Goodbye Bounce Rate; Hello Engagement Rate

In the newest addition of Google Analytics, GA4, “bounce rate” will no longer be a metric, and it will be replaced with a new metric called “engagement rate.”

Bounce rate has always been a key metric, but because of how users interact with the web, it can leave an unclear picture of whether a user’s visit was positive or negative. This is because bounce rate is the percentage of visitors to a website who navigate away from the site after viewing only one page. Who is to say that if a user only visited one page that they were not engaged with the website?

This is where the engagement rate metric comes in. While bounce rate focused on how often users left a website, engagement rate provides data on how often visitors stay on and interact with a website. Engagement rate can more accurately describe whether a user was engaged with, or had a positive visit to, a website.

In Google Analytics, engagement rate is the ratio of engaged sessions to the total number of sessions on a website. An engaged session is defined as one that: lasted 10 seconds or longer, had one or more conversion events, or have two or more views. These new metrics provide more valuable information, and we look forward to reporting on them for our clients in the future.

If you have any questions about this information, we would be happy to talk with you. Contact us anytime.

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