A metric that describes visits in which a user leaves without completing another meaningful interaction on the page or website.
Its exact meaning depends on the analytics platform and how engagement is configured.
Short and sweet:
A metric that describes visits in which a user leaves without completing another meaningful interaction on the page or website.
Its exact meaning depends on the analytics platform and how engagement is configured.
See also: Engagement Rate, Exit Rate, Session
Bounce rate is usually calculated as the share of visitors who leave a page without triggering any further interaction, such as clicking a link, submitting a form, or navigating to a second page, though the exact definition can shift depending on the analytics platform and how events are tracked. A high rate isn’t automatically bad, since a visitor who lands on a page, finds the phone number they needed, and leaves satisfied still counts as a bounce, which is why it’s best interpreted alongside time-on-page and the type of content involved. Marketers typically dig into bounce rate by landing page and traffic source rather than treating it as one site-wide number, since a paid campaign sending mismatched traffic will often skew the average far more than the page itself.
A blog post that answers a reader’s question so completely that they leave satisfied without clicking anywhere else can still register a high bounce rate, even though the visit was actually a success.
An e-commerce landing page with a reading above 70 percent on this measure often signals a mismatch between what an ad promised and what the page actually delivers.
News sites tend to accept a naturally higher number here than e-commerce stores, since a reader who finishes one article and simply closes the tab isn’t necessarily a bad outcome.
