A lot of questions surround the concept of Bounce Rate. What determines the percentage? What causes it to rise and fall? How is it important to my metrics? Let's take a brief look at what bounce rate is, and how you can tweak your site to get the highest rate of improvement to your bounce rate.

According to Google Analytics, bounce rate is "the percentage of single-page visits or visits in which the person left your site from the entrance (landing) page." A simple explanation, but as is often the case with analytics, there is much more beneath the surface.

Rb = (Tv/Te)

To illustrate, if there are 100 visitors to a page (Te) and 40 of them leave without browsing further (Tv), we are left with a 40% bounce rate (Rb).

So now that we understand what the formula behind bounce rate is, let's dig into what constitutes a bounce. When boiled down, a bounce occurs when a visitor does not dig deeper into your site from the landing page. This can happen by the user closing the window, visiting a new URL, clicking the back button or letting their session time out (typically 30+ minutes of inactivity).

What are some factors that cause bounce rate to rise or fall? When a user comes to a page on your website, they are presented with content and navigation that may or may not be relevant to what they were searching for. Once faced with the material on your page, they may choose to continue browsing on your site. If they do, you have successfully captivated their attention and avoided a bounce.

How can bounce rate be minimized- especially in the context of your online video?

• Ensure the page is relevant to your visitors. If users have come to your site via a banner ad, make sure the content they get is exactly what they expected.
• Engage users with attention-grabbing video and don't let go. The key to success in product video merchandising is leading users through the conversion funnel to a sale. Make sure your video is easy to find on the page, and take the extra effort to display an interesting preview image. Invest time or money into speeding up your video delivery — through optimization and CDN (Content Delivery Network) utilization — so your visitors don't have to wait to get the content they want.
• Avoid content overload. Keep things focused and make it clear how you want your visitors to react. Lead them in, at most, two or three main directions. Let them explore your site, but keep them focused on what they came for.

Keeping all of this in mind, there are some instances where you expect your Bounce Rate to be high, such as a landing page that contains all the available information or actions a user could take. This might be an "Email me more information" type of landing page, or a self-contained marketing message. While this might be your intention to give users everything in one stop, remember point #3 above for minimizing bounce, and give the directly related information, but foster deeper interaction with your brand by directing users to other offerings after completing the landing page action items (such as a signup form). This is a similar concept to Retail upsells such as "You might also be interested in…"

Bounce rate is an important metrics to consider while managing the success of your online video campaign. Keep these factors in mind when structuring your campaign. As always, Liquidus is there for you every step of the way to keep your video merchandising efforts on track.