Is GTM timer trigger the best way to record the visiting time?

[bigmanbaron]

The session time for a website visitor is 0 if he does not click a new page.
I find most of my data in GA is 0 and I want to make the session time more accurate. I know GTM timer trigger can record the time if I set 30 seconds, 90 seconds or 5 minutes. That means I need to set several timer trigger for my blog page. Does this is the best way or you guys have better suggestion. Thanks.

[bigmanbaron]

I analyzed my GA data and noticed many visitors session time is zero because they do not have another click on my website. So the bounce rate is very high.

I have online chat widget on my website and I will receive a push when there's a visitor and the time is counting for his stay. Normally it will be 3-10 minutes.

I'm thinking to set a new GTM timer on my site but it seems I need to set several trigger for specific time. For example, I need to set a trigger for 30 seconds stay, 90 seconds stay, 120 seconds stay. So my question is: is GTM timer trigger is the best way to record the session time for a visitor with only one click or do you have better suggestion? Thanks for helping.

[edited by: not2easy at 2:23 am (utc) on Sep 3, 2021]
[edit reason] splice cleanup [/edit]

[RhinoFish]

This article explains these issues well:
[globalmediainsight.com...]

Most of the time when I've seen this need, it has been decided to add Virtual Pageviews.
Perhaps your chat widget can be a virtual pageview trigger.

Generally though, the 1 page viewer is a problem... if they found their answer and leave, the Bounce and zero TimeOnPage reflect good content and site structure (not bad). So once you add triggers to try and clock time for 1-page visitors who didn't interact in any way, your virtual triggers will impact the stays of your engaged users (in a different way than before). What I'm saying is that by clocking times for Bouncers, the TimeOnPage stats for all Visitors will be slanted. Since the page does not actively track an idle "viewer", you might be making your stats look more like they didn't Bounce, but to what end?

It is usually fine to segment out Bounce visits and study the engagement details of non-Bounce visitors (but now your "Bounced" population will have non-zero Time On Page stats). I think you might be changing the zero TOP issue, for a new issue (your TOP stats now include people who Bounced).

A real conundrum.
:-)