Bounce Rate in Google Analytics 4

After many months of pleading, Google has just added the Bounce Rate metric to Google Analytics 4.

The well-loved, over-used metric from Universal Analytics, that’s been in Google Analytics since its launch in 2005 is back !!

Yaay!! Woohoo!! Cheers all around, right?

Nope.

Yes indeed, the Bounce Rate metric is now available in Google Analytics 4.

But the rules on “what’s a bounce?” are different in GA4 compared to UA.

Here’s why.

Bounce Rate in Universal Analytics is defined as

Percentage of single page sessions in which there was no interaction with the page.
A bounced session has a duration of 0 seconds.

Bounce Rate in Google Analytics 4 is defined as

Percentage of sessions that were not engaged sessions.

OK… What’s an engaged session, you ask?

In GA4, an engaged session is defined as a session that meets one of the following conditions:

- Is longer than 10 seconds (default setting – you can change this)
- Has a conversion
- Includes 2 or more pageviews or screenviews

In other words,

Bounce rate (%) = 100% – Engagement Rate (%)

Some scenarios to highlight the differences:

A person …	Is this a “Bounce” in Universal Analytics?	Is this a “Bounce” in Google Analytics 4?
Lands on a page, stays for 5 seconds, does nothing else and leaves.	Yes	Yes
Lands on a page, stays for 12 seconds, does nothing else and leaves.	Yes	No Session is longer than 10 seconds.
Lands on a page, plays a video, leaves 8 seconds into the visit without doing anything else. Clicking “play” fires an event. The event is NOT a conversion in either UA or GA4.	No More than 1 interaction.	Yes Session not longer than 10 seconds. No conversions. Only 1 page viewed.
Lands on a page, plays a video, leaves 8 seconds into the visit without doing anything else. Clicking “play” fires an event. The event is set up to be a Conversion in both UA and GA4.	No More than 1 interaction.	No One conversion
Lands, clicks through 2 pages quickly, and leaves, for a total session time of 7 seconds.	No More than 1 interaction.	No More than 2 pages were.

Do the examples above help?
Got another Bounce Rate scenario you’re unsure about?
Tell us by leaving your question in a comment below.

Bounce rates aren’t available in any of the GA4 standard reports. You can retrieve this info quickly by whipping up an Exploration report.

Here’s a Free Form Exploration report using the Google Merchandise Store demo data showing Bounce Rate and Engagement Rate for Google’s Apparel landing pages:

Google is sure to accelerate its releases as the Universal Analytics sunset date of July 1, 2023 approaches. Read Universal Analytics will be going away.

Staying up to date on releases is easy as you just have to keep an eye on Google’s What’s New page.

But what about what these new features mean in real life? We’re hosting a series of free Universal Analytics (UA) to GA4 Masterclasses. Sign up here to attend the next Masterclass.

Hope to see you there!

By June Li|2022-07-27T00:04:28-04:00July 22nd, 2022|2 Comments

2 Comments

NK 2022-12-12 at 06:52 - Reply

Thanks for the detailed explanation.
- Heather Alikakos 2022-12-12 at 10:51 - Reply
  
  You’re welcome! We hope that it was helpful.