What Is Bounce Rate And How to Improve It

In internet marketing, bounce rates are just as important as increasing your website traffic. It requires a lot of effort and creativity but brings great results, such as improving business efficiency without increasing marketing costs. 

Let's find out what a website's bounce rate is, why it is so important, and how to decrease bounce rate. 

What is Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is the proportion of sessions when a user visits just one page of a website without taking a targeted action.

• closed the browser tab after exploring the first page;
• clicked on an external link;
• pressed the "Back" button and returned to the search engine;
• closed the browser window;
• stayed on the page until the session time expired.

The formula used to calculate the bounce rate is:

Using the bounce rate, you can estimate what proportion of visitors find your commercial offer attractive enough to read more about it but not good enough to take advantage of it here and now. 

For marketing, the bouncing rate serves as one of the KPIs that you can use to measure the effectiveness of your business promotion strategy.

If you understand the meaning of bounce rate, it becomes clear that you can't reduce it to zero. Some users are curious by nature — they don't need your product; they just "look at the showcase". Others have a need and a desire but cannot allocate the right amount of money now. And still others may be indecisive — they will come back a little later when they carefully consider everything.

Why is Bounce Rate Important

The bounce rate is an indicator of lost revenue. Not all users who left a website page were going to take a targeted action. A significant part of them may have left the site for other reasons:

• poor UI/UX;
• long loading time;
• unclear presentation of the commercial offer;
• an abundance of distracting content;
• confusing structure;
• overly intrusive marketing;
• lack of promised content.

By addressing these shortcomings, you reduce bounce rates. This allows you to increase your conversion rate and improve your financial performance without major marketing investments. 

You're not expanding your target audience; you're converting more visitors into buyers. This is not extensive but intensive development. In a highly competitive and resource-constrained environment, it is more beneficial than attracting additional traffic. 

How to Determine the Bounce Rate

The easiest tool to calculate this indicator is the free Google Analytics 4 service, which you can connect to in a matter of minutes. 

By default, there is no such indicator as bounce rate in the service. You will have to add it to the standard report yourself or create a new comparison table. The first option is more convenient. The sequence of actions is as follows:

1. Log in with an administrator account. 

2. Select the Reports section from the menu on the left.

3. Click the Customize report button on the top right.

4. In the Report Data section, find the Metric item.

5. Click Add metric. 

6. Find Engagement rate and Bounce rate in the list.

7. Click Apply.

Another issue concerns the methodology of calculating the indicator. Google Analytics 4 uses an alternative formula:

By generating a report, you'll see that bounce rates go down when engagement rates go up and vice versa. These two metrics have an inversely proportional relationship.

You also need to know how engagement is calculated in Google Analytics 4 to improve the bounce rate. A user is considered engaged if they:

• viewed two or more pages within one session;
• made a conversion;
• stayed on the page for at least 10 seconds.

If you find GA4 reports complicated and the calculation methods incomprehensible, you can try an alternative. 

There are paid web analytics services such as Moz, Ubersuggest, Ahrefs, SE Ranking, Semrush, and others. They are more convenient, contain ready-made tables, and even give recommendations on how to optimize your marketing strategy. But there is a disadvantage — additional costs will increase the burden on the business budget.

What is an Average Bounce Rate

As in other areas of Internet marketing, there is no single standard. You will have to find a benchmark that you can put in your business plan and set as a KPI. To calculate the average bounce rate, you need to take into account the following factors:

• the company's business model;
• product features;
• type of website;
• pricing policy;
• the type of device a user has to view the website;
• target audience characteristics;
• geographic region;
• traffic source, etc.

According to marketing agency CXL, in 2023, the average bounce rate for a website varies by more than 20%, depending on the field of activity. The maximum rate was observed in food production (65.62%) and scientific activities (62.24%). The minimum rate was in real estate (44.50%) and e-commerce (45.68%).

In the ranking by type of site, online retail stores lead the ranking — from 20% to 45%. B2B commerce shows a weaker result — from 25% to 55%. On the lower end are blogs, dictionaries, information portals, and other similar resources — from 65% to 90%. Interestingly, one-page landings also repel many users — from 60% to 90%.

The average bounce rates for websites also depend on what makes a user visit the site. 

The most targeted visitors are those led by email newsletters — the engagement rate reaches 64.8%. Excellent results are also obtained with the help of referral programs (62.5%) and organic search (56.4%). But banner advertising and promotion in social networks do not work so effectively — 43.5% and 46.0%, respectively.

It is worth considering the dependence of the bounce rate on the type of device with which a user browses the site. Here, we can see a direct dependence of the indicator on the screen diagonal, i.e., on the convenience of web surfing. The bounce rate in e-commerce is 48% for smartphones, 43.7% for tablets, and 41.5% for desktop devices.

What is a Good Website Bounce Rate

There are many opinions on a good bounce rate for the website. Marketers look at statistics from the point of view of personal experience, while businesses focus primarily on their segment. 

Still, the creative agency RocketFuel provides some of the best benchmarks of what a good website bounce rate for e-commerce is.

The ideal rate ranges from 26% to 40%. It leaves almost no room for optimization — some users are not initially set up for conversion. Good bounce rates in e-commerce are between 41% and 55%. The figure from 56% to 70% may be normal for certain products, especially in the premium segment.

A bounce rate above 71% is considered critical. It signals that you urgently need to improve your site or adjust your marketing strategy. On the other hand, an extremely low rate (less than 25%) also requires attention. Usually, it means that you have poorly configured analytics or an error in the calculations.

Why Bounce Rates are Rising

The most common reason for a high bounce rate is UX/UI problems. Once on the site, users should immediately understand what is being offered, how to take a targeted action, and what benefits they will receive. CXL research shows that it takes a visitor 2.6 seconds to find an offer and another 6 seconds to explore it. If your message isn't obvious, a user will likely close the browser tab after those 8.6 seconds.

Another reason is slow loading time. According to Curatti experts, you can lower bounce rates if all landing page elements are correctly displayed within 2 seconds after a click. Hubspot experts claim that 39% of visitors have a negative attitude towards a brand if the multimedia on a company's website takes too long to load.

Sometimes, a high bounce rate means mistakes in your marketing strategy. For example, you decided to increase conversion rates with pop-ups, but the ads were too intrusive. To avoid such problems, you should choose the right tools. Claspo provides many widget options with different sizes, action mechanics, and design styles. You can also select the ideal appearance scenarios that won't annoy users.

Why you Should Reduce your Bounce Rate

If your company statistics are worse than the website average bounce rate of your competitor's websites, you're losing the battle. If your offer seems less attractive to consumers, this means it lacks unique advantages. In the best case, the business will stagnate, and in the worst case, it will gradually shrink and approach the line of unprofitability.

A high bounce rate also means that you are realizing only a small part of the potential of your idea. It can work much more effectively if you put more effort into it. By knowing what is a good bounce rate for a website in your category and how to fix the bounce rate, you can set it as a benchmark for your marketing strategy. The closer you get to your target, the higher your company's profitability.

While moving towards low bounce rates, you will also learn more about your customers, their preferences, needs, behavioral patterns, and expectations. This will help you to:

• optimize the UX/UI of the site;
• build an effective sales funnel;
• choose the right communication channels;
• compile detailed customer portraits;
• correctly set up targeted advertising.

5 Ways to Reduce the Bounce Rate on your Website

It's important to do more than just choose a few effective methods to reduce website bounce rate. You need to develop a comprehensive strategy to optimize your site.

1. Improve the quality of your landing pages

Users should clearly understand what you are offering them and how to get it. To reduce bounce rates, redesign your landing pages in a minimalistic way. Display your unique selling benefits on the home screen and add a call to action button. And don't forget about simple navigation.

2. Add Pop-ups

Add attractive and unobtrusive pop-ups. Well-designed scripts allow you to increase conversion and user engagement. You can reduce bounce rates with a final offer that will appear when a user tries to close the browser tab. 

Claspo has a huge library of customizable widgets for any business: online stores, IT companies, restaurants, travel agencies, and much more. The service allows you to instantly draw a user’s attention to your best offers, increasing conversion rates and reducing bounce rates. Thanks to a wide range of formats and display scenarios, it adapts to any page.

3. Improve the mobile version of the site

Use responsive design and test all pages on different devices, including those with exotic screen diagonals and unusual aspect ratios. Use Google's free tool to evaluate the quality of your site's design.

4. Take care of internal re-linking

Direct the user to commercial pages. You can do this with navigation menus, call-to-action buttons, or plain text links. Use pop-ups and interactive widgets to reduce bounce rates and draw attention to your best offer.

5. Take a survey

If your website's performance is far from what we consider a good bounce rate, put the question to users. Ask them why exactly they are leaving the site. Add a pop-up box with simple answer options, or offer them an incentive to contact a company representative — a small discount or bonus.

How to improve bounce rates with Claspo

Claspo will help you implement several ideas at once to increase customer engagement:

• offer a personalized discount;
• show a personalized selection of products;
• conduct a survey;
• collect customers' personal data;
• direct them to a prioritized product page.

And all this can be done with minimal involvement by you. 

You don't have to write the code for the pop-up and draw the design. Just choose the right template and edit it to suit your needs. The visual builder will help you adapt the widget to the company's corporate style, add the necessary blocks, and insert text fragments. 

Claspo can significantly increase conversion rates and reduce bounce rates in the shortest possible time. Try it yourself and see the results — a free subscription is available. Choose the best plan and reveal the full potential of your business idea!