How to recreate the Average Time Spent on Page metric?

[brentrad]

I've been using the "Average Time Spent on Site (seconds)" metric to see how long visitors are spending on a particular page, but am unsure how to compare the metric from one page to the amount of time visitors spend on any given page on average. In short, I need to recreate the "Average Time Spent on Page" that was deprecated.

Here's a sample question that I should be able to answer: "My website has 100 pages. How long do people typically spend on one of these pages? How does this compare to how long visitors spend on the homepage?"

Requirements:

• This must be a standalone calculated metric that can be used in Analysis Workspace, similar to "Average Time Spent on Site (seconds)" 
• Users cannot be required to apply "Average Time Spent on Site (seconds)" to the Page dimension and compare a given page to other pages that way (i.e. they can't be required to look at a table of Pages)

My guess is that I need to average the "Average Time Spent on Site (seconds)" for all pages, but am unsure how to do this in a calculated metric.

[yuhuisg · Accepted solution]

I don't think you're able to achieve what you want in Analysis Workspace. The best solution that I can think of is to have 2 visualisations:

• Summary Number showing the Average Time Spent on Site (seconds) for the reference page, e.g. homepage.
• Freeform Table showing the Average Time Spent on Site (seconds) for other pages.

Then let your users eyeball the comparisons themselves.

Specifically to this requirement:

• Users cannot be required to apply "Average Time Spent on Site (seconds)" to the Page dimension and compare a given page to other pages that way (i.e. they can't be required to look at a table of Pages)

No, this is definitely not possible in Analysis Workspace. Any Calculated Metric (or Segment) that is available for use in one place can be used in other places too. You will have to educate your users on the correct way to use the Calculated Metric.