Bounce Rate
Often used in web traffic analysis, the bounce rate is the total percentage of single visits to a webpage at any given time. The bounce rate occurs when a user lands on a particular web page from a source and immediately leaves the website without navigating to other web pages.
Bounce Rate of a Webpage = Total Number of Bounces on a Webpage/Total Number of Entrances on the Same Webpage
Bounce Rate of a Website = Total Number of Bounces on All Webpages/Total Number of Entrances on All the Webpages
Bounces are the number of single visits to a particular webpage/website and Entrances are the number of times a visitor has entered the webpage/website.
Here’s a rough compilation by HubSpot on the benchmark of bounce rates by the industry that shows the average bounce rates across different types of sites:
40% – 60% content websites
30% – 50% lead generation websites
70% – 90% blog posts
20% – 40% retail / eCommerce websites
10% – 30% service websites
70% – 90% landing pages
Instances when bounce rates are helpful:
- When they’re used as a diagnostic reference for conversion funnel
- When they’re compared over time to see if internal changes or external forces shifted behavior
- When they’re benchmarked versus relevant industry competitors
Instances when bounce rates aren’t helpful:
- When they’re used instead of conversion actions to represent “success”
- When they’re compared against non-relevant “competitors” and other sites
- When they’re not considered over time or with traffic sources factored in
