Time Spent per visit using a non Page dimension

[SM_AP1]

Hi,

We had an implementation glitch where the page name dimension only captured part of the path.   After some reserach realized another dimension captured the hit correctly.   have created a hit level combined dimension - but now the average time per visit metric is very different.    Question can we use a non page dimension to get  at Time spent per visit metric.

Thoughts

Thx

SM_AP1

[Jennifer_Dungan]

You should be able to use other dimensions... but it really depends on how you have set up your tracking.

For instance, maybe you have an eVar that is set to a Visit Level attribution... maybe it's not being set on every page.. this could result in higher time spent.

Maybe you have interactive elements on the page (like expand and collapse), but not leaving the page.. if you use that, you might be getting smaller time spent because it's not calculating the time between interactions....

Time Spent is really just a calculated metric that takes two time stamps and uses subtraction to get the difference between A and B... if the dimension you are using is only set on PV and it using a Hit Level expiry, it should be pretty close... but if it's using a different retention period, or is used on interactions as well as PVs it could mean you have a very different results...

[yuhuisg · Accepted solution]

Adobe Analytics has a whole help page dedicated to understanding how it calculates time spent: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/docs/analytics/components/metrics/time-spent.html?lang=en From that page, you can see that time spent is always calculated by dimension values.

Having said that, I don't understand what you meant by "have created a hit level combined dimension". You can't create a dimension in AA, though you can create a segment. Did you mean that you had created a segment using your Page dimension and that other dimension?

[SM_AP1]

Sorry Yes - i created a segment at the hit level combining the Page dimension with another dimension (also at hit).   So where the Page name was incorrect i want to count the click with this other dimension - overall the visit counts make sense but the time metric looks off.

[yuhuisg]

Well, as the help article states, the Time spent calculation is done at the dimension level. So your segment method won't work.

[SM_AP1]

got it thx