Learning Google Analytics

Chapter 9. Use Case: Real-Time Forecasting

This use case moves into real-time data flows, so we’ll look at utilizing the Real-Time GA4 API. We’ll also include some real-time actions on our website using the Audiences we created in Chapter 8 via Google Optimize.

In this scenario, let’s assume that our book publishing company has now been using the predictive, segmented audiences we created in previous chapters for six months and has found them useful in increasing relevance, so conversions are up for certain sectors. The social media marketing team have learned about this in an internal presentation and have asked if they can use the same segments to improve their everyday activity posting promotional content on the brand social media accounts. We propose that if the social media team could see the real-time effects of content and which Audience they resonate with, they could quickly respond with more follow-up content of the same nature. As they often post topical news content, waiting for analysis the day after may be too late to take action on the data.

It would be most helpful for the content team to know what content is popular before it is—a forecast of engagement trends will help you estimate what will be “hot or not.” We would also like to set up a process where content a user sees in social media campaigns will also be present on the website, personalized to their profession. The team needs an easy way to update this content, which we opt to do via a Google Optimize banner ...