How to Find Average Session Duration in Google Analytics 4
If you’ve recently moved over from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, you might have noticed a familiar metric has gone missing: "Average Session Duration." It's not just you. GA4 completely changed how it measures user engagement, replacing this old metric with something more precise. This article will show you exactly where to find its new equivalent, "Average engagement time," and explain how to actually use it.
"Average Session Duration" is Gone. Here's What Replaced It.
In the old days of Universal Analytics (UA), "Average Session Duration" was a simple but flawed metric. It calculated the time between a user's first and last interaction on your site within a single session. The big problem? A user could open your site in a tab, switch to another tab for 20 minutes, and UA would count that entire idle period as part of the session duration. This often led to inflated and misleading numbers.
GA4 fixes this by focusing on actual user activity. It introduces two new core concepts:
Engaged sessions: GA4 only counts a session as "engaged" if the visitor does one of the following: stays on your site for more than 10 seconds (this timer is adjustable), triggers a conversion event, or views at least two pages.
Average engagement time: This is the new “Average Session Duration.” It's calculated by taking the total time your site was in the foreground of a user’s browser and dividing it by the total number of users. It only measures the period when a user was actively looking at and interacting with your content.
The bottom line is that Average engagement time is a far more accurate reflection of how much attention users are giving your website. It stops counting time when a user leaves your site open in a background tab and gets distracted, giving you a truer sense of what content actually holds their interest.
How to Find Average Engagement Time (Step-by-Step)
The good news is that GA4 includes Average engagement time in many of its standard reports right out of the box. The quickest place to find it is usually in the Traffic acquisition report.
1. Navigate to the Reports Tab
Log in to your Google Analytics 4 property. On the left-hand navigation menu, click the Reports icon (it looks like a small chart).
2. Open the Traffic Acquisition Report
Once you're in the Reports section, look for the "Life cycle" collection. Click on Acquisition to expand it, and then select the Traffic acquisition report.
3. Find the "Average Engagement Time" Column
This report displays a table showing where your traffic is coming from. By default, "Average engagement time" should be one of the columns. You may need to scroll the table to the right to see it. Here you can see, in seconds, how engaged users are from different sources like Organic Search, Direct, or Referral traffic.
What If You Don't See the Metric?
Sometimes your report view might have been customized and the metric isn't there. No problem - you can easily add it back.
In the top-right corner of the report, click the pencil icon to Customize report.
A panel will slide out from the right. Underneath "Report Data," click on Metrics.
Click the Add metric button. In the search bar that appears, type "Average engagement time" and select it from the list.
You can drag and drop it to reorder where it appears in the table. Once you're finished, click Apply, then hit Save to save your changes to the report.
Creating a Custom Report For Deeper Analysis
Standard reports are great for a quick overview, but what if you want to see the average engagement time for specific pages, by device, or combined with other metrics? For that, you’ll want to use GA4's Explorations feature.
Explorations lets you build custom reports from scratch, giving you complete freedom to slice and dice your data. Here’s how to build a simple report focused on engagement time.
1. Go to the Explore Tab
On the left-hand navigation menu, click the Explore icon. This will take you to the Explorations hub where you can create a new report.
2. Start a New "Free form" Exploration
Click on the Free form template to get started with a fresh table. You’ll be taken to an interface with two main panels: "Variables" on the left and "Tab settings" on the right.
3. Add Dimensions and Metrics
First, you need to tell GA4 which building blocks you want to use for your report. In the "Variables" panel, you’ll need to import your dimensions and metrics.
Add Dimensions: Dimensions are the "what" you want to analyze. Click the plus sign (+) next to "Dimensions," then search for and select fields like Landing page + query string, Session source / medium, and Device category. Click Import.
Add Metrics: Metrics are the numbers you want to measure. Click the plus sign (+) next to "Metrics," then search for and select Average engagement time, Sessions, Engaged sessions, Engagements per session, and Views per user. Click Import.
4. Build Your Report Table
Now, just drag and drop the fields from the "Variables" panel into the "Tab settings" panel to build your table.
Drag Landing page + query string into the Rows section.
Drag Average engagement time, Sessions, Engaged sessions, and any other metrics you want to see into the Values section.
As you add fields, the report will instantly populate on the right. You now have a custom report showing which pages on your site get the most (and least) user engagement, giving you much clearer insight into your content performance.
What is a "Good" Average Engagement Time?
This is the million-dollar question, and the frustrating answer is: it depends. There is no universal benchmark for "good" because engagement varies so much based on industry, content type, and traffic source.
Instead of chasing a magic number, use these guidelines to put your data in context:
Blog posts and long-form articles: If someone is reading a 2,000-word article, you should expect to see an average engagement time of several minutes. Anything over 3-5 minutes suggests the content is very successful and holding your audience's attention.
E-commerce product pages: A visitor might only need 45-90 seconds to review images, read descriptions, and a few reviews before making a decision. Shorter times aren't necessarily bad if they lead to a purchase.
Landing pages: A well-designed landing page should be scannable and direct. An engagement time of 30-75 seconds might be perfectly fine if the visitor quickly finds the key messaging and converts.
Homepages and navigation pages: Engagement time here is typically lower, as the user’s goal is to quickly find where they want to go next. An average time of 30-60 seconds is common.
How to Interpret Your Engagement Metrics
Look for outliers and ask "why."
Very low engagement time: Do you have pages with engagement times under 10 seconds? This could be a red flag. Check if the page is loading slowly, if the content is misleading based on the link they clicked, or if there's a technical bug. This is a clear signal that users don't find what they expect.
Pages with exceptionally high engagement: What are you doing right on these pages? Is the content better structured, do you use more visuals, or does the topic simply resonate more with your audience? Identify your winning content so you can replicate its success elsewhere.
Compare it by traffic source: Use your custom exploration to compare engagement by Session source / medium. You might find that users from organic search are much more engaged than visitors from a Facebook ad. This can help you refine your ad targeting or adjust your SEO strategy to attract more of the right kind of traffic.
Final Thoughts
Google’s move from 'Average Session Duration' to 'Average engagement time' in GA4 provides a much clearer view of user behavior. By focusing on active interactions, it cuts through the noise of idle tabs and helps you understand what content truly captures attention. You can quickly find it in standard reports like Traffic acquisition or build detailed custom reports in Explorations to dig deeper.
We know that pulling these reports manually, whether in Google Analytics or across other tools like Shopify, Facebook Ads, and Salesforce, adds up to a lot of time spent on tedious data collection. That's why we created a tool to automate it. With Graphed, you can connect your data sources in a few clicks and build real-time dashboards to centralize all your key metrics. Instead of clicking through GA4 interfaces, you simply ask in plain English - "what was our average engagement time from Organic Search last month?" It instantly returns the answer, freeing you up to spend more time on strategy and less on data wrangling.