When marketing managers begin working with Google Analytics to learn more about their website’s effectiveness, bounce rate is one of the first metrics they are exposed to.

1. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 1
Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the
Bad and the Ugly

2. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 2
1) Bounce Rates
2) What is a Bounce?
3) What’s a Typical Bounce Rate?
4) Bounce Rate in Higher-Ed
5) A Caution About Worrying Too Much About a Bounce Rate
Overview
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

3. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 3
 When marketing managers begin working with Google
Analytics to learn more about their website’s effectiveness,
bounce rate is one of the first metrics they are exposed to.
 Google Analytics certainly highlights it, putting it up front on almost
every report.
 As they explore their site statistics and get comfortable with visits,
visitors and duration of visits, they inevitably turn to bounce rate and
say ”OK, I now understand that we are "bouncing" a lot of people off
our site, and that’s a bad thing.
 So what would a reasonable bounce rate be for my site and
how do I get it there?
1. Bounce Rates
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

4. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 4
 By definition a bounce occurs when someone visits one
page on your site and then leaves the site without visiting
any other pages.
 Bounce rates are generally good indicators of how effective your
pages are at engaging the visitor and drawing them into your
content.
 Knowing your bounce rate for important pages like this and how well
they are “converting” becomes quite important to reaching your site’s
marketing objectives.
 A visitor will usually bounce from a site when she realizes that the
site does not offer the information that they were seeking or had
been led to believe would be found there by a earlier page or link.
 For example, a visitor may bounce from a page where they thought
they would find tuition information but were instead told to call an
800 number to speak to an admissions officer.
2. What is a Bounce?
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

5. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 5
 From a technical point of view, a bounce
occurs when a visitor:
 Clicks on an external link.
 Clicks the back button in the browser.
 Closes the browser window or tab.
 Enters a new URL in the same browser window or tab.
2. What is a Bounce?
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

6. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 6
 The bounce rate for a particular website is the total % of
visitors who bounce from all pages of that website.
 So what’s a typical bounce rates for a website? Well
surprisingly, benchmark information on this topic is rather
difficult to come by.
 The reason is that “typical” is a really bad way to look at web site
performance.
 Even as much of a cliché that it is, all sites, and all industries are
quite different, therefore it is difficult to produce useful comparisons.
 To generalize this a bit, the typical bounce rate seen above
falls somewhere between 35 and 60 percent.
3. What’s a Typical Bounce Rate?
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

7. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 7
 45 percent bounce rate is about average.
 If your rate surpasses 60 percent, you should be concerned.
 If you're in excess of 80 percent, you've got a major
problem, definitely in the ugly zone.
 You either have some really bad pages that provide no
redeeming content or links or the links on those pages
intentionally push your visitors off your domain.
 Start by taking a close look at those sections over 60 % to
try and improve your general performance. PPC landing
pages might be the culprit.
 If so, get out your Conversion Rate Optimization hat and get to work!
4. Bounce Rate in Higher-Ed
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

8. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 8
 It is also important to recognize, that in some cases, a high
bounce rate can be a good thing.
 For example, if you have a popular blog site that has a lot of return
visitors, who spend a significant time on each new post, but then
bounce, you have a high bounce rate for that section of the site, but
very satisfied visitors.
 The important point here is not to get caught up in industry
averages, or even site averages, rather that you should break your
site down into meaningful sections or segments and then look
closely at their bounce rate performance relative to their purpose.
 Having said all of the above, there is also a time when a
bounce is a really bad thing. If you have new or returning
prospect students bouncing off your site at high rates, there
is clearly a problem
5. A Caution About Worrying Too Much About a
Bounce Rate
Source: Higher Education Marketing – Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

9. Bounce Rates in Higher Ed: The Good, the Bad and the
Ugly
Slide 9
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