Time Spent per Visit and Page View

[skatofiabah]

Hi,

I was wondering if there is an easy way to calculate time spent/visit and time spent/view? I want to make sure that we are EXCLUDING users that only view a single page in their session and leave/bounce. I also want to make sure that users hit a specific page at some point in their visit, let's call it "Page A". I also want to know if there is a way to look at average time spent on a specific page? I noticed that there is a "Total Seconds Spent" Field, but if not sure if that looks at all users time with a hit to that page? Is there a way to see the average time spent on a page? And is there a way to see the average time spent on a visit?

Here are the links I'm trying to wrap my head around too:

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/components/metrics/total-seconds-spent

https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/components/metrics/time-spent

Maybe the time spent and time metrics (average time spent, etc.) already exclude bounces?

Thanks!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Hello, 

First off, since Time Spent is calculated based on difference between time stamps, I believe that bounces should already be excluded by default (as there is no time calculated). This also applies to "last page of visit".

There are some out of the box metrics for what you are looking for, but the naming can make this more confusing than it should be.

There is:

• Average Time on Site - which is based on the average time spent by the visitor per visit (this is shown as a time format: 00:00:00)
• Time Spent per Visitor (seconds) - this is the average time spent per visitor against the specified dimension across visits (this is shown as an Integer format)
• Time Spent per Visit (seconds) - this is the average time spent per visit / against the specified dimension (this is also shown as an Integer format)

For the two metrics that display in integer (i.e. the number of seconds), you can create a simple calculated metric to display as time, simply by doing this:

Now, since these are calculated metrics, sometimes they can get a little odd...

For instance, comparing these three dimensions using "Day" as my breakdown, Average Time on Site and Time Spent per Visit (custom time) match exactly, but Time Spent per Visitor (custom time) is a bit higher (I suspect some of that might come from visits that start or end in another day, i.e. cross midnight).

But, if I use these three metrics against my "Page" dimension, they all match.

The thing is, even though the name says "on Site" or "per Visit/Visitor", they are metrics that can be used with other dimensions to get time spent in those contexts.

You are right, there is also some "Total Time" metrics, but you can ignore those for your uses.

There is one more little gotcha to consider (though this may or may not still be an issue), but sometimes adding segments to the mix can cause some odd calculations to occur... We found that Time spent per visit (seconds) was a little more stable in these situations... but you should play with all three to get a feel for what they are doing and how they are responding.

[jc608]

@Jennifer_Dungan - When you use an 'Avg Time on Site' metric against a specific page my understanding is that this relates only to this page and not their entire visit and multiple pages. Am I correct? Thanks!

[Jennifer_Dungan]

@jc608 correct, the time calculation is based on the context in which it is used.

Let's say that I am looking at a single day in my panel, let's say July 25th, and I do two tables side by site... one broken out by Day (which will have 1 row), and one broken out by page (many rows), you will see stark differences...

I've pulled up a sample using the Demo Sandbox:

For the Day, this will be based on the average time for all the visit (7:35)... whereas for the Page table, each page has an average (12:56, 12:21, 12:16, etc), and all pages together calculate out an average (0:58)..

So 12:56 is the average time spent on page "series:series 17|season:season 5|episode:episode10" across all visits. So some user might have looked at this page for 15 mins, and another might have looked at it for 7 mins, etc.

[BShan]

Does this work the same with CJA?

I've tried to make the same calculated metric for both Time Spent per Session/Person dimensions, but my numbers look like sums, rather than averages.
Formula for metric:

Result in reportings (using Page URL as dimensions, not showing for privacy)

[Jennifer_Dungan]

I don't have CJA, but I believe based on this reference (https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics-platform/using/cja-components/cja-calcmetrics/d...) that "Time Spent (seconds)" is a total seconds count, not an average; since this documentation shows you how to calculate your own "Time Spent Per Session"...

So in CJA, it looks like you will have to add in a "divide by Sessions" into your calculated metric @BShan