Difference Between Bounce Rate and Exit Rate | Google Analytics
To understand the difference between bounce rate and exit rate, it is important to understand two important concepts in Google Analytics. Those are Hit and Session.
Hit
With each user interaction on the website, the Google Analytics tracking code sends what’s called a hit to Google Analytics. It is a URL containing information about the interaction.
Hit can be considered as a packet of data that is sent to Google Analytics using which reports are created.
Pageview Hit
A Page View hit is sent out by the Google Analytics tracking code when a page is loaded.
Examples
Event Hit
Event hit is sent out when an event which is tracked happens.
Example
Session
Google Analytics groups interactions on the website into a period of time called a session.
The different ways in which a session ends in Google Analytics are:
- Complete exit from the site
- 30 minutes of inactivity
- Midnight
- Campaign change during an active session
Now, that you are clear with what a hit and a session are, it is now time to understand what bounce rate is.
Bounce rate
Bounce
When a user enters your website and exits without performing any interaction with the website that generates a hit, then it is considered to be a bounce.
In other words, a single hit session is a bounce.
Examples
Bounce rate
Bounce rate is calculated for the website and also for a single page.
The bounce rate for a website
The bounce rate for a website is calculated as the total bounces divided by the total number of sessions. It is expressed as a percentage.
It answers the question, How many sessions bounced for every 100 sessions?
The bounce rate for a single page
The bounce rate for a page x is calculated as the total bounces on page x divided by the total number of sessions with page x as the landing page. It is expressed as a percentage.
It answers the question, How many sessions bounced on page x for every 100 sessions with page x as the landing page?
Exit rate
Exit rate is calculated for a page. The exit rate for page x is calculated as the total sessions where page x was the exit page divided by the total number of sessions containing page x.
It answers the question, How many sessions exited from page x for every 100 sessions containing page x?
Difference Between Bounce Rate and Exit Rate
The bounce rate of a page is used to measure the initial sentiment created by a web page.
Exit rate is a broader concept than the bounce rate. Bounce rate just looks at the initial sentiment.
Exit rate of a page is used to measure the overall sentiment created by a web page.
Positive sentiment is an important factor that leads to additional engagement by the user on the website.
A high bounce rate of a page is an indication of initial negative sentiment since it doesn’t influence the user to perform additional actions on the website.
A high exit rate of a page is an indication of overall negative sentiment since it doesn’t influence the user to perform additional actions on the website.
A Solid Example
Consider Happy SuperMart, an online grocery store.
Let’s now consider the following sessions of Happy SuperMart.
What is the bounce rate of Page A?
What is the exit rate of Page A?
What is the bounce rate of Page B?
What is the exit rate of Page B?
Page A fails to create an initial positive sentiment. It also fails to create positive sentiment in general.
Page B has succeeded in creating an initial positive sentiment. But it fails to create positive sentiment in general.
In comparison, Page B is better than Page A in generating positive user engagement.
