MarketingExperiments Blog: Research-driven optimization, testing, and marketing ideas

Bounce rate is the metric that makes many marketers wake up in a cold sweat. Many Research Partners are consumed (dare I say haunted?) by this metric.

I don’t want to water down the power of bounce rates. But as with most metrics, it isn’t as simple as following a rule of thumb like “keep the number of bounces low.”

So in this series of posts, I’ll take a closer look at what your bounce rates are really telling you… and what is just an imaginary monster under the bed. Let’s look past the anxiety and hone in on what we can learn from these numbers. And, perhaps in the process, help you sleep a little better at night.

Analyze the action that a “typical” user will take on your page

Why does the visitor come to your site and what are they planning on doing there? Answering this question can help you determine if they’re leaving because the site isn’t delivering on some level, or if they simply got what they were looking for and moved on. To show you an example of what I’m talking about, let’s take a look at what may be happening on your blog.

I hear marketers worry about blog bounce rates quite often, so let’s think about how a typical reader views one. You probably post the most recent information right at the top where it is easily accessible – quite convenient for your readers. So the typical returning reader likely reads that fresh content and then heads elsewhere. This would be counted as a bounce since the user has not engaged in any navigation.

Also, readers who already like your blog and have added it to their feed aggregator tend to get in a click-happy mode and just read snippets of news. They might see your new post pop up, read it for a little bit, then move to the next article in their queue. These news reader programs allow users to sift through posts, find an interesting one, arrive at that page, and then leave. Again, if that is the only interaction they have with your site, it will be counted as a bounce.

If you are running a web program that lets you segment your visitors, and look at metrics like bounce rate, break up different sources of traffic into new users and returning users. Only then can you really learn from your bounce rates.

Here is a segment created in Google Analytics to look at new visitors and help us splice the data more deeply:

Now that you have segmented your visitors, what are they really telling you? I wouldn’t be too concerned if older users are bouncing. As we learned from getting in the mind of the typical return visitor, they likely just want to see your most recent post.

But if new users are bouncing, then you have more cause for alarm. Why aren’t your posts pulling them in to a deeper engagement with your blog? If you’re looking at a homepage, what is missing that would pull them into your site?

On Monday, Part 2 will take a closer look at where your traffic is coming from and where it is landing on your site to help you answer these questions.

Have additional questions? Other metrics you’d like to look at? Use the comments section below or shoot me a tweet me at: @ctrentmarketing

Are you all Microhoo’ed out yet? Here’s a shortlist of cool, helpful posts from the past week, covering a range of online marketing topics.

• Social media: Our colleague and B2B pro Brian Carroll shares his thoughts on how to generate leads with LinkedIn without alienating your network.
• Email: ClickZ reminds us that Christmas is just around the corner (sort of) and provides a “must-do now” e-commerce checklist to help you get ahead.
• SEO: Winning the Web provides a list of don’ts to keep you from landing in SEO purgatory.
• Copy: Karen Thackson at Marketing Words Copywriting explores how an effective call-to-action is more than just using call-to-action words.
• PPC: Search Engine Roundtable notices that more advertisers have been granted access to Google’s bid simulator tool in the past week.
• Design: A catalog of e-commerce buttons and iconography from Checkout Optimization to inspire and delight e-marketers.

Note: In August, we’ll be returning to our regular schedule with more frequent blog posts. Look for that starting next week, with upcoming posts covering PPC, lead generation, testing and analytics, new landing page critiques, and more …

Need a shortcut to your weekend marketing reading? Our favorite articles of the week will get you started on your review of online, search and social media marketing. These made it through our feeds and into the idea bin.

Stuck In A Rut? 20 Places to Find Entrepreneurial Inspiration — A roadmap of motivation for when you need a boost. Alyssa Gregory of SitePoint pulls from her list of favorite blogs, success stories and magazines for when your inner entrepreneur needs a shot in the arm.

Top 3 Google Gadgets to SEO Your iGoogle Home Page — Download the tools and gadgets that you’re probably already using to your iGoogle Home Page for quick, easy access. Search Engine Journal points you in the right direction — and I agree with Ann Smarty that the general lack of great iGoogle gadgets is surprising.

33 Ways to Use LinkedIn for Business — LinkedIn is much more than an online resume, and Web Worker Daily shares ways to use LinkedIn more effectively for your business. (The MarketingExperiments LinkedIn group has been growing steadily thanks to tips like these.)

Gmail Offers to Automatically Unsubscribe You from Mailing Lists — Gmail is offering an unsubscribe option for even authenticated mail from reputable senders; Life Hacker has the details.

Beware of Low Bids and Low Budgets When Setting Up Your Google AdWords Account — PPC Hero asks Google about keywords not showing up due to a low keyword bid.

If you’re looking for more PPC advice, join us for our PPC Live Optimization web clinic on July 29. Submit your campaign for review and the chance to win a seat on our Optimization Training Tour.

After a full week of pushing ahead on new marketing initiatives, mapping out your plans through the end of the year and into 2010, and brainstorming new tests — you got through all that this week, right? — you’re probably ready for some weekend reading.

Here are five highly recommended articles from the past week, covering different areas of online marketing:

• Conversion Optimization: When & Where to Address Customer Anxiety — One of our favorite blogs does it again. Linda Bustos of GetElastic shows how ecommerce sites can increase sales by addressing customer concerns, from product pages to cart and checkout pages. The post also links back to the Ecommerce Report.
• PPC / SEM Analytics: 5 Actionable Tips To Improve ROI — The title speaks for itself, but in this post, analytics pro Avinash Kaushik shares five “non-normal” analyses that you can apply to boost your ad revenue.
• Finding and Using Niche Blogs — The tips in this SEOmoz blog post can help you with two frequently overlooked areas related to SEO and PR: your link building and blogger outreach efforts.
• The Ultimate Community Management FAQ — Social media and community-building strategies are still raising a lot of questions for marketers trying to get a handle on how to use them for business. Amber Naslund answers a bunch of those questions, and in doing so, offers several ideas and tools for socializing with a purpose.
• Annoying Consumers with Too Many Emails — A straightforward post that seeks to answer the questions all email marketers should be asking: “How often is too often? When does the frequency of a program start to drive people away?”

Have some favorites of your own? Putting any of the ideas from these articles into practice? Drop a comment.