What Is Average Session Duration?

What Is Average Session Duration

Date First Published: 3rd April 2024

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Development

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 5/10

Learn about what average session duration is in this article.

Average session duration refers to how long, on average, users spend on a website or platform during a single session. It is an important metric to determine user engagement and their interest in products or services. Web analytics services, such as Google Analytics can measure average session duration and display the results in the form of graphs.

How To Calculate Average Session Duration?

The formula for average session duration is:

Total duration of all sessions ÷ total number of sessions during a specific time period

For example, if all sessions lasted 50 minutes and there were a total of 25 sessions, the calculation for average session duration would be:

50 ÷ 25 = 2

Average session duration = 2 minutes

What Affects Average Session Duration?

An average session duration of 2-3 minutes or longer is reasonable. The average session duration mostly depends on the user's intent or behaviour, the quality and relevancy of the information, and the design and usability of the website or app. A longer average session duration is generally considered positive because it indicates that users are spending more time on the website. However, only looking at the average session duration will not give an accurate understanding of user engagement and other metrics, such as bounce rate and conversion should also be considered to understand user behaviour and engagement.

The average session duration also depends on the type of website. For example, a news website is likely to have users stay on it for shorter periods of time on average than an e-commerce website since they quickly read content before leaving. On the other hand, consumers may spend more time browsing products and completing transactions on an e-commerce website, increasing the average session duration.


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