How bounce rate is calculated?

[cathyw49544988]

Recently we noticed that our bounce rate is a kind of high. Then we start to take a close look and I have a question about how bounce rate is calculated? Please see the following data. We have 18 sample pages. I collected the bounce number for each page and visits and bounce rate from Adobe analytics. If Bounce Rate is calculated by bounce / visits, then we can see the number is much lower than Bounce Rate I got from Adobe.

Anyone know what happen here?

Thanks,

-Cathy

PageName	Bounce	Visits	Bounce/visits	Bounce Rate
Page2	41	213	0.192488263	41.00%
Page3	36	179	0.201117318	40.00%
Page4	41	105	0.39047619	46.59%
Page5	26	80	0.325	49.06%
Page6	21	74	0.283783784	58.33%
Page7	36	77	0.467532468	50.70%
Page8	14	60	0.233333333	60.87%
Page9	10	46	0.217391304	45.45%
Page10	11	47	0.234042553	45.83%
Page11	8	38	0.210526316	53.33%
Page12	5	40	0.125	45.45%
Page13	15	33	0.454545455	57.69%
Page14	16	34	0.470588235	69.57%
Page15	12	33	0.363636364	42.86%
Page16	7	14	0.5	63.64%
Page17	2	8	0.25	66.67%
Page18	0	2	0	0.00%

[cathyw49544988]

I just searched and noticed that Bounce Rate = Bounces divided by Entries

The definition of entries is:

Entries represents the number of times a given value is captured as the first value in a visit. Entries can occur only once per visit. However, it is not necessarily the first hit if the variable is not defined.

My understanding is each visit should have one entries. But somehow, entries number is much smaller than Visits. Why?

Thanks,

PageName	Bounce	Visits	Entries	Bounce/visits	Bounce Rate
Page2	41	213	100	0.192488263	41.00%
Page3	36	179	90	0.201117318	40.00%
Page4	41	105	88	0.39047619	46.59%
Page5	26	80	53	0.325	49.06%
Page6	21	74	36	0.283783784	58.33%
Page7	36	77	71	0.467532468	50.70%
Page8	14	60	23	0.233333333	60.87%
Page9	10	46	22	0.217391304	45.45%
Page10	11	47	24	0.234042553	45.83%
Page11	8	38	15	0.210526316	53.33%
Page12	5	40	11	0.125	45.45%
Page13	15	33	26	0.454545455	57.69%
Page14	16	34	23	0.470588235	69.57%
Page15	12	33	28	0.363636364	42.86%
Page16	7	14	11	0.5	63.64%
Page17	2	8	3	0.25	66.67%
Page18	0	2	1	0	0.00%

[EricMatisoff]

Great questions. It's possible for a Page to have a Visit, but not an Entry, if that page is not the first page viewed in a Visit. For example, if this is your visit:

Page A

Page B

Page C

The report you created would look like:

Pagename     Bounce     Visit     Entries          Bounce/Visits     Bounce Rate

Page A               0               1          1                         0                    0

Page B               0               1          0                         0                    0

Page C               0               1          0                         0                    0                    

You should never see: Bounce > Entries or Entries > Visits.

Does that help?         

[cathyw49544988]

Eric, you are right and this is helpful.

Right now, I feel very confused when combine bounce rate , entries and segment.

In our report, we have segment created for each division based on site section. When I was generating a bounce rate report for a division, then I noticed that if I just use pageview, visits metric, the report only include the pages from that division. Once I add bounce rate and entries metric, it involved a lot of pages are not for this division. It seems that it pulls in all the landing pages doesn't matter it is belong to this segment or not. It seems that my segment does not working anymore. So in the case, if I want to know the aggregated bound rate for the whole division, what should I do?

Could I know why right now, adobe implement like this? This really mess up the segment or virtual report suite.

Thanks

[EricMatisoff]

Most likely it has to do with your segment's definition. Can you share a screenshot of how it's defined?

[cathyw49544988]

Eric,

My segment is nothing special. Check the site section equal to division name. For example, if my division is "d1". Then all the pages in this segment should be:

domain\d1\page1

domain\d1\page2 etc

But when we have some visits:

visit1: d1\page1 ->d1\page2   ( bounce + 0, entries +1 )

visit2: d2\page1 ->d1\page1  ( bounce + 0, entries +1 )

visit3: d1\page1   ( bounce = 1 ,entries +1 )

When calculate  bounce rate for segment d1, by default( if I don't add additional filter):

bounce rate = 1/3 = 33.3%

Since in visit2, the landing page d2\page1 is not part of segment d1, when I calculate the bounce rate of d1, should I add a filter:entry page contain 'd1'? then the bounce rate will change to:

bounce rate = 1/2 = 50%

I guess my question is:  should bounce rate only consider the landing page? if so, then we don't care visit2, although it involved a d1 page.

Thanks

[EricMatisoff · Accepted solution]

Bounce Rate will only consider landing page, as you mentioned and can see in this screenshot:

The hit-based segment limits to just the aac: rules page. And you'll notice how Bounces, Bounce Rate, Page Views, and Occurrences are limited to just that Rules page. However, Entries from other Pages are included. This makes sense because Hits on the Rules page will have Entries from other pages.

However, if I switch the segment to be visit-based:

Page Views and Occurrences on other pages are now also shown. However, Bounce Rate, Bounces, and Entries does not change.

You may want to consider leveraging the Entry Page dimension in your analysis, instead of Page.

Hope that helps!

[cathyw49544988]

Thanks Eric. This is really helpful!