Time Between Events Calculation Ability

[#1]

With the recent expansion of the Event variable in Adobe Analytics, to 1000, events are becoming more and more common.  In fact on our site we have events for pretty much every page of the user experience.

As such we would like to offer an idea for a new capability in Adobe Analytics; Time Between Events.

I know Adobe has 'time prior to event' capability, but that is based on the visit start time.  So while I can see how long it takes convert from when the user started their visit, I can't currently calculate the time it took the user to get through the checkout funnel. 

it also has the event funnels that help visualize conversion funnels, but that still doesn't provide a sense of 'time to complete the funnel'

Time between events would allow analyst to set our own start time (event 1-enter checkout funnel) and our own end time (thank you page).

This should be a calculated metric and require both events to exist within the same visit to accurately count the difference in time stamps.  Adding this to workspace as well as R&A so end user can break it down by all appropriate props & evars would also be preferred.

If i'm mistaken and something like this already exists, please advise.  Otherwise please consider it as a potential roadmap item.

[#2]

Love this idea - it's something we've talked about a few times and this use case is helpful. Thanks for the feedback.

[#3]

Thanks, one of the reason I was thinking of the ‘flexible solution’, where the end user could just pick the two events – is to support other cases. For example, we use a 3rd party payment processing company (as well as paypal and amazon payments) and out IT team would love to know how long it takes to transition from the ‘click of a place order’ button to the ‘thank you page’. a more micro example, but when site performance is so tightly tied to consumer satisfaction something like this would be vitally important.

[#4]

Hi,

This is definitely an interesting idea. At our company (insurance banking) we got more and more questions related to the time between events, which we now have to calculate each time based on datafeed extracts in our own data lake. It would be great to have this - very soon - on the fly in Adobe Analytics for the end user as well.

@admoseremic: Is this already put on the product roadmap, and if so when will it come available?

Kind regards,

Sarah

[#5]

So I actually wrote a plugin for this a couple years ago. I won't offer support for it; use it as-is, at your own risk! Standard disclaimer.  But you're welcome to use it if you want!  It's called s.getTimeBetweenEvents.  Here is the code for it, along with dependent functions (also requires Adobe's s.inList, s.c_r, and s.c_w utility functions which you probably already have).

[JavaScript] Adobe Analytics s.getTimeBetweenEvents - Pastebin.com

[#6]

I definitely upvoted this idea. The capability looks like it might already be based in extending the existing "Time Prior to Event" dimension. The buckets might need to be a bit more granular though along with the ability to have the average.

[#7]

Similar yes, but ‘Time Prior to Event’ still sets your ‘start time’ as the start of the visit. I was thinking of a solution that allows us to pick the start time (say they started their visit OR they entered the funnel/cart) as well as a end time (say they finished the cart or added another item to the cart).

[#8]

Absolutely agree Jeremy. A use case for us would be looking at the start of searching that we pass as an event and the addition to cart. By using this we can look at how changes we might make would decrease the churn and increase the efficiency of users finding what they want.

[#9]

Is there no way to calculate two 'time prior to event' values and subtract them?

[#10]

The Time between Events isn’t an absolute number, it’s only available in Reports and it comes with a time dimension breakout (<1min, 1-5min, etc.)

The Workspace version uses ‘time on site’ metric, which isn’t the same thing

[#11]

Would a "time since previous event" eVar get you closer to what you need?

Upvote. We also need to measure time spent on success event "steps".