You might have heard the term dwell time in relation to online engagement, with the marketing disciplines of SEO, paid search marketing and social media marketing referring to this key metric.

And while improving dwell time is a goal of many marketers online, there are also reasons to improve dwell time in the real world too.

Digital signage is increasingly used to interact and communicate with people in a variety of industries, from retail and hospitality, to offices and warehouses. But why does increasing the dwell time on your digital signage matter? And maybe more importantly, how can you use dwell time to improve engagement with your business goals?

Dwell time is how long someone (consciously) looks at your content. You can also think of it in terms of audience engagement and how long they interact with your content. Usually, especially online, the longer the dwell time, the more likely action will be taken. 

In the real world, a longer dwell time on display content can simply mean they spend more time consuming the information.

It may seem like a relatively elementary metric, but it’s one of the hardest things to achieve when it comes to creating content.  

As dwell time can refer to both online and offline engagement, there are two different processes to analyse dwell times.

When you think about dwell time in the online world, this is actually quite easy to measure. In fact, the simple formula to work out your average online dwell time is as follows:

Dwell Time = (Total Time Spent on Page) / (Total Number of Visits to the Page)

When it comes to good vs bad dwell times, it will depend on your message, branding and even your goals. But in general, a dwell time of over 30 seconds is seen as a positive. A lower dwell time often correlates with a high bounce rate, which is where people click away from your web page.

You can calculate dwell time for individual pages or for the entire website by aggregating data across all pages. Now to gather this data, you’ll need access to your analytics website. That could be Google Analytics or a similar platform. 

When people typically refer to dwell time, they talk about time customers spend on a particular page on your website. This figure can be really insightful when you’re trying to push a product or service, optimize your PPC ads or improve customer engagement on your website.

When it comes to measuring your dwell times in the real world, it can be a little harder. And of course, you're not measuring search results or engagement with ads, but how long people spend engaging with a specific message.

To work out your dwell time data for digital signage, the formula is as follows:

Dwell Time = (Total Time Spent looking at a screen) / (Total Number of people who look at the screen)

Of course, this might be harder to calculate if you can’t track how many people look at your screen daily.

Some helpful ideas to calculate dwell time on your screen are:

Time-series analysis: This is where you track data over a specific period of time, or multiple times, to build up an average. For example, you might manually track engagement for one hour each day over a set period of time to get an average of how long people engage with content.

Cameras: Video analytics can track the number of people in front of the screen and the duration of their presence.

WiFi tracking: If your signage is in an area with WiFi access, you can use WiFi signals to detect the presence of devices (and presumably people) nearby.

You don't have to implement all these strategies to calculate your dwell time. Simply checking to see if people look at your screens and whether they understand the message can be enough.

Running a survey testing if visitors read and understood the content is a good start.

How does dwell time affect digital signage?

Digital signage is what we call a glance medium: you look at a screen, and move on. It’s what happens between looking and moving that is make-or-break – this is the importance of dwell time.

Dwell time affects digital signage the same way it affects other kinds of media, like websites and social media. The longer people spend looking at your screens, the more likely they are to take action, and the stronger the action.

Ultimately, you can fill the time between people looking at your screens and moving on with content that achieves maximum conscious recognition. However, you might only have a few seconds to do so.

Various studies have shown that it takes between 1.5 - 4.6 seconds to pay full attention to content shown on a screen. Some put it as low as 0.7-0.9 (Quividi)

How to make an instant impact with digital signage

When trying to achieve maximum dwell time with any medium, especially digital signage, you need to ask yourself the 4 Ws:

This is effectively understanding your audience or user base, and ensuring you give them what they are looking for, or what they need. And, putting it in a format that they can view and understand easily.

With digital signage, when creating a playlist, there is always the risk of creating something that only you or your company finds informative and entertaining. You know a lot about the product, so you may understandably assume that it’s more compelling than it actually is. Unfortunately, this isn’t going to work when your content has to compete with smartphones and other distractions. 

So, break down these four questions and the way to quickly make an impact with your digital signage will become clear.

Understanding your audience is one of the most important parts of this equation.

Is your audience the general public, or are they company employees?

What kind of demographic are they? Young or old? Local or multi-national? Students or workers?

Are they looking for something specific, or are they just passing by?

Are they in buyer mode, travel mode or work mode?

Is there something they need to know to make their day better?

What do you want to achieve with your content?

Depending on your audience, this could be anything from sales to promotions to event announcements.

What action do you want your audience to take?  Getting someone to make a real-life action as a result of your content is the Nirvana of digital signage; influence purchasing decisions, gain more social media followers or fill your event with participants. 

Timing and smart scheduling is essential. As an example, if you’re using digital signage for a  restaurant TV menu board, then showing your breakfast menu during the lunch service is not as powerful as showing your lunchtime deals. 

One of the benefits of digital signage is that you can change and schedule your content depending on specific times of the day.

The location of your screens also plays a very large part in the dwell times with your content, and the effectiveness of your message.

Of course, the use case for your screen may also vary - but whether you're setting up digital signage in a hotel or retail store, or in a logistics warehouse, these points all apply:

Is it easy to stop and look at your screen?

Do your screens have any relation to their surroundings?

Are your screens in a high traffic area, or hidden in a corner?

Can people see your content even if they're not right in front of the display?

Make sure it's easy to see your display, both in terms of the screen placement and the size and style of your content.

This means uncluttered messages which can be viewed from a distance.

How to increase digital signage dwell time

Once you've put your displays together, it can often be a case of trial and error to see what works best.

This is especially the case if your content isn't necessarily a focal point, such as a menu board or source of crucial information.

And if you need your content to inspire an action, such as a purchase, a visit or another form of interaction, then working out how to keep your audience fixed on your digital display can be an effective course of action.

These are some of the best ways to improve signage dwell times and, potentially, engagement.

We’ve heard it a thousand times; content is king. If you want to optimize dwell time, content is pretty much a low hanging fruit, and a great place to start. 

Firstly, think about targeting your content by following the 4 Ws (who / what / when / where). If you’re in an office, your audience will glance at your screen more often (and across a longer time period) than customers in a shop. Your playlist and content should reflect this. 

Next, it’s time to incorporate some dynamic content. Let’s be honest, seeing the same content makes people unlikely to look at the screen, which can be detrimental to your efforts. You want to find the balance between repeating content so nobody misses anything, and keeping things dynamic to hold interest and attention.

Speaking of dynamic content, here's another way to optimize your dwell time using content scheduling.

Use your strategy to adjust the display based on factors like time of day, day of the week, or audience demographics. For example, a digital signage display in a gym could showcase workout tips and motivational quotes during peak workout hours, while promoting smoothie specials and recovery products during quieter times.

Fresh content isn’t difficult to achieve; show news via the Live News or RSS Feed apps, create a social media wall to show real-time posts with Taggbox or Walls.io (great for user-generated content too), or schedule a countdown to your next promotion or product launch. 

Apps like Canvas also mean you can create on-brand posters, signs and notices that you can edit directly in ScreenCloud, with changes shown immediately across your screen network. 

Use the who / what / when / where principles to come up with content ideas

Schedule content to sync with peak and quiet hours

Use tools like Canvas and Live News to your advantage

You can use screen placement to enhance the content you’re showing. Strategically place your digital signage in high-traffic areas where it's likely to attract the attention of your target audience. 

Also think about factors like eye-level visibility, proximity to points of interest, and optimal viewing angles. For example, a digital menu board at a fast-food restaurant entrance can grab the attention of customers as they enter, leading to increased dwell time and sales.

Promoting a sale item? Position those items near your screen for immediate impact. You may also want to push smaller impulse buys at the most convenient locations. In a retail store for example, this would be near the check-out register (studies have shown that this approach is effective in 87% of shoppers.)

Incorporating interactive elements into your digital signage can encourage viewers to engage with the content for longer. Luckily, there are many ways to do this, including:

For example, a retail store could feature a virtual dressing room where customers can try on different outfits using gesture-based controls. An experience like this will see dwell time sky rockets. 

You can take things one step further by adding ambient music or sound effects. Some studies have shown that ambient sounds can improve focus and attention. This is also why tech companies like Apple invest so much in unique sounds for their products. Ambient sound effects can shape our entire experience.

For your digital signage, you can consider using subtle background music or soundscapes to create a relaxing environment or incorporating sound effects that correspond to on-screen actions or events. For example, a digital signage display in a retail store could feature soft background music and the sound of a cash register ringing during promotions, immersing customers in the shopping experience and encouraging them to browse longer.

Improving dwell time is a one of the key metrics for online marketers. But how can you improve dwell time in the real world using digital signage?

Dwell time is how long someone (consciously) looks at your content. You can also think of it in terms of audience engagement and how long they interact with your content. Usually, especially online, the longer the dwell time, the more likely action will be taken.

How Dwell Time in Digital Signage Affects Your Business

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