it does not appear immediately in your standard report. First, it's formatted, aggregated, and only then stored for you to view. This process takes time. To solve this time-lapse, Google introduced Real-Time data reports.

Real-time alerts are updated upon each page view (or hit) seconds after it occurs. This process allows you to check how many people are on your website at any given moment and which pages are performing the best. To see real-time data, visit your Google Analytics 4 property, open "Reports," then click "Real-Time" and "Overview."

Real-time data shows your current website visitors, what they're looking at now and from where they came.

How can real-time data help you?

Not everybody needs advantages provided by the real-time data. However, there are some use cases:

  • Track the real-time effect of your content shared via social networks
  • Check whenever the email campaign you've sent is generating clicks
  • Understand the usage of your sales funnel via event tracking in real-time
  • Quickly test whenever new changes are making expected goals
  • Verify that the tracking code is working correctly
  • Check whenever your visitors viewed new pages

Real-time data allows you to react instantly to the changing conditions of your business.

Is Google Analytics real-time?

All Google Analytics 4 accounts can access real-time reports. Although you can find them on a separate dashboard, you don't need to modify the website tracking code. To open real-time reports:

  1. Visit your Google Analytics 4 property
  2. Locate the "Reports" section
  3. Click "Realtime" and "Overview"

google analytics realtime overview

How often does Google Analytics 4 update?

The real answer is: every 24 hours. Though, that's not the complete story. Google Analytics 4 has a real-time dashboard representing currently active visitors. But the regular reports update can take up to 24 hours. However, if you're checking yesterday's data at 10 in the morning and your Analytics timezone is correct, you can assume that yesterday's data would be complete.

How long does it take for Google Analytics 4 to show your data?

Google Analytics 4 can take up to 24 hours to show your data in standard reports. But if you install your tracking code correctly, you can see traffic immediately by using a real-time dashboard. Visit the page and check whenever the "Active Users" number changes.

google analytics real-time active users counter

What is real-time tracking in Google Analytics?

The data collected by Google Analytics 4 almost immediately shows on the "Real-Time" dashboard. It allows you to monitor users' behavior on your page like what links they click, or what events they're sending. Seeing real-time data is a simple and effective way to check whether you have installed the Google Analytics 4 tag correctly.

How to define an active user in real-time reports?

Active Users, found on a Real-Time dashboard, are people right now visiting your site. It's a unique number, so if a person is doing two clicks, it will still be a single user. The Active Users number can be handy when you want to evaluate an active marketing campaign in a real-time situation.

google analytics real-time active users definition

Does Google Analytics 4 support real-time alerts?

Although real-time data in Google Analytics 4 exists for a long time, GA doesn't support real-time alerts by itself. There is only the API access that Google opened. But using it requires a lot of coding and specific knowledge. On top of that, you have to perform a request to ask to join their limited beta.

Using StatsGlitch for real-time alerts allows you to save your time and focus on your business, but you can try Google API on the Google Developers Center if you feel adventurous.

Currently (as of 2024 March), Google Analytics 4 does not support real-time alerts. Only limited Hourly, but exclusively for Web

How you can use StatsGlitch real-time alerts in your business

1. Track conversions

Consider this if you're using Google Analytics 4 goals for your conversion events like user sign up or product sale. You can track them in real-time and be informed just a few minutes after they happen. Then you can craft a custom thank you/follow-up email to your customer or otherwise enjoy the achievement of the goal.

Pro Tip:  If you're achieving goals frequently, then set up a threshold and celebrate only conversion spikes like having 10+ sales over the last 5 minutes.

2. Track individual pages

If you don't have time or resources for the goals set up, there is a way to track specific success pages. You can set up a real-time alert that's triggered on product sale confirmation or signup confirmation pages.

Keep in mind that you won't get so much value, like having a dedicated Google Analytics 4 goal. But it will work the same way from an alert perspective. For example, if a user buys/signs up/performs any other conversion, and he navigates to a success page. Immediately after visiting that page, StatsGlitch will send an alert to you so you can follow-up or celebrate.

Pro Tip: You can track error/cancellation pages too. This way, you can immediately follow-up with the person who's just canceled a subscription on your page or received an error while trying to pay via a credit card.

3. Be aware of the traffic spike

Sometimes you can get unexpected links/shares from social media or other popular websites. This event can lead to valuable traffic flowing into your page/business without you even realizing it. By setting up a StatsGlitch real-time alert, you can be sure that you won't miss that traffic spike and will be able to use it to your advantage.

The very first thing after having a traffic spike is to find out from where it comes. Open Google Analytics 4 and navigate to real-time:

google analytics realtime

Select "Users by First user source":

google analytics realtime traffic sources

If traffic is coming from social media, be sure to follow-up it there and answer/ask any questions to boost it's potential and keep the post alive. Re-sharing or otherwise promoting via your account would be a good idea too.

If the traffic source is not from social media, look for any comments in the comments section so you can interact with the audience. If there are no comments, be sure to share the source via your social media channels as it's gaining some traction.

Pro Tip: Do not forget that more significant traffic can sometimes affect your website/services, so be prepared to fix things quickly. On a positive note, it can generate some high conversions/sales for your business, especially if you keep things rolling.

4. Know whenever the email campaign is warming up

When crafting your email campaign, be sure to correctly setup Google Analytics 4 utm variables for an email campaign. Each link in your email should have: utm_source=newsletter_name&utm_medium=email&utm_content=link_name_or_logo_name&utm_campaign=broad_campaign_name_like_blackfriday tracking code

UTM codes explained:

  1. utm_source=newsletter_name: Indicates that the source of a click is from some specific newsletter
  2. utm_medium=email: Shows which medium distributed your campaign
  3. utm_content=link_name_or_logo_name: Helps you to figure out the exact link clicked on the newsletter
  4. utm_campaign=broad_campaign_name_like_blackfriday: With the help of the campaign name, you can combine all the newsletters and mediums to figure out whenever the campaign was successful

UTM variables will help you to find out which users are converting in your project.

You can find more information about campaign parameters (UTM codes) at Google Analytics 4 Help Center.

After setting up a proper email campaign, you can track it in real-time when users are starting to click the links in your email.

Google Analytics real-time goal completions

Google Analytics 4 goals (conversion events) is an essential part of your analytics setup. Unless you have a hobby website, you have some conversion action on your page, and this means it's critical to know and understand when users convert. Google Analytics 4 goals are designed for just that purpose and are available for both standard reports and a real-time dashboard.

To see Google Analytics real-time conversions:

  1. Visit your Google Analytics 4 property
  2. Locate the "Reports" section
  3. See "Conversions by Event name"

google analytics realtime goals

Google Analytics 4 doesn't have real-time goal alerts, but you can use StatsGlitch to get notified. Below are some use cases on how you can do this.

1. Be alerted when your goal (conversion event) is completed

google analytics realtime alert goal recently completed

Select the corresponding goal you want to track and set its value greater than 0. If you have lots of conversions and would like to be notified only upon unexpected high traffic, set the value to a higher number.

Pro Tip: Google Analytics 4 API returns goal completion fact for 30 min. So if the goal completes at 10:00, it will still be reported at 10:29. To combat this, set the "Notification frequency" value to 30min.

2. Get a notification when you don't have any conversions

google analytics realtime alerts working hours

If you have a high traffic website and a lot of conversions during the day, you can set up an alert to track zero goals. A received notification can signalize potential problems on the site, purchase, or payment errors. Similarly to the first example, change the goal completion condition to be "less than" 1, then set your business hours when you expect conversions. You'll receive a notification if there are zero conversions during those days/hours and can immediately investigate whenever there's a problem on your website.

Pro Tip: This approach works brilliantly for established E-commerce or SMB websites and high volume marketing campaigns.

3. Real-time goal alert, when big conversion event happens

google analytics realtime alert conversion event

Getting a notification for each purchase on your website might be a bit overwhelming. However, you can set up goal value alerts so that you would be notified only upon more significant purchases or transactions on your website. For that, trigger a different event and mark it as a "conversion event". Notifications can arrive at Email, Slack, or anywhere else via Zapier integration.

Google Analytics real-time events

Events are very flexible and also available on the real-time dashboard. You can set up events for individual button clicks on your website, some user behavior, or even the same conversion actions.

To see Google Analytics real-time events:

  1. Visit your Google Analytics 4 property
  2. Locate the "Reports" section
  3. See "Event count by Event name"

google analytics realtime events

Events are compelling when you combine them with other dimensions. For example, you can monitor whenever there are more than ten signups from the United States to indicate that your marketing campaign is working well. It creates a lot of different possibilities to receive highly targeted alerts for your business-specific situations.

google analytics realtime events spike

Pro Tip: Google API requires an "equals" operator for your event name. It's not possible to specify a partial match. Also, all names are case sensitive, so be sure to double-check whenever it's "sign up" or "Sign up"!

Google Analytics real-time ecommerce

Ecommerce tracking can combine both Google Analytics 4 events and goals. On the analytics dashboard and API, there are no real-time ecommerce metrics. But you can still track ecommerce related goals or events. Below you can see a couple of examples of possible real-time ecommerce alerts.

Real-time ecommerce refund notification

google analytics realtime ecommerce refund alert

If you're sending your refunds via Google Analytics 4 events, you can track them with real-time alerts. Returns are an unavoidable part of any ecommerce business, so you better prepare for them. You can get a notification via Email/Slack, or your internal admin via Zapier.

Pro Tip: Do not forget that your event names are case sensitive.

Three simple steps to start using real-time alerts

You can manage all your different websites/businesses in one place via a convenient alert setup. Nothing to install and no changes required on your site:

  1. Connect your Google Account;
  2. Setup a real-time alert;
  3. Via read-only access, StatsGlitch will watch your business metrics and generate alerts. We send Alerts via email, Slack, or webhooks.

Real-time alerts features

1. Choose an alert preset

google analytics realtime alert presets

Alert Presets helps you to start faster by choosing already predefined templates based on the most common use cases. After setting up the alerts, you can receive information for active visitors spike detection, users coming from your email campaign, or conversions/signups.

Pro Tip:  Try to start with a preset and then customize it to your needs, add filters, and change the notification frequency.

2. Consider adding a dimension filter

google analytics realtime alert filters

Dimension filters allow you to narrow-down your metrics and focus upon the audience that matters to you. Select between traffic source, user platform and browser, user geographical location, event category/action/label, and more.

Pro Tip:  Do not use too many filters. You might end up with an alert that is never triggered.

3. Select notification frequency

google analytics realtime alerts frequency

When you have a pageview spike, it's usually lasting more than 5 minutes. Set the frequency to 15-60 minutes, so that you won't get overwhelmed by many notifications. Moreover, Google Analytics real-time API keeps active goals set for 30 minutes. It means if the user did a conversion at 11:00 am, the real-time API would return the same goal at 11:29 am too. So to counter this, set the frequency to 30min to avoid this situation of multiple notifications.

4. Check alert timezone and choose your audience countries

google analytics realtime alert timezone and holidays

Your website traffic is always dependent upon the days of the week and your users’ national holidays. By setting your audience countries, in the alert notification, you'll receive a piece of additional information about what happened on that day, that might impact your site traffic. For example, if your primary audience is from the US and you receive an alert on July 4th, you'll know it might be because of Independence Day.

Pro Tip:  It might be tempting to choose all the countries, but we don't recommend it. You'll get overwhelmed as almost every day somewhere in the world, some country celebrates or mentions some occasion.

5. Receive real-time alerts via Email, Slack, or anywhere else via Zapier

google analytics realtime alerts over slack

Having real-time alerts is great. But you might think that sending them to your mailbox might not be an optimal solution. So we recommend connecting your Slack workspace, or directly sending a notification to your favorite CRM/To-Do software via Zapier.

6. Adapt alerts to your working day

google analytics realtime alerts schedule

Some of us live in a constant 24/7 flow, and some of us love Mon-Fri 9-5 routine. That's fine either way, and your real-time alerts should adapt to your schedule. Leave the fields blank for 24h alerts, or fill your usual business hours. Outside of your working hours, notifications won't bother you so that you can relax and spend your time elsewhere.

Now you know:

  1. What Google Analytics real-time data is
  2. How it can benefit your business
  3. How to get started with real-time alerts
  4. How to set up GA real-time goals and events alerts

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