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“Bounce rates” are critical to search marketing. A “bounce” is when a visitor reaches your site, views the entry page and leaves. A healthy bounce rate in a niche market is about 30%; if your products are aimed at a broader audience lean towards 50%. Google’s free Analytics data is a great way to review benchmarking.

If your bounces are below 30% you are doing something very, very right. Above 50% means half of your traffic is leaving immediately and it’s time for changes– be they color themes, navigation, pricing points, re-categorization, keyword changes and/or landing page modifications.

The opposite of a bouncing is called being “sticky.” It measures how much of your traffic sticks around. If your stickiness is 75% - three quarters of your traffic is staying put and going at least one page deep.

In SEM, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) bounce rate can either make or break you. You are (1) paying for the traffic and (2) in total control of that traffic – make sure your keywords line up with your ads and your site. Better keywords mean a lower bounce rate and more relevant traffic. Search engines reward relevancy by increasing your campaign’s quality score.

Several SEM metrics are important to increase conversion rates, improve Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) and capture more market share

You can measure a bounce on several different levels:

1. Landing Page – what is the bounce rate of that particular product, or category/section page?

2. Keyword Level – what happens to
the traffic once it reaches your intended page?

3. Ad Level – does your creative/copy match the page where your visitors
are landing?

4. Position – with sponsored results, positions 1 to 3 get lots of clicks but generally don’t convert as well as lower paid search positions. Check your analytics to see which positions
convert the best at and have the
lowest bounce rate.

5. Engine / Traffic Source – sometimes the demographics of the advertising engine don’t line up with your buyers’ demographics. For example, college students are most likely to use Google while senior citizens are heavy MSN Search users.

Think of a bounce in terms of a customer entering your store, looking around and leaving. Now, in the e-commerce world think of this as a visitor entering your site and not going more than one page deep, not engaging in live chat, checking shipping or even adding an item to the shopping cart.

Keep images, content, links and logos in check and above the fold. If you disrupt a buyer’s intention you risk a hard bounce. When the customer has to look around for what they searched for within a few seconds, you risk a bounce.

Optimizing paid search campaigns for bounce rates can help you increase your conversion rate, decrease your cost and ultimately (hopefully) convert more and at a higher percentage.

Have a sticky day!

Solid Cactus, Inc. has designed or redesigned more than 3,000 e-commerce sites. Solid Cactus is an Inc. 500 company and was named one of the "Best Places to Work in Pennsylvania" in 2006 and 2007.

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