When a prospect visits an eTrigue trackable website, Demandcenter starts a visit session to record the pages that the prospect viewed during their visit. All pages viewed during this session will be bundled under a single VISIT entry within the prospect's Activity History.
The Visit Window allows your organization to determine the amount of time that DemandCenter should wait before creating a new Visit entry for new activity. From the very moment a prospect leaves your website, DemandCenter will keep a running timer:
- If there have not been any page visits from the prospect during the selected Visit Window, then DemandCenter considers their visit session closed and bundles all pages viewed under that session. Any future page views will be included in a new visit session.
- If a prospect returns to your site before the Visit Window has elapsed, then the Visit Window is reset. The prospect's page views during their return visit will be recorded under the previous session. A new visit session will be started only when a full period of inactivity (the Visit Window) has elapsed.
To illustrate the Visit Window, consider the following examples with a Visit Window set to 5 minutes:
- Scenario: John visits for 2 minutes, leaves your site, but comes back 10 minutes later, and visits for 3 more minutes.
Result: John will have two visit sessions. His first visit entry will list all pages visited during his 2 minute visit, while the second entry will list the pages during his 3 minute visit. The Visit Window threshold was met during the 10 minutes of inactivity.
- Scenario: John visits for 2 minutes, leaves your site for 2 minutes, comes back to visit for 8 more minutes, and then leaves your site after 5 minutes.
Result: John will have a single visit session. His visit entry will bundle all pages during his 2 minute and 8 minute visits. The Visit Window threshold was met after the 5 minutes of inactivity.
To configure the Visit Window for your DemandCenter account:
- Go to Settings > Account Settings > Visit Window Settings.
- Under Visit Window, use the drop-down menu to define your window. You may choose from 2 minutes up to 10 minute windows.
- A shorter window will increase the number of "Visit" entries in a Prospect's Activity History with fewer page views per visit.
- A longer window will decrease the number of "Visit" entries in a Prospect's Activity History with more page views per visit.
- A shorter window will increase the number of "Visit" entries in a Prospect's Activity History with fewer page views per visit.
The window, and therefore the session, closes after a full window period of inactivity.