Bounce Rate

Bounce Rate is an analytics metric indicating the percentage of website sessions where the user performed no interaction (e.g., clicking, navigating to another page, filling out a form) and left the site from the same page they entered.

In modern analytics (Google Analytics 4), this definition has radically changed. Bounce Rate is no longer the primary indicator of “poor quality” but rather the inverse of Engagement Rate.

Formula in GA4: Bounce Rate = 100% – Engagement Rate. (If 60% of sessions were engaged, the Bounce Rate is 40%).

Does a high Bounce Rate always indicate a problem?

This is one of the biggest myths in marketing. Interpretation depends on the page intent:

Scenario A (BAD): E-commerce Homepage or Sales Landing Page.
- Bounce Rate 80%:: Disaster. The user entered and fled. This implies a technical error, slow loading, or a misleading headline (Clickbait).
Scenario B (GOOD/NEUTRAL): Blog article or Contact page.
- Bounce Rate 80%:: Can indicate success. The user searched for “Company X phone number,” entered, saw the number, called, and left. They found exactly what they needed.

Bounce Rate in Universal Analytics vs. GA4

For a Marketing Manager, it is crucial to understand that old benchmarks (from UA) are obsolete in GA4.

In legacy UA: A user reading an article for 10 minutes and leaving was counted as a “Bounce.”
In new GA4: If a user spends more than 10 seconds on the page, converts, or scrolls (depending on setup), the session is counted as an Engaged Session, not a Bounce.
Conclusion: Bounce Rate in GA4 will typically be lower than in the old system, providing a more accurate picture of reality.

What causes a high Bounce Rate?

If Bounce Rate is high on transactional pages (where we expect an “Add to Cart” click), typically three Bottlenecks are to blame:

Intent Mismatch: The ad promised a “Free Ebook,” but the page says “Buy Course.” The user feels deceived.
UX Friction: The page loads in over 3 seconds (Core Web Vitals) or is unreadable on mobile.
Lack of clear CTA: The user read the content but doesn’t know what to do next (missing Call to Action).

What is a "good" Bounce Rate?

There is no single number. For E-commerce, a "healthy" level is 20-45%. For B2B Lead Gen: 30-50%. For blogs and news portals: 65-90% (which is natural). If your Bounce Rate is below 10%, you likely have an error in your tracking code (double counting visits).

What is the difference between Bounce Rate and Exit Rate?

Bounce Rate applies only to single-page sessions (enter -> leave). Exit Rate applies to the percentage of exits from a specific page, regardless of how many pages the user visited before. A high Exit Rate on a "Thank You for Purchase" page is natural.

Why can't I see Bounce Rate in my GA4 report?

By default, GA4 promotes the "Engagement Rate" metric. To see Bounce Rate, you must manually Customize the Report and add this metric from the library. Google intentionally hides this metric to shift marketers' mindset from "avoiding bounces" to "building engagement."