Time Spent On Site
Deliver messages to visitors who have spent at least an X amount of time on your site.
Time Spent On Site is an OptiMonk targeting condition — the Spent on site rule — that restricts a campaign to visitors who have accumulated at least a specified number of seconds of total browsing time on your website during the current session. Unlike the Spent on pages condition, which measures time on a single page and resets with each navigation, the Spent on site timer starts when the visitor's first page fully loads and continues running as they browse from page to page across your entire site. Once the cumulative session time reaches your configured threshold, the condition is fulfilled and the campaign becomes eligible to display whenever its trigger fires. This makes it a session-level engagement filter rather than a page-level one — targeting visitors who have invested meaningful time across your site as a whole, regardless of how that time is distributed between individual pages.
Key benefits
- Filter for visitors who have invested meaningful time in your store, not just clicked in. A visitor who has spent 90 seconds browsing your site — across multiple pages — has demonstrated a level of session-level interest that a page-specific timer cannot capture. They may have navigated from the homepage to a category to a product page without spending long on any single page, but their cumulative browsing time is a reliable signal of genuine engagement. Time Spent On Site identifies this group precisely, ensuring your campaigns reach visitors who have invested in your site rather than those who just arrived.
- Complements time-delay triggers by adding a session-depth qualifier. A standard time-delay trigger fires a campaign X seconds after the current page loads — regardless of how long the visitor has been on your site overall. Combining that trigger with a Spent on site condition means the campaign fires at the right moment on the page AND only for visitors with sufficient session-level engagement. For example, a campaign that triggers after 10 seconds but requires 60 seconds of total site time ensures that even fast page-loaders are only shown the campaign once they have demonstrated broader session intent.
- Simple, single-number configuration with immediate clarity. The Spent on site condition is configured by entering a single number — the minimum number of seconds of cumulative site time required. There is no complex logic to set up, no range to define, and no secondary condition to configure. The simplicity of the rule makes it easy to add to any campaign as a baseline engagement qualifier without meaningfully increasing setup time.
How it works
In your OptiMonk dashboard, select the campaign you want to configure and click Edit settings. Under "Select who should see the popup," click Add new condition. Find the "Spent on site" rule under the Time & Context category and click the Add sign next to it.
In the condition field, enter the number of seconds of total site browsing time a visitor must accumulate before the campaign becomes eligible to display. The timer starts when the visitor's first page of the current session fully loads and continues accumulating as they navigate between pages, regardless of which pages they visit or how the time is distributed across them.
Click Save and Next. The Spent on site condition applies with AND logic alongside all other targeting conditions and triggers. Once published, OptiMonk tracks each visitor's cumulative session time and evaluates the condition every time the campaign's trigger fires — displaying the campaign only when the total site time threshold has been reached.
Frequently asked questions
What is Time Spent On Site in OptiMonk?+
Time Spent On Site is an OptiMonk targeting condition called "Spent on site" that restricts a campaign to visitors who have accumulated at least a specified number of seconds of total browsing time during the current session. The timer starts when the visitor's first page loads and continues running as they navigate between pages — it is a cumulative session measure, not a per-page measure. It is found under the Time & Context category in the targeting conditions list.
What is the difference between Time Spent On Site and Time Spent On Pages?+
Time Spent On Site measures cumulative time across the visitor's entire current session — starting from their first page load and continuing as they browse across multiple pages. The timer does not reset on navigation. Time Spent On Pages measures time on the specific page the visitor is currently viewing and resets every time they navigate to a new page. Use Spent on site for session-level engagement qualification; use Spent on pages for page-level engagement qualification on a specific piece of content or product.
Does the Spent on site timer reset between visits?+
Yes. The Spent on site timer is session-based — it measures time from the start of the visitor's current browsing session. If the visitor closes their browser and returns in a new session, the timer starts again from zero. The condition does not accumulate time across multiple historical visits; it only counts time within the current active session.
What is a good minimum threshold to configure?+
The right threshold depends on how long a meaningful browsing session typically lasts on your site. For most ecommerce stores, 30–60 seconds of cumulative site time indicates a visitor who has explored more than just the landing page and has some level of genuine engagement. For stores with longer average session times, 60–120 seconds may be more appropriate. Checking your analytics platform for average session duration gives a useful baseline — targeting the lower half of your average session duration identifies engaged visitors without setting the bar so high that qualifying visitors are rare.
Can I combine Time Spent On Site with Time Spent On Pages?+
Yes. Both conditions can be applied to the same campaign simultaneously using AND logic — meaning the visitor must meet both the cumulative site time threshold AND the current-page time threshold before the campaign is shown. This combination creates a dual-layer engagement filter: the visitor must be a meaningful site-session participant (site-level) and must currently be actively reading or evaluating the specific page they are on (page-level), producing a highly qualified audience for the campaign.
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