Arushi Monga
Google Analytics 4 is new and can be confusing if you’re not sure what some of the new metrics and terms mean. And also Google Analytics has recently replaced bounce rate with a new form of measuring user engagement.
Bounce rate had been the de facto standard for measuring engagement at a glance for roughly a decade.
XOR Labs has come up with a video series on Google Analytics. In the last video, we talked about the events in Google Analytics 4.
In this video our GA4 expert talks about What engagement means in Google Analytics 4, Why is bounce rate dead, and key engagement metrics in GA4 and how to calculate them.
Why Google Analytics 4 Phased Out Bounce Rate
The issue with bounce rate is that it’s not a very good predictor of real user engagement, and it’s getting worse as our online usage patterns change. Single page apps have become a much more common option for website development as more visitors engage with the sites using their phones and other devices other than PCs or laptops.
Bounce rates can really provide wildly erroneous conclusions about how well you’re connecting with your visitors because these kinds of pages don’t require a click-through for engagement.
How is engagement defined in GA 4?
The bounce rate has been completely replaced with a new measure in GA4’s UI that provides a greater understanding of the real behaviors of page visitors. “Engaged sessions” allow you to get a more sophisticated view of how visitors interact with your content because they work as an inversion of bounce rate, measuring active interaction rather than a lack of it. A session is recorded as an “engaged session” if one or more of these happen:
- User views 2 or more pages on your website
- User triggers at least one conversion event
- The user spends 10 seconds or more on your website or app
What are the essential metrics for running an analysis?
In the video, our GA4 expert talks about the 3 key metrics that can help you provide valuable insight into your business performance and how are they calculated in GA4.
- Engagement rate
- Engaged sessions per user
- Average Engagement Time
Follow or channel XL Academy by XOR Labs to watch the next series of short, focused videos to better understand Google Analytics 4.
