Jake Buckner
Author
Google’s shift to GA4, combined with rising rates of denied consent and heavier reliance on consent modeling, has effectively killed your ability to make real-time adjustments in Google Ads. Google’s previous platform, Universal Analytics, provided data quickly enough that businesses could react to performance in close to real time on major sales days like Black Friday. Today, GA4 delays data by 24 - 48 hours, and consent-based modelling pushes the full picture even further out. Google Ads itself lags by 48 hours and then later retroactively fills in conversions once consent modelling kicks in.
In practice, this means you’re often flying blind at the moments when it matters most. You can’t evaluate Google’s performance, determine which campaigns actually deserve more budget, or assess whether your spend is allocated effectively.
So what can you do about it? That’s where Real-Time Google Ads Insights comes in.
Real-Time Google Ads Insights gives you back what you lost with the move to GA4. Instead of waiting hours or days for GA4 or Google Ads to fill in the blanks, ProfitMetrics pulls verified backend order data in almost real-time, including Google Click IDs (GCLIDs), and uses it to estimate Google’s actual performance for the current hour.
Because consent-based modelling is stable over time, the system can safely estimate how many conversions Google will model later, and fill that gap now. The result is a live, isolated view of Google Ads performance: revenue, profit, ROAS, and POAS® (Profit on Ad Spend), all updated on an hourly basis throughout the day.
For the first time since the switch to GA4, you can react to what’s happening now, without having to wait for Google’s algorithm to catch up.
These are purchases that we can confirm Google played a part in. We input these orders into ProfitMetrics, which enables us to find revenue, profit, ROAS, and POAS® for them immediately.
Without profit visibility, inefficiencies compound. Leadership risks scaling a business that only works on paper.
Google’s consent-based modelling fills in missing conversions from non-consenting users, but that modelling only appears 48 - 72 hours later. To estimate those conversions in real time, ProfitMetrics looks at the last 30 days of your Google Ads data and identifies how many modeled conversions Google typically adds to the consented, click-ID-verified orders.
Because we have found this modelling behavior to be stable over time, we are able to calculate a consistent percentage difference between consented GCLID orders and final modeled conversions. We then use that percentage to estimate how many additional conversions Google will add later, filling in the gap so you get a near-real-time picture of your ad performance, instead of waiting two or three days for GA4 to fill in the blanks.
You get an immediate view of revenue, profit, ROAS, and POAS® for all verified, consented orders, plus a reliable way to estimate the modeled conversions that GA4 won’t reveal for another 24 - 72 hours.
If you would like to see a more in-depth discussion of how to set up Real-Time insights for Google ads, take a look at CEO of ProfitMetrics Frederik Boysen’s video on the subject.
Real-Time Google Ads Insights restores the ability to optimize during major sales moments, instead of waiting several days. With an hourly view of revenue, profit, POAS®, and ROAS from Google-influenced orders, you can raise or reduce budgets in real time and use seasonal bid adjustments exactly when performance shifts.
In short, it lets you make informed, agile decisions on the days when timing matters most, giving you back the precise control you lost in the switch to GA4.
Get started today, no credit card required.
ProfitMetrics boosts your work with real-time profit insights on orders.
