The bounce rate is the number of web sessions where the user left your site after viewing just one page. It is a key measure for landing page engagement. This is the second article in the Q&A series. As I previous mentioned, I am going to continue answering some of the most-asked questions about Google Analytics and how it works. If you want to get an idea of how this works, you can visit PART 1(Pros and cons of using Google Analytics) of the series and see what questions we answered there. Here are the questions we will be tackling in this second article of the series: 1) What is the bounce rate in Google Analytics? 2) How is the Bounce rate calculated? 3) What is an ideal bounce rate? What is the bounce rate in Google Analytics? The definition of the Bounce Rate as shown in the Google Analytics Help Centre is “the percentage of single-page sessions. Those are sessions in which the person left your site from the entrance page without interacting with any other page”. Why is this metric important? A high bounce rate shows you may have some problems on your website. Remember that the bounce rate is correlated to the content of your website and should be considered in the context of the purpose of the website. If you have a content website, a services website or an ecommerce website you need to look at the bounce rate in the big picture and analyse it using Advanced Segments to look at a specific category of pages, and see how they’re performing vs other sections. Some reasons for a high bounce rate are: Single page website: where the user never leaves the first page through their whole visit. A high bounce rate, in this case, is actually irrelevant: you should focus on how many visitors. In order to find out how people interact with your website, you can track Custom Events on the page. To get an accurate bounce rate in this case you need to set up the events as "interaction hits". Incorrect implementation: for a multiple page website, in order to track all the pages, you need to add a specific tracking code on all of the pages for a correct read of the data. In case the bounce rate is high, that might show that the tracking code is not correctly applied to all pages of the website. User Behaviour: the people that arrived on your site and left without doing anything else, either because they found the information that they wanted on that page and there was no need to access other pages or they simply entered by accident and didn’t find what they needed. Also if a user has a page bookmarked, enters the page and then leaves, that’s also counted as a bounce. Site design: when the implementation is done properly then you really might have a problem with the way the content is displayed. In this case consider looking at the landing pages, as they might not do justice to the content. Also, the keywords or ads that you use, might not reflect the content of your website and because of that, you need to optimise either the content or the keywords and ads. How is the Bounce rate calculated? In Google Analytics, there are two indicators for the Bounce Rate. There is the Bounce Rate of a Web Page and then there is the Bounce Rate of a Website. The Bounce Rate of a Website is the total number of bounces across all of the pages on the website over the total number of entrances across all the pages on the website (both over the same determined period of time). This is represented in Google Analytics as a percentage shown in the table of all the pages displayed. The Bounce Rate of a Web Page is the total number of bounces on a page over the total number of entrances on the page (Both over the same determined period of time). The image above shows the equation for calculating it. This is also represented as a percentage but it is shown in the table for each page separately. Here is an article from OptimizeSMART in which they show us how to improve our bounce rate. [subscribe] 3) What is an ideal bounce rate? As I previously explained, the bounce rate should be as low as possible. In one of his articles, Avinash Kaushik who is a guru of Analytics tells us what the ideal bounce rate should be: “As a benchmark from my own personal experience over the years, it is hard to get a bounce rate under 20%. Anything over 35% is a cause for concern and anything above 50% is worrying.” To recap, in this article we managed to see what the Bounce Rate is, how it’s calculated and what is the ideal bounce rate we should strive for with our website. Make sure to check part 3 out, in which we will answer more questions about Google Analytics. Happy Reporting. Get Social! Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook and keep up-to-date with our Google Analytics insights.

Particularly for newer users, Google Analytics is a complex platform. Because of this, Google Analytics users often have questions that either Aren't readily available in online content Poorly answered or over-complicated by resources and "data analytics experts" or Google Analytics consultants that claim to know the answers Today, we'll discuss: When ecommerce merchants should use Google Analytics The pros and cons of using Google Analytics [tip]Get free Google Analytics resources for Shopify with our GA content bundle[/tip] Why should I use Google Analytics? Have you ever questioned how websites know your location and redirect you to the page of that specific location? Or have you ever seen those ads that constantly appear after you visit a website, even for just a few seconds? That’s because of cookies, a set of parameters that get collected and interpreted. Cookies are a part of Google Analytics, which is Google's data measurement tool that helps online store owners, marketing managers and ecommerce managers understand who you should reach and how your website performs. "Website performance" is generally measured by Who is visiting your website How a user interacts with your website The set of decisions they take following those interactions Dynamic ecommerce data metrics like customer lifetime value, average order value, etc. Ultimately, ecommerce merchants want to use Google Analytics in order to increase the marketing and sales efforts of the platforms being used, whether that's Shopify, Magento, BigCommerce, Salesforce Commerce Cloud, or another platform. AnalyticsNinja takes an even deeper dive into Google Analytics and why it's an essential tool for your commerce business. [subscribe heading="Try Littledata free for 30 days" background_color="green" button_text="Start my free trial" button_link="https://www.littledata.io/app/get-free-trial"] Pros and cons of using Google Analytics Google Analytics is one of the most well-renowned ecommerce tracking tools. While there are certainly many pros (as it's considered an essential tool for marketers and store managers), there are also some drawbacks: Pros of Google Analytics It’s free of charge, so anyone can use it. You can use it on different digital environments such as websites, mobile applications, kiosks, or anything with an internet connection. There's a Google Analytics Academy, where you can get in-depth information on the platform. You can connect your Google Analytics account with your Google Ads account. You can collect data from different platforms and sources like commerce connections, industry benchmarks and more. You can create custom goals and track your ecommerce platform. You can create custom reports based on your needs. This way you can track specific information depending on your industry. It's simple enough to self-navigate, though some ecommerce managers seek help from a Google Analytics consultant. Cons of Google Analytics To understand the intricacies of Google Analytics, you need to "learn the language". Unfortunately, the right resources are often tough to find online, and instructions may be confusing, time-consuming or overwhelming to those without an intermediate analytics background. The overall feel of the platform may be overwhelming. There are many dashboards, settings, user views and metrics. The free version of Google Analytics suits even a rookie users almost anyone, but if your web traffic is high and you'd like to upgrade to the premium version, there's a hefty price point of $150,000. [tip]Get free Google Analytics resources for Shopify with our GA content bundle[/tip] If you'd like more information or have any questions about our Google Analytics connections for ecommerce, reach out to our team of Google Analytics experts. Next, check out part 2: What is the bounce rate in Google Analytics?

Google Analytics is a free Web analytics service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimisation (SEO) and marketing purposes. The service is available to anyone with a Google account. As a person that’s at the beginning and trying to get familiar with the field of analytics and data, it’s definitely important to understand how Google Analytics works. There are four components that come together and make Google Analytics work: 1. Collection 2. Processing 3. Configuration 4. Reporting Collection: Data can be collected from different sources, such as a website, a mobile application or pretty much any device that has a connection to the internet. For a website, in order to collect the information, we need to include a Tracking code (JavaScript). This code should be included on every single page of the website in order for Google Analytics to capture the information properly. The JavaScript that we get from Google is okay, but don’t forget that it tracks a limited amount of information. If you are active in a niche field of work, you might want to take a look at adapting that code in order to track the correct data. For a mobile application, we need to use a specific software development kit (SDK), depending on the operating system. In this case, activities will be tracked instead of pageviews. Because we might not always have an internet connection available, the hits will be stored and sent to afterwards to Google’s collection centres. Processing + Configuration: The processing step is the one that takes the longest to finish. It can take anywhere up to 4 hours (24 hours in Google's T&Cs) to turn all the raw data into reports that you are able to interpret and monitor. This doesn’t happen easily, but the only way you can skip the queue is by paying for Google Analytics 360. In Google Analytics, the configuration part comes in and it applies certain filters to the data that is collected. While some of those filters (new or returning users, linking between pages and time spent on certain pages) are pre-configured, you also have the possibility to apply some filters of your own to this process. Remember that you will not be able to change that information once it is stored in the database. Reporting: The final step what the users get to see. By using Google Analytics' own interface, you have access to all the processed information and this is the place where you can manage it from. There is also the possibility of using different applications by creating a custom code in the reporting API. Here is a short list of benefits that you will gain after using Google Analytics: 1. Visitor Segmentation: New vs Returning users, Geographical location and referral source. 2. Page visits: Finding out which pages are the most visited. 3. Locating the website: Finding out how the users got to your website and tracking the keywords they used. 4. Website optimization If you'd like some more information, please get in touch or leave a comment below! Get Social! Follow us on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook and keep up-to-date with our Google Analytics insights.