Bounce rate for small teams

The gap between knowing this and actually doing it is where most teams lose ground. Most advice about bounce rate assumes a team that does not exist at your size. Here is the version that does not.

More dashboards rarely produce more decisions. It is the sort of thing that looks like polish right up until it costs you an enquiry.

What to keep

A high bounce rate is not automatically bad. There is a version of this that is over-engineered, and it is worth avoiding. Check it against what you would want a competitor's site to get wrong.

What to drop

Process that exists to coordinate ten people is overhead when there are two of you. Small and consistent beats large and occasional here.

Where to start

Engagement time is usually the better signal. It is worth being explicit about, because assumptions differ quietly. It is worth deciding this deliberately rather than inheriting whatever the last person set up.

In practice

Measurement is only useful when someone has agreed in advance what they would do differently. Three things worth confirming about bounce rate before you move on:

• Someone can say what the current setup is without going to look
• Engagement time is usually the better signal — and you know whether that is true here
• There is a way to tell whether the last change to this helped

The point is not perfection, it is knowing which of these you have consciously chosen to skip.