Average Pageviews per Session KPI

DEFINITION:

Average pageviews per session is one of the most used key performance indicators in the study of web analytics. The pageview per session kpi is a quick indicator of website engagement. This key performance indicator is a ratio of the number of pageviews the average web visitor views per session. This a ratio and not a metric so it can be compared between segments, varying time frames and across multiple sites or sub-domains.

VARIABLES:

m=KPI

x=total number of pageviews

y=total number of sessions

FORMULAS:

m=(x/y)

m=PAGEVIEWS PER SESSION RATIO

NOTES & USES:

• A quick measure of visitor website interaction
• This ratio is heavily dependent on site scope
• Lead Generation sites will have a low pageview per session ratio
• Content or Brand sites will have a high pageview per session kpi
• This is an excellent segment comparison KPI, where different traffic sources will have varying pageviews per session ratios
• Pageviews per Session KPI is preferred to time on site metrics, because the pageviews per session ratio is based off of every pageview recording java script data recording
• A high bounce rate will skew this ratio, indicating that those visitors who did stay will have higher than reported actual pageview per session kpi

EXAMPLE:

A website has 5,237 visitors during one month. They view a total of 46,798 pages during that same time period. These visitors constitute a total of 6,486 separate site visits.

m=KPI

x=46,798

y=6,486

m=(x/y)

m=46798/6486

m=7.2

CONCLUSION:

On average each site visitor views roughly 7 pages every time they visit the site. That means that visitors who return to the site and have more than one visit during the month will have seen more than 7 pages. This ratio should rarely be used by itself due to a low level of accuracy resulting from averaging visitor behavior. Please note that this kpi is directly affected by all those site visits where the visitor only viewed one page and did not click anywhere on site (also known as a bounce). These bounced visits record as a visitor session and account for one pageview each but skew the actual pageview per session for those visitors that were engaged. Hence a good way to look at this data is either for trending purposes or directional awareness. 

This data and ratio can be made more actionable by refining the way the data is collected and qualified. Simply by only looking at the visits with two or more pageviews it is possible to refine and report on a more accurate pageviews per session key performance ratio.

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