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Real-time Analytics

The real-time view shows you what's happening on your site right now - active visitors, current pageviews, and live traffic sources. This is essential for monitoring campaigns, launches, live events, and detecting issues immediately.

Accessing Real-time View​

There are two ways to access real-time analytics:

  1. Click the "Realtime" link in your dashboard navigation
  2. Press the "R" keyboard shortcut from anywhere in the dashboard

The real-time view replaces your standard dashboard with live, auto-updating data.

What "Real-time" Means​

Real-time analytics show activity from the last 5 minutes. The view automatically refreshes every 10 seconds to display the latest data, giving you a live pulse of your site's current activity.

Technical details:

  • Data window: Last 5 minutes
  • Refresh interval: Every 10 seconds
  • Processing delay: < 5 seconds from event to display

This means if someone visits your site right now, their activity appears in your real-time view within seconds.

Active Visitors​

The most prominent metric shows how many people are currently on your site:

Active Visitors: 24

This counts unique visitors who have loaded at least one page in the last 5 minutes. As visitors age out of the 5-minute window or leave your site, this number decreases automatically.

What counts as "active":

  • Loaded any page in the last 5 minutes
  • Still has your site open in their browser (regardless of activity)
  • Navigating between pages on your site

What doesn't count:

  • Visitors who left more than 5 minutes ago
  • Bot traffic (filtered using the same rules as regular analytics)

Current Pageviews​

Shows the total number of pages loaded in the last 5 minutes:

Current Pageviews: 87

This number is typically higher than active visitors because:

  • One visitor might view multiple pages
  • Some visitors navigate quickly through your site
  • Single-page application (SPA) navigation counts as pageviews

Ratio insight: If you have 24 active visitors and 87 pageviews, that's 3.6 pages per active visitor - indicating good engagement.

Top Pages Now​

A live table showing which pages people are viewing right now:

Page                          Active Visitors
/blog/launch-announcement     12
/pricing                      8
/                             4
/features                     2

What it tells you:

  • Where current visitors are concentrated
  • Which content is being consumed right now
  • Whether launch announcements or new content are getting immediate traction

Use case: During a product launch, watch this table to see if visitors are reading the announcement or exploring the new feature pages.

Top Sources Now​

Shows where current visitors are coming from:

Source                  Active Visitors
twitter.com            8
Direct                 7
google.com            5
newsletter            4

What it tells you:

  • Which channels are driving live traffic
  • Whether your social posts are getting immediate clicks
  • If paid campaigns are actively sending traffic

Use case: Post a link on Twitter and immediately see visitors arriving from twitter.com in real-time.

Live Update Indicator​

A small pulsing indicator or timestamp shows when data was last refreshed:

Updated 3 seconds ago

This confirms your view is staying current. If the update stops, check your internet connection or refresh the page.

Use Cases​

Monitor Product Launches​

Launch a new feature or product and watch:

  • How many visitors arrive immediately
  • Which pages they view (feature page, pricing, docs)
  • Where they come from (social, email, direct)

Example: You announce a new feature on Twitter at 2 PM. Within minutes, you see 50 active visitors, most from twitter.com, viewing /features/new-feature. Success!

Track Live Events​

During webinars, live streams, or virtual events:

  • Monitor attendance via active visitors
  • See which supplemental pages they check (pricing during demo, docs during tutorial)
  • Verify registration links are working

Example: Your webinar starts with 200 registered. Real-time shows 180 active visitors on /webinar-live - good attendance. You see them navigating to /pricing during the product demo - strong buying intent.

Just launched an email campaign or social post? Check immediately:

  • Are visitors clicking through? (active visitors spike)
  • Are they landing on the right page? (top pages now)
  • Is the UTM tracking working? (check if your campaign appears in sources)

Example: You send a newsletter at 10 AM. By 10:05, real-time shows 30 active visitors with "newsletter" as the top source, landing on your featured article. Everything's working.

Detect Technical Issues​

Real-time acts as an early warning system:

Warning signs:

  • Active visitors suddenly drop to zero (site down?)
  • Pageviews spike but all on one page (redirect loop?)
  • Unusual source appears with many visitors (bot attack?)
  • Expected traffic source missing after campaign launch (broken link?)

Example: You notice active visitors dropped from 50 to 2 in one minute. You check the site and discover the hosting is down. You can fix it immediately instead of finding out hours later.

Measure Content Virality​

Published something you think might go viral? Watch real-time:

  • Steady increase in active visitors suggests momentum
  • Diverse sources (social platforms + direct) indicate sharing
  • High pageviews-to-visitors ratio means people are exploring

Example: Your blog post starts with 5 visitors, then 15, then 40, then 120 over 30 minutes. Sources shift from just twitter.com to twitter.com + reddit.com + hackernews. Your post is spreading.

Combining Real-time with Regular Analytics​

Real-time gives you the "now," but regular analytics give you the "why" and "so what."

Workflow:

  1. Notice a spike in real-time (50 active visitors from reddit.com)
  2. Switch to regular dashboard
  3. Filter by reddit.com source
  4. Check which pages they visit, bounce rate, conversion rate
  5. Understand if this traffic is valuable or just curiosity

Real-time tells you something is happening; regular analytics tell you if it matters.

Limitations​

Real-time analytics have important limitations:

Short Time Window​

Only showing 5 minutes means:

  • Can't see patterns or trends
  • Sample size too small for reliable metrics
  • Not useful for month-over-month comparisons

Don't use real-time for: Strategic decisions, trend analysis, metric benchmarking.

No Historical Data​

Real-time doesn't store history. Once a visitor ages out of the 5-minute window, they're gone from real-time (but still in regular analytics).

Don't use real-time for: Retrospective analysis of what happened yesterday or last week.

Limited Metrics​

Real-time shows:

  • Active visitors
  • Current pageviews
  • Top pages
  • Top sources

Real-time doesn't show:

  • Bounce rate (can't calculate for in-progress sessions)
  • Visit duration (sessions aren't complete)
  • Conversion rates (events might not be triggered yet)
  • Device breakdown, countries, browsers (Phase 2 might add these)

Privacy & Real-time​

Real-time analytics maintain the same privacy-first approach as regular analytics:

What we show:

  • Aggregate counts (24 active visitors)
  • Page paths visitors are viewing
  • Source domains sending traffic

What we don't show:

  • Individual visitor identities
  • IP addresses
  • Exact location beyond country
  • Individual visitor paths through your site

Even in real-time, Ovyxa never shows you individual user data or allows tracking specific people.

Tips & Best Practices​

  1. Use for immediate feedback - Check real-time right after publishing content, sending emails, or posting on social media

  2. Don't obsess over it - Real-time is addictive but not strategic. Check it for specific events, not continuously

  3. Set expectations - If you usually get 10-20 active visitors, that's normal. Don't worry when it's not 100.

  4. Combine with alerts - Eventually, set up alerts for "active visitors > 100" to get notified of traffic spikes without watching constantly

  5. Test in real-time - Making site changes? Keep real-time open to see immediate impact on visitor behavior

  6. Monitor scheduled events - Open real-time 5 minutes before a scheduled newsletter send or social post to verify links work

Real-time analytics turn your dashboard into a live monitoring tool, perfect for launches, campaigns, and immediate feedback on your content and marketing efforts. Use it to stay connected to what's happening right now, then switch to regular analytics to understand what it all means.