Facebook “dwell time” meaning
Dwell time is the amount of time a user “dwells” on a web page after leaving a search engine results page (SERP). Due to the possibility that those visitors originated from sources other than a SERP, it differs from bounce rates and duration periods.
Digital Marketers have talked about “dwell time” for years, but it hasn’t been quantifiable up to this point, losing out on potentially important data regarding how Facebook users interact with content. Simply put, it counts the number of seconds a user hovers over an object.
Facebook introduced a new metric called “Dwell Time” which is the overall time spent lingering over a post in the Newsfeed. Users who have interacted with the content and those who have not been both included in “Dwell Time”.
So the question is: how can you, as a business owner and Facebook advertiser, measure and utilise the enormous pool of “non-clicky potential” customers? If they aren’t clicking on, liking, commenting on, or sharing a post, how can you reach them? Owners of e-commerce businesses require a reliable method of getting access to the important information that 90% of users represent.
Truth be told, the person did show some interest in goods or services, but traditional metrics didn’t have a good means of capturing that. Facebook developed dwell time for this reason. I only realised this when I was scrolling on Facebook and an ad came up in relation to a popular pop singer. I personally had no interest in the person, but the colour of her hair stopped me scrolling for a moment, and person, person, then boom!!!! I started seeing loads of videos about the artist that I had absolutely no interest in. And that my friends is “dwell time”. They had me. Damn it!
Attention span on Facebook
Around 85% of display ad clicks come from just 8% of internet users. That indicates that almost 90% of viewers are viewing and reading the content without taking action.
Facebook’s definition of a “clicky” user is only 10% of its total user base. The posts that e-commerce stores (or others) create are therefore unlikely to be clicked on or physically interacted with by more than 10% of all Facebook active users.
Keep it in mind. Your branded content won’t be clicked on by 90% of Facebook users. Although it might look awful, that’s not the case.
It’s not true that 90% of people who are interested in your products aren’t interested in reading about them or purchasing or using them. Just a different way of interacting with it. In actuality, a sizable portion of those who buy or use your products will not have clicked on your ads.
These users indicated some interest in your product, but prior Facebook metrics were unable to take that into account.
Social media and attention span
In the past, the effectiveness of an e-commerce brand’s Facebook advertising and content was determined by the level of physical engagement, such as the number of clicks, comments, likes, etc., that the content received. Disregarding the number of engagements or clicks, Dwell Time is more reliable in identifying whether a piece of content or advertising was successful in reaching its intended audience and/or producing measurable commercial results.
Since it provides a more accurate assessment of the performance of advertising and content and demonstrates the true interest of a user, Facebook will be focusing more and more on Dwell Time as a critical indicator for determining the effectiveness and reach of an advertisement.