Bounce Rate an Important Metric for Success
Avinash Kaushik wrote a great piece today about the usefulness of the bounce rate metric. As someone who analyzes web traffic for hours each day, I can honestly say that bounce rate is probably my favorite metric, and has been for some time. I’ve often been curious why more marketers and analysts didn’t utilize it, as I find it to be a great indiciation of the quality of traffic a website is receiving. So I’m encouraged that bounce rate is getting more positive press now!
One question I always get when training people with Web Analytics is “What is a good bounce rate?”. That’s kinda like asking “What is a good IQ score?”. Higher, obviously! Well, in the case of a bounce rate, the lower the better (you know, like golf). And while a 0-5% bounce rate is almost impossible, it’s not uncommon for well marketed sites to have bounce rates below 25%.
When evaluating bounce rate, it’s important to evaluate each segment of traffic differently. For instance, you want your bounce rate from PPC traffic to be lower than SEO, because you are paying for every PPC visitor. While a 45% bounce rate from organic traffic might be acceptable, the same percentage from PPC traffic could indicate a need for some negative keywords or ad refinement.
Finally, bounce rate can be used to discover e-commerce roadblocks. For instance, if you find that your bounce rate is very low, but your conversion rate is still poor, that might be an indication of price shopping. Consider lowering your prices, or hooking visitors in with a free shipping coupon or discount.
Bounce rate is a great metric that can be used to easily evaluate visitor quality. Almost every respectable analytics software has bounce rate metrics, including the free Google Analytics package. I would recommend you add it to your analytics dashboards and see how it can help improve your online business.
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