Welcome to part two of WebStrategies’ annual benchmark report blog series. As we explained in part one, How Long Does the Average Visitor Spend on a Credit Union Website?, this series will break down compiled data from 2019 for all of our credit union clients.

We are sharing average numbers for eight different site engagement metrics so that you can compare your credit union’s data to others in the industry. It is beneficial to see where you align with other organizations and identify where your challenges lie. 

To recap, we are examining the following metrics throughout this series: 

1. How long does the average visitor spend on a credit union website?
2. How likely is someone to come to a credit union website and leave without looking at more than one page?
3. Where does the average credit union website’s traffic come from?
4. How much has the average credit union’s organic traffic grown year over year?
5. What is the average age distribution of traffic on a credit union’s website?
6. What’s the average breakdown of mobile versus desktop traffic on a credit union website?
7. How long does it take the average credit union website to load?
8. What is the average completion rate of a credit union loan application?

You can catch up on the first metric we discussed, time on site, here. 

What is a Bounce Rate?

Today we are diving into a new metric, bounce rate. Your bounce rate represents how often a user comes to your credit union’s website and leaves without visiting another page. 

Bounce rate is displayed in a percentage, and you want that number to be as low as possible. A low bounce rate indicates that users are looking at more content after landing on your credit union’s website. 

WebStrategies found that the average credit union bounce rate was 40.85% in 2019. To make that number more tangible, this means 2 of every 5 people who came to credit union websites left without visiting another page. 

This approximately 41% average may seem high to you, but it is not really alarming in the credit union space. This is because many users come to the website to log in to online banking. Even though they continue to the online banking site, Google Analytics may count these users as a bounce. 

With this understanding, bounce rate is not a perfect metric. However, it can be made more accurate by setting up Google Analytics tracking to indicate that a user who clicks the online banking log in button is not a bounce.

In other scenarios, users may be counted in the bounce rate if they click to a loan application immediately following their website visit, which is obviously not a bad thing. Also, an advertising landing page may force a user to either convert by filling out an application or leave. 

What Your Bounce Rate is Telling You

Despite its imperfect nature, bounce rate can indicate bigger problems that should be addressed. A high bounce rate acts as a red flag for an engagement problem as site users should be visiting multiple pages to learn more about your offerings and consume the content you've added to site to educate and build trust and loyalty. 

Additionally, you can examine bounce rates broken down by channel (such as direct traffic, organic traffic, paid search, display, social, etc.) The rates may vary greatly and point you in the direction of an issue. 

While a 0% bounce rate is unrealistic, you do want to check to see if a paid channel (like paid search or display) has a particularly high bounce rate. This can be an indication that an advertising or site change may be needed. Put simply, a high bounce rate from advertising is money out of your pocket. 

You would also be wise to look at the bounce rate for specific pages on the website. You can look only at the bounce rate for the loan page, credit union blog, or any other page you desire. 

Where to Find Bounce Rate in Google Analytics

To find this metric for your credit union, follow these steps in Google Analytics: 

1. Click Acquisition.
2. Click All Traffic.
3. Click Channels. 
4. Bounce rate is shown under the “Behavior” heading. 

Once again, remember that you shouldn’t place more emphasis on site engagement metrics like bounce rate or time on site than conversion data. While it is helpful to measure these metrics and understand them, they are just one part of the bigger picture in a digital strategy.