Dwell Time
The amount of time a shopper spends in front of a digital screen or in a specific area of a store.
Dwell time in retail and digital signage refers to the duration a shopper spends in front of a digital screen, display, or within a specific zone of a store. It is a key metric for measuring advertising effectiveness and audience engagement in physical retail environments.
Higher dwell time in front of a digital screen indicates greater opportunity for advertising exposure and message recall. Dwell time data is used to optimise content length (ensuring key messages are communicated within the typical viewing duration), screen placement (positioning screens in areas where shoppers naturally pause), and campaign scheduling (prioritising high-dwell-time periods).
Dwell time is measured through attention analytics technology, which uses computer vision to detect and track the presence of individuals in front of screens without storing any personally identifiable information. Combined with attention metrics (whether the person was looking at the screen), dwell time data provides advertisers with a meaningful measure of advertising opportunity that is directly comparable to online advertising engagement metrics. The Adflux Attention Analytics module measures dwell time across entire screen networks in real-time.