Engage-Digital

Bounce rate is a kind of standard bearer metric for measurement in web analytics, it’s up there with conversion. Even novices in web analytics know what bounce rate is, and when asked what should be the objective regarding bounce rate you’d have to be a lunatic to say anything other than “try to reduce it”. But increasingly, I think there are some misconceptions about this metric. Remembering that bounce rate applies to both entry pages and referring sources of traffic, two thoughts that come to mind are as follows:

1. When thinking about bounce rate in the context of entry pages it is hardly surprising that it’s lower on the home page than on a product page. I’ve seen very few sets of data in which the situation is reversed. I think this is because the home page offers a bigger target, i.e. there are more options for a visitor when they arrive on the home page than if they arrive on a highly specific product page. Trying to reduce the bounce rate on a product page is worthy and will yield results for sure but don’t expect to get it down to home page levels.
2. Lower bounce rate = more actual conversions. I’m not disagreeing with this but increasingly as I look at weekly and monthly trended data for various clients I see examples where BOTH bounce rate and conversion actually go UP against a particular referral source. This in turn quite often results in higher yield volumes as well.

This isn’t to say that it’s OK to let the bounce rate metric rocket up, retaining more visitors at the same conversion rate WILL of course produce greater conversion yield volumes. It’s simply to say that it’s not necessarily worth freaking out the minute a bounce rate shows signs of edging upwards. I would always look at the surrounding metrics to build a bit of additional context before deciding on a course of action.

The old adage ”quality not quantity” comes to mind here. A higher bounce rate might mean lower visitor retention but if more of those visitors are converting and the overall conversion yield is going up then that might prompt another old adage “if it isn’t broke….”

An argument often made in relation to website performance goes as follows:

If the conversion rate on a site is 2% then there is a 98% pot of untapped revenue? Technically yes but realistically no.

If 98 out of every 100 visits to the average e-commerce site don’t make a purchase then there is clearly an opportunity, but it’s unrealistic to think that the size of that opportunity is the entire remaining 98 visits – no sane person would think that anyway!! The question then becomes, what is the realistic size of the opportunity?

This is worth asking in light of the fact that site managers and marketers must spend money chasing the revenue and the amount spent often relates to the size of the opportunity.

It’s far more likely that some visitors are there simply to research either products or prices or both. Anything between 2% and 10% percent may admit to wanting to buy and it’s these are the guys that represent the real opportunity. The reality is that even a site wide conversion rate of 8% would be well above average for most e-commerce sites so it would be an impressive feat to reach that but this is at least a more realistic figure to aim for.

The best way to find out why they’re there? Ask them.