Sessions-to-Purchase Latency

Sessions-to-Purchase Latency shows how many days passed between a visitor’s first visit to your store and the visit where they bought.

How It’s Calculated

The report counts each visitor who bought inside the date range once, at the start of the first session in the range where they bought. It measures the whole days from that visitor’s first recorded visit to that session. The first visit can be well before the date range.

The report looks back up to 180 days before the range begins.

Use the View tabs to choose Overall or By Channel.

Overall

The table has one row for each length of time. The columns are:

• Time to Purchase: Same day, 1 day, 2–7 days, 8–30 days or 30+ days.
• Conversions: the number of visitors who bought after that long.
• Share: the part of all conversions.

The chart draws the number of conversions for each day from 0 to 30, with a last bar for 30 days or more.

By Channel

Each row is one channel, with the most conversions first. The columns are:

• Channel: how the visitor first arrived. The rules are the ones in Sessions by Source & Channel.
• Conversions: the number of visitors who bought.
• Share: the part of all conversions.
• Median Days: the days that half of the channel’s customers took or less.
• Within 7 Days: the share of the channel’s customers who bought within 7 days.

Select a row to open Sessions Explorer with that channel’s purchases.

Summary Cards

The cards above the table are Conversions, Median Days, 75% Within and 90% Within. Median Days is the number of days half of the customers took or less. 75% Within and 90% Within are the days that 75% and 90% of the customers took or less.

With Compare on, Conversions shows its change and the other cards show the earlier figure.

Limits

• The report shows nothing until there are 20 conversions in the date range. A channel needs 20 conversions to show Median Days and Within 7 Days. A spread built on fewer is noise.
• The clock starts at the first visit das Pixel has in the last 180 days before the range. A visitor whose real first visit was earlier looks faster than they were.
• Visitors are tracked with a browser cookie. A visitor who browsed on a phone and bought on a laptop counts as 2 people, and the laptop purchase counts as a same-day purchase.
• The report measures from the first visit, not from an ad click. Direct Sales Traced to a Paid Ad Click shows the days from the click.

What Counts

• Visitors who declined analytics cookies, or who opted out of the sale or sharing of their data while Require Sale-of-Data Consent is on, aren’t recorded. Known bots are left out.
• Days are whole days of 24 hours.
• Turn on Live to refresh the report every 30 seconds. Without it, a figure can be up to 10 minutes old.

This report has no Segment, Sales Channel or Filters control, and shows no order-capture warning.

What Good Looks Like

There’s no target. A large Same day share means impulse buying. A long tail means a considered purchase.

Compare channels by Median Days. A channel with a long median has visitors who need more reminders before they buy.

What to Do About It

• A long tail: use retargeting and email to stay in front of visitors during the weeks before they buy.
• A channel with a long median: check whether its visitors need more information, such as reviews or comparisons.
• A large Same day share: make the first visit count, with clear prices, shipping costs and a simple checkout.

Get AI Insight at the top of the report asks Copilot for a short read of it.

Where to Find It

• Sessions-to-Purchase Latency: open Reports and look under Web Analytics.