Still counting clicks to measure if customers got your message? If so, you’re missing out on an even better metric — one that could push sales to the next level.

Clicks don’t tell the whole story, researchers say.

What’s more important than clicks? Measuring how long a customer’s cursor lingers over individual features on the page, especially ads.

This requires digging a little deeper to uncover what catches a prospect’s interest and how much time the person spends during his or her visit.

How much eye time are you getting?

For example, say an advertisement on a site’s getting very few click-throughs. Does that mean it’s a success or a failure?

Well using current metrics, failure’s the likely conclusion.

But suppose people stopped to spend time taking it all in — looking at pictures, a video, keywords and phrases — and interacting, but not physically clicking on the ad?

Despite a low click count, many people still could be spending time engaged with the ad — eye time — which can still deliver an advertiser’s message.

It makes sense that the best way to calculate the time a customer is spending with an ad is to measure the level of engagement the customer has with that ad.

That’s where the concept of “dwell” comes into play.

Dwell measures the quality and quantity of engagement.

High dwell time shows that customers are finding your brand appealing and are willing to spend more time with it.

Marketers value this information because it helps focus efforts to convert more prospects into customers.

3 strategies

So what’s the best way to increase customer dwell time on your ads?

Based on their recent benchmarking study — Using Dwell to Measure Advertising Effectiveness — the web marketing experts at Eyeblaster offer three straightforward tips:

• Place advertising with editorial content that requires readers to spend more than a few seconds to get through
• If there’s any way possible, make video part of your ad, and
• Push harder for better visibility for your ads.

Tags: ad, advertising, brand, click-throughs, clicks, dwell time, Eyeblaster, marketing, marketing opportunities, metric, sales, study