Advertisers can determine how long their page should be displayed in the surfbar or via pay-to-click ads. The minimum retention time is 15 seconds and can be extended up to 10 minutes in increments of 15 seconds.
The retention time affects the cost of an impression. Example: compared to a retention time of 30 seconds, a retention time of 60 seconds (double the retention time) costs double the amount of BTP.
We recommend setting the retention time to at least 30 seconds. A lower value is not advisable considering typical page load times! A retention time that is too short may result in the page not fully loading, which means that not all page visits can be correctly tracked by external counters.
Retention Time, Session Duration, and Visitor Session
Many advertisers assume that the retention time corresponds to the session duration of a website visit. However, the session duration can only be measured when the visitor generates more than one page view. Therefore: even if the visitor stays on the ad campaign's website for 10 minutes, external visitor counters will measure a session duration of 0 seconds and a positive bounce rate.
This problem can be solved using the visitor session. With the visitor session, up to five consecutive impressions of a website can be delivered to the same visitor. More information can be found in the FAQ and in our Blog.
