Average bounce rate for adobe analytics does not seem to be accurate

[BrendomLu]

Hi all, I have a specific marketing channel (Type/Bookmarked) and I got an average bounce rate of 16.44% when I broke it down by days for the whole of March 2024. However, when I download this data to excel and calculate the average, excel is giving me a bounce rate of 16.13%. May I know what is the cause of this discrepancy in bounce rate?

[Bhoomika_S]

Hi @BrendomLu ,

Adobe Analytics calculates bounce rate by the ratio of single-page visits to total visits, inherently using a weighted method based on traffic volume

Ref: https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/components/metrics/bounce-rate

On the other hand, in Excel, you must create a similar one to align with the bounce rate calculated in Adobe Analytics.

Assuming you have the following columns:

A Column as Date

B Column as Visits

C Column as Bounce Rate

Add a new column D for Weighted Bounce Rate: D2=B2×C2

Suppose, if your data spans from 2 to 32

Sum the weighted bounce rates and visits:

Total Weighted Bounce Rate=SUM(𝐷2:𝐷32)

Total Visits=SUM(𝐵2:𝐵32)

Calculate the weighted average bounce rate: Weighted Average Bounce Rate=SUM(𝐷2:𝐷32)/SUM(𝐵2:𝐵32)
​

By using the weighted average, you should get a bounce rate in Excel that matches the one reported by Adobe Analytics.

[bjoern__koth]

Great explanation from @Bhoomika_S 

Yet still, a 16% bounce rate seems very low, or else lucky you to have such an engaging content that you don't lose visitors.

Could it be that for some marketing channels, you are firing additional tracking calls that could lead to a lower bounce rate as explained?

Cheers

[BrendomLu]

Hi @Bhoomika_S , thanks for the clear explanation, the average bounce rate seems to tally now. Can I check how about average page depth, the number for Adobe Analytics and excel does not seem to tally as well when I break it down by a certain month. E.g for April.

[Josh__Stephens]

Adobe's definition is a visit with only 1 hit.  In many cases, the first page view by a customer can send multiple hits.  For example, perhaps a page view hit fires.  Then another hit fires shortly after when an automated element appears.  By Adobe's definition, this wouldn't be a bounce since there were two hits.  However, there may have been no engagement by the visitor.

You can also use a Single Page Visit metric.  With this metric, if there are multiple hits but all have the same Page value, it will be considered a Single Page Visit.  When a second Page value is seen, it's no longer a Single Page Visit.

(There's a similar Single Access metric that can be used with other dimensions such as site section.)