You’d think by now the tech industry would be good with change. Nothing changes more rapidly than technology. Yet the outcry about Google Analytics UA moving to GA4 sounds a little like cries of “the horseless carriage will never catch on!”. Especially when we compare the two and notice metrics such as the bounce rate are missing. But we all need to get used to GA4 before July 2023, so we may as well start now.

When we move from Google Analytics UA to GA4, one of the things we'll be missing is the bounce rate metric.

The Missing Bounce Rate in GA4

It used to be easy to tell if the website content was a bit dodgy just by checking the bounce rate. If users showed up and promptly left, the high bounce rate let you know they weren’t finding what they expected to see.

Being used to some metrics in UA, like bounce rate, pages per session, and average session duration, making the switch to GA4 means figuring out the new data to help make decisions.

3 New Metrics in GA4 as an Alternative to the Bounce Rate

At least Google has the decency to add some new metrics to increase the likelihood of finding the info necessary.

1)    Engaged Session

An engaged session appears to measure something more like a genuine bounce rate. Engaged sessions count the positive instead of the negative like bounce rate does. So you want your engaged session number to be high – unlike bounce rates. An engaged session is simply the number of visits:

  • Lasting over 10 seconds
  • With 2 or more webpage or app screen views
  • Or with a conversion

So, it really does look more like a true bounce rate if you think about it.

2)    Average Engagement Time Per Session

This average engagement time per session seems pretty self-explanatory, really. This is how much time your website or app visitor looks at the screen as the primary window and does something. Anything. This rather gives you insight into a bounce rate, too.

3)    Engagement Rate

Engagement rate compares Engaged sessions to total sessions. So, if visitors hang around on your site and do nothing, you get a low engagement rate number. Hmmm… strangely, that sounds vaguely like a bounce rate again.

So, all in all, it looks like we’ll be okay, at least as far as the missing bounce rate metric is concerned.

Here is how Google compares the metrics in Google Analytics UA versus GA4.

Feel like you could still use some help?

Get in touch