The average time per visit is one of the analysts favorites metrics.
The objective of this metric is reporting how sticky the website for its visitors is. The way most people use it is taking it directly from the average time per visit report.
One of the most important things for a good analyst is first of all having an in depth understanding of the analyzed data. In online, all the information require a technical understanding besides the statistical understanding.
So, what does the average time per visit metric measures?. In most platforms average time per visit is calculated dividing the total time the website was navigated over the total amount of visits.
What kind of insights would you be able to get from that information? In my opinion…none. why? Because you are measuring heterogeneous things together. All the navigated time including the people that entered your site, found out that it has not the required information leave the site immediately.
If the quantity of non qualified users is relatively high will influence your metric at the point that the average could tends to cero.
A lot of people that has a website that requires a minimum navigation time get surprised when the average time per visitor is ten percent the required time for watching the welcome video/message. But at the end is completely logic, that metric is not useful for that, it can not tells you the average time per visit of your site users when you are also including “lost users”.
So the main recommendation is as a first step using the non-bounced traffic segment, this way you can separate the “lost users” from your target users getting a much useful metric.
But, what happen in cases where because of the analyzed system (website) a high bounce rate is not only not bad but even something good? Then you can switch the non-bounced traffic segment by the repeated visit segment.This should not complicate your analysis unless you use external benchmarks, something that we never recommend. Compare yourself with your yesterday’s yourself, it would me more realistic and challenging.