How to Measure Time-on-Page
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to measure attention as it applies to content. Where I’ve landed (for now) is that time-on-page is the best indicator of quality attention and trust. Here's how to test this metric out.
1-minute 30-second read (+3:35 video)
Recently, James Hornick and I nerded out on how to measure the ROI of recruiting content. I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about how to measure attention as it applies to content. Where I’ve landed (for now) is that time-on-page is the best indicator of quality attention and trust.
A quick explanation of time-on-page before getting tactical:
Time-on-page (TOP) is the amount of time that your target candidate spends on an asset (a webpage)—consuming the information. If you create an asset that lives on a URL, most analytics software will measure this.
Now, let’s get into the weeds.
Here’s how we (BYA) are thinking about time-on-page and how we’re measuring it for our customers:
Step 1: We look at the number of unique visitors + average time-on-page for an individual asset. (In our case the asset is a team profile landing page.)
The primary use case for testing time-on-page: You’ve built a list of candidate profiles. In your outbound messages, include a link to an asset you’ve created.
Example of how to analyze the data: After sending your outbound messages you see that 512 unique visitors went to the page you linked to in your message and they spent an average of 6 min 37 sec on the page. You already know that the unique visitors are qualified because you sourced them. And you also know that this asset is doing its job because your pre-vetted candidates are spending a ton of time-consuming the information. Time = qualified attention. Winner!
(If the number of unique visitors and/or TOP is low, you know that either your list is off or your content is uninteresting. Adjust things.)
Step 2: Put this asset on your website and measure unique users + TOP for inbound traffic.
My guess is that TOP and quality will be much lower. But it’s a good A/B test for channel performance.
Step 3: Post this asset on social and repeat the same data exercise.
After completing Steps 1-3 you now have a TOP data experiment for outbound vs. inbound vs. social that compares the quality of unique visitors + TOP for your primary sourcing channels. Ultimately this exercise will allow you to determine what information your candidates care about AND which channels produce quality and intent.
Note: As far as I know, you cannot capture data on a specific person who lands on an asset that you do not already have in your system. You only know that a “unique user” has. Personal data would require a candidate to somehow submit their information.
Email me with any questions. Happy to walk you through this in more detail.
Here's my entire convo with James. Enjoy :)
– Nate