Adobe Analytics for Mobile Apps (visits/session/time spent per visits etc)

[jisuk72348911]

hi i started to use adobe analytics for a mobile app. but have bunch of problems to analyze the data from it.

1. what are the differences between visits and session exactly?

i already read Mobile Session Calculation​ , and other questions and answers related with this, but cannot see exact differences.

2.  i asked first question because my data of time spent per visits and average session length is sooo different.

i checked Time Spent​ , but it was not enough for me.

my data now is like this.

ex)

time spent per visits(seconds) : 2360

average session length: 70

why this is different so much?

2. can i use average session length for page dimension?

i tried to use average session length metric with page dimension to check average session length per each page, but it showed invalid.

So, if i want to check visit's using time on the apps per each page, what kinds of metric and dimension should i use?

thanks

[katep · Accepted solution]

Have you tried checking how many sessions there are compared to visits?

You can often find 1 visit has more than 1 session against it. Note, sessions are indicated by the 'Launches' metric. (You might also find 'Launch Number' and 'Visit Number' dimensions useful if drilling down to an individual visitor to investigate.)

A visit typically times out after 30 minutes of inactivity, whereas mobile 'sessions' are by default set to time out after 5 minutes.

This difference in timeouts can cause the significant difference in the session length and visit length metrics.

Here's my rough understanding.

Imagine these are the time stamps on individual hits of a visit

10:00 - opens app for first time

10:05 - puts app into background

10:25 - opens app again

10:26 - puts app into background

10:45 - opens app again

10:46 - puts app into background

end

There are 3 launches (sessions) here. 5 minutes, 1 minute and 1 minute. (7 minutes over 3 sessions = 2:20 average session length)

However, due to no 30 minute period without a hit, it is 1 visit and the visit length is 46 minutes. 46:00 average time per visit.

You'll need to create a 'time on page' metric to report on time spent on a page. Total seconds spent / (page views - single page visits)