How to Set Up a Google Analytics View in the New York time zone
If you are not on the American East Coast, your analytics may not be either.
For accurate dashboard reporting - every thing from RPM to Site Health and Page Level Reports - your analytics time zone should match up with Mediavine's ad server reporting .
Mediavine's revenue data in our dashboard is -04:00 / New York time, so if your timezone is set differently in Google Analytics, there can be discrepancies that happen with calculations.
Why is this important?
We use your Google Analytics to pull in the number of sessions, pageviews, and other important data in your dashboard. Our ad server, Google Multi-Customer Management system (MCM), only allows reporting in one timezone. For Mediavine that is -04:00 New York. The large majority of the partners and exchanges that spend on your website are also located in New York City, so this makes lining up with that reporting more streamlined as well.
If your Google Analytics is set to anything other than the New York timezone, the traffic in your dashboard will not be in sync with the ad server. Depending on the difference between your timezone and -04:00 New York Time, the discrepancy can be anywhere from 5-10% to as much as 50%.
***NOTE: This does not affect your actual revenue, only the performance calculations.***
Fixing this problem will help you and our team get the most accurate data, giving us the ability to help you optimize your performance.
Instead of changing your timezone on your existing view, we recommend setting up a secondary view in your Google analytics. That gives the the Mediavine Dashboard the data it needs to work correctly, and also allows you to maintain the historical data and the view that you are used to, in your home time zone.
Please follow the instructions below to do this.
How to check your timezone in Universal Analytics
Go to analytics.google.com and log into your account.
Use the drop down menu at the top of the page to select the GA4 property that is connected to your Mediavine account.
Click the ADMIN link on the bottom left corner of the page.
Next click the View Settings button in the farthest right column.
If this view is already set to New York Time, you can stop here.
If it is set to anything other than New York time, please proceed with the steps below.
How to setup a secondary view in New York Time
Locate the "View" column and click "Create View"
Name your view something that will tell you what time zone it is reporting in, choose the time zone, and click "Create View".
You'll now have two different views in your GA property. The new view will start accumulating data immediately. It will not have data from the past.
You can easily access your new view right from the top menu on the main analytics page:
How to check your timezone in GA4
Go to analytics.google.com and log into your account.
Use the drop down menu at the top of the page to select the GA4 property that is connected to your Mediavine account.
Click the ADMIN link on the bottom left corner of the page.
Choose Property Settings
If this is set to anything other than (GMT 04:00) New York time, you will need to change the Reporting time zone.
*** Google Analytics 4 filters are applied at the property level, and affect data from all data streams in that property. All reports for a property use the same filtered data. SOURCE. ***