Average Dwell Time on LinkedIn

Well, well, well. LinkedIn has been dropping all the new metrics recently I’ve noticed. So, what the hell is Average Dwell Time?

What is Average Dwell Time on LinkedIn?

Simply the average amount of time, in seconds, a user has stopped to ponder your ad. This is how we are expected to understand the metric. Realistically however, the ad only needs to half hang on to a users screen (50% of pixels) for this metric to start counting, in which case, the user could well be spending half the time reading another post.

How would I use Average Dwell Time as a useful metric?

• I don’t really know.

• Perhaps it could be useful to see how long videos play for to the average second, rather than just using the given percentages.

• Comparing to other ads of similar sized content, assuming the ones with a higher dwell time are more engaging.

• Dwell Time as a metric cannot be exported for some reason, but I did a shoddy manual data grab of an account of ads, and it looks like there is a correlation - not that I know much about proper correlation - between a low Dwell Time and a higher CPC. Which would make sense based on all the evidence I have collected over the years which suggests positive engagement rate impacts CPC.

Graph showing both Dwell Time (seconds) and CPC ($) across 16 different ads