Engagement Rate and Bounce Rate

August 7, 2025
  • First Published: August 7, 2025
  • Last Modified: January 2, 2026

Bounce rate in Universal Analytics was a metric we loved to hate.

It was simple, yes, but often misleading.

Yet, it found its way into every dashboard because our bosses and clients were used to seeing it as a quick measure of page engagement. And we hated using it, but used it nonetheless.

So, when you first logged into Google Analytics 4, you likely asked the same question as everyone else: “Where has the bounce rate gone?”

The short answer is: it hasn’t completely disappeared, but it has been demoted.

Taking its place is a much smarter, more nuanced metric called Engagement Rate. This article breaks down what’s changed, why it’s a massive improvement, and how to avoid a common mistake that could make your data useless.

Table of Contents

What is engagement rate?

Before we get to the new bounce rate, we first need to understand its successor.

Engagement rate is GA4’s primary metric for measuring how users interact with your website or app.

In simple terms, Engagement Rate is the percentage of all your site sessions that were ‘engaged’.

This immediately begs the question: what does GA4 consider an ‘engaged session’?

An engaged session is any visit that meets at least one of the following criteria:

  • It lasts longer than 10 seconds.

  • It includes a key event (what we used to call a conversion or goal).

  • It involves two or more page views or screen views.

The key here is that this is a far more intelligent way of measuring interaction. A user could land on a blog post, spend three minutes reading it thoroughly without clicking anywhere else, and in Universal Analytics, that would have been a ‘bounce’. In GA4, it’s rightly counted as an engaged session.

Duration – Engaged Session

By default this is set to 10 seconds, but can be amended up to 60 seconds (in 10 second incremements)

Head to (hold onto your hats for this):

Admin > Data Collection and Modification > Data Streams > Configure Tag Settings > Adjust Session Timeout

In there you’ll find the option to amend the engaged session timer.

Why might you do this?

I’ve worked with clients who have very text heavy content, or their purpose of the site is more informational, so find that users should, and would spend more time on the site.

 Adjusting it higher provides a greater understanding of engagement. 

Engaged Session Timer

Does Google still track bounce rate?

Here’s the thing: Bounce Rate in GA4 still exists, but it’s now a completely different calculation.

How does google analytics calculate bounce rate?

In GA4, Bounce Rate is simply the inverse of Engagement Rate.

If your Engagement Rate is 80%, your Bounce Rate is 20%.

It’s that simple.

A ‘bounce’ is now defined as a session that was not engaged.

This means the visitor didn’t stay longer than 10 seconds, didn’t trigger a key event, and didn’t view a second page.

It’s a subtle shift in definition, but it has a massive impact. It moves us away from a flawed, binary metric to one that measures genuine, meaningful interest.

The Key Event Configuration Trap

Now for the crucial part.

The accuracy of your engagement rate—and by extension, your bounce rate—hinges entirely on the correct configuration of your key events.

There’s a dangerous trap many fall into when setting up GA4. I’ve seen it before with many clients, mistakenly marking a common, automatic event like page_view as a key event. And therefore, the engagement rate will shoot up to nearly 100%.

Why?

Because almost every session includes a page_view event. By classing it as a key event, you’re telling GA4 that every single visit is a ‘success’, rendering the entire metric meaningless.

The same goes for other automatic events. While GA4 is smart enough to exclude session_start and first_visit from the calculation even if you mark them as key events, others like page_view can and will break your data.

Bounce Rate in My Reports

If you or your stakeholders still want to see bounce rate, you can. You just need to customise your reports to add it.

In most standard reports (like the ‘Pages and screens’ report), you can click the pencil icon (I sometimes think it looks like a cigaretter) (‘Customise report’) and add it as a primary metric.

But let’s be frank, you should be encouraging a shift towards focusing on Engagement Rate. It’s simply the better, more insightful metric.

Customise Report button in GA4

What’s a good bounce rate?

You tell me. I don’t know. 

Meaning, I have no context of your site, or your users.

If you expect your users to spend a long time on your site, with multiple page views and your bounce rate is over 50%, then perhaps somethings up.

I’m not going to give you a number, understand the context of your site, what a typical journey looks like and then review whether or not your current bounce rate fits.

A More Meaningful Way Forward

 

The shift from the old bounce rate to GA4’s engagement rate is a huge improvement. It forces us to move beyond a simplistic and often flawed metric towards measuring what truly matters: meaningful interaction.

It provides a more flexible and accurate picture of user behaviour, helping you understand which content is truly resonating with your audience. Just remember to check your key event settings to ensure you’re not looking at inflated, meaningless numbers.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

 

1. What is the main difference between UA bounce rate and GA4 bounce rate?

The biggest difference is the calculation. In Universal Analytics, a bounce was a session with only one interaction hit (like a single page view). In GA4, a bounce is a session that wasn’t “engaged”—meaning it lasted less than 10 seconds, had no key events, AND had only one page view.

2. How can I improve my engagement rate in GA4?

To improve your engagement rate, focus on the three pillars of an engaged session. Improve your content quality to keep people reading for longer than 10 seconds. Use clearer calls-to-action and internal linking to encourage a second page view. Finally, optimise your user journeys to guide visitors towards completing a key event.

3. Is bounce rate dead?

Not entirely, but its role has changed. It’s no longer the go-to metric for engagement. It’s better to think of Engagement Rate as your primary KPI and Bounce Rate as its complementary opposite.

Kyle

Author

Hello, I'm Kyle Rushton McGregor!

I’m an experienced GA4 Specialist with a demonstrated history of working with Google Tag Manager and Looker Studio. I’m an international speaker who has trained 1000s of people on all things analytics.

Find out more About me
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