Bounce rate is the percentage of sessions in which a visitor views a single page and leaves without triggering any further interaction, such as a click, form submission, or second page view. It is a rough signal of whether a page matched what the visitor expected. A high bounce rate often points to weak page relevance, slow load times, or traffic that was mismatched to the page in the first place.
How it works
Analytics tools count a session as a bounce when only one interaction is recorded before the visitor exits. Note that the definition shifted with GA4: what older tools called “bounce rate” is now closer to the inverse of “engaged sessions,” where an engaged session lasts longer than a set time, has a conversion, or includes two or more page views. So always check how your specific tool defines it before comparing numbers.
Why it matters
Bounce rate is a diagnostic, not a goal in itself. A high rate on a blog post someone read fully and closed is normal. A high rate on a product or landing page where you expect an action is a warning sign worth investigating. Read it alongside time on page, scroll depth, and conversion rate rather than on its own.
Example in B2B quoting
Say you run ads to a wholesale product page and most visitors leave without doing anything. That single-page exit counts as a bounce, and it usually means the page did not give buyers a clear next step. For B2B, that next step is often requesting a quote rather than adding to cart. Making a Request a Quote action visible and native to the page gives serious buyers something to do, which both lowers bounces and captures intent you would otherwise lose. See the B2B quoting glossary for related terms like conversion rate and RFQ.