Reports

[GA4] Realtime report

Monitor activity on your website or app as it happens

Realtime lets you monitor activity on your website or app as it happens. The arrangement of cards lets you see how users enter the conversion funnel, and how they behave once they're in the funnel:

  • The number of users during the last 30 minutes (per minute)
  • Users by source, medium, or campaign: where your users are coming from
  • Users or new users by audience: who your users are
  • Users by page title or screen name: which content they engage
  • Event count by event name: which events they trigger
  • Key events by event name: which key events they complete

Analytics shows user-scoped dimensions and metrics in the Realtime report. That is, the dimensions and metrics in the Realtime report are about how you first acquire users.

Note: Realtime report cards display a maximum of 700 rows and some data may be classed as (other).

Access the Realtime report

To access the Realtime report, click Reports > Realtime in the left navigation.

Image of Realtime in the left navigation

Ways to use Realtime

With Realtime, you can immediately and continuously monitor the effects that new campaigns and site changes have on your traffic:

  • See whether a one-day promotion is driving traffic to your site or app
  • Monitor the immediate effects on traffic from a blog/social network post or tweet
  • Monitor whether new and changed content on your site is affecting traffic
  • Verify that the measurement code is working on your site or app

Comparisons

Apply comparisons to evaluate subsets of your data side by side, e.g., how users 18-24 compare to your overall user base, or how two different campaigns compare to each other.

Click to create a custom comparison.

Click one of the bubbles on the map to create a comparison of all users to users in that particular city.

User snapshots

Click View user snapshot at the top of the report to see a snapshot of data for a single user.

A snapshot includes information about the user's device, app version, and location, along with the top events the user triggered, and the relevant user properties.

Click the arrows in the first card at the top of the report to change the snapshot from one user to another.

Things to keep in mind

User processing

Realtime lets you see:

  • 'Users in Last 30 Minutes', which shows all users on your site or app
  • 'New users', which shows users on your site or app for the first time
  • 'Users', which shows returning users who have been processed by Analytics

New users and returning users who haven't been processed are excluded from the 'Users' count.

App data

App data is batched to conserve battery life, so you may notice delays. Batching typically occurs on the order of minutes.

No data

If you don’t see any data in your Realtime report, it’s possible that there are no active users.

Attribution data

Like the DebugView report, the Realtime report performs limited attribution analysis to ensure responsive reporting. We recommend that you refer to the Acquisition reports for the most accurate attribution information.

Realtime report vs. DebugView report

The following table outlines the key differences between Realtime and DebugView reports.

Realtime reports DebugView reports
Displays user activity during the past 30 minutes Displays user activity during longer periods than 30 minutes (if debug mode is enabled)
Supports both web and app data streams Supports both web and app data streams
Creating comparisons lets you see data for a specific stream Selecting DEBUG DEVICE lets you see data for a specific device
The View user snapshot option displays data for a random user N/A
Anyone with access to the Google Analytics 4 property can view the data Usually used by web or app developers

Related resources

Use the Google Analytics Reporting API to create a Realtime report.

Explore the dimensions and metrics available via the Realtime Reporting API method.

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