Hey there, I'm Benjamin from Loves Data. In this video, we're going to look at how bounce rate is
reported in Google Analytics 4 (or GA4 for short). If you've been using Google Analytics for a while,
then you'll probably be familiar with bounce rate. It's simply the percentage of sessions where
people only viewed a single page on your website. So it helps you understand if people are engaging
beyond the first page they view on your website. If you're using a Universal Analytics property,
then you will be able to see the bounce rate in your reports, but in GA4 you won't see the
bounce rate metric. If you're not sure which type of property you're using, then check out
the extra resources in the description below this video. Okay, now let's head to Google Analytics!
As we will see in a moment, Google has introduced new engagement metrics in Google Analytics 4.
These are designed to replace metrics like 'Bounce Rate', 'Bounces', and 'Time on Page'.
Before we open my GA4 demo property, I want to show you what's available in a standard,
Universal Analytics property. We're currently looking at the Google Analytics demo account,
which is a Universal Analytics property. And I'm going to select 'Behavior'... Then 'Site
Content'... And then 'All Pages'... This report shows us all of the pages that have been tracked
on the website. And we can see 'Bounce Rate' which is the percentage of sessions that contain
a single pageview. We can see the bounce rate for each page and this helps us understand how
people engage with each of our pages. The first page in the report has a bounce rate
of 39 percent. This tells us that almost 40 percent of the people viewing this page
leave before viewing another page on the website. Okay, so now let's head to my GA4 demo property...
Let's start by selecting 'Engagement'... Now let's select 'Pages and screens'...
This report shows us all of the pages on our website and we can see different metrics across
the top of the table. This is similar to the 'All Pages' report we were looking at in the
standard property. We can see 'Views', 'Users', 'New Users', and other metrics for each of the
pages in the report. However, we can't see 'Bounce Rate' and this is because Google has introduced
new engagement metrics to help us understand the performance of our content. In this report,
we can see 'Average Engagement Time' which is one of these new metrics. There are additional
engagement metrics that we can use, so let's create a new 'Exploration' report to view them.
To do this we start by selecting 'Analysis'... Then 'Analysis Hub'... And then 'Exploration'...
I'm going to name the report 'Engagement'...
Now we need to click the plus sign next to 'Dimensions'...
And I'm going to enable 'Page Path', however, you could also create your report using 'Page Title'.
And then I'm going to click 'Apply'...
This lets us use the dimension in our report. Now we can select 'Page Path' and drag it to replace
the default dimension under 'Rows'... I'm going to remove the dimension under 'Columns' because
I want a simple table for this report. Now we need to click the plus sign next to 'Metrics'...
I'm going to enable 'Engaged Sessions', 'Engaged Sessions per User', and 'Engagement Rate'...
These are the new metrics that are automatically available in GA4 properties. They're designed to
replace 'Bounce Rate', 'Bounces', and 'Time on Page'. And now I'm going to enable 'Sessions'...
Now I'm going to click 'Apply'... This makes the metrics available, so I can use them in my report.
We can now select and drag each of these metrics under 'Values' to add them to our table. We can
now see 'Engagement Rate' for the content on our website. This is designed to replace 'Bounce
Rate', but I need to highlight some important differences since they are not the same metric.
If we hover over 'Engagement Rate' we can see the definition for the metric.
It tells us it is the number of engaged sessions divided by the total number of sessions. So it's
a bit like a non-bounce rate metric. The other thing to highlight is that an engaged session
is any session where someone views at least two pages, or spends at least 10 seconds on a page,
or completes a conversion event on the page. This means it's a much broader definition,
compared to bounce rate. And if you'd like to learn more about Google Analytics 4,
then check out my course. You can find details in the description below this video.
So that's how you can understand user engagement in Google Analytics 4. You can use the 'Engagement
Rate' metric, along with 'Engaged Sessions', 'Engaged Sessions per User' and 'Engagement Time'.
And remember that 'Engagement Rate' is not the same as 'Bounce Rate',
since anybody who spends at least 10 seconds on a page will be reported as an engaged user.
Which metric are you going to use to report on engagement? I'd love to know! Let me know in
the comments below, and if you found this video helpful, please subscribe, share it with your
friends, and hit the like button so I know to make more videos like this. See you next time!