Bounce rate
In short
Bounce rate is the share of visits where people leave your website without engaging. In GA4 it is the opposite of engagement rate.
The definition has changed. In the old Universal Analytics, a bounce was a visit with only one pageview. In GA4, a visit counts as engaged if it lasts longer than 10 seconds, has a key event or has at least two pageviews. Bounce rate is the share of visits that meet none of these.
High is not always bad
A high bounce rate is not always bad. If someone is looking for your phone number, finds it in five seconds and calls, that is a bounce in GA4 and a customer for you. The number has to be read alongside what the page is meant to do.
On a landing page for ads, a high bounce rate is a warning. You are paying for clicks that disappear. Slow page speed and a headline that does not match the ad are the first two things to check.
How to find the number
In GA4, bounce rate is not included in most reports by default. You have to customise a report and add the metric yourself, and that requires editor or administrator access. Add it to the pages report, look at the ten pages with the most traffic and start with the one that is meant to get people to act and has the highest bounce rate. You find the numbers in Google Analytics.
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