Engagement rate in Google Analytics 4

Source: Analytics Help, Engagement rate and bounce rate.

A period's rate comes from the period's counts, never from an average of daily rates. A quiet Sunday at 80% and a busy Monday at 50% do not make 65%. The Monday's visits weigh more.

Same name, different metric in Google Ads

Google Ads has its own engagement rate: engagements on the ad divided by its impressions. It measures how people react to a video or Lightbox ad before any visit. GA4's rate measures what visitors do on your site. Optizads names the Google Ads one Ad engagement rate to keep them apart, and explains it in Google Ads engagement rate.

Worked example

A bike shop sees a 61% engagement rate across its site in June. On the Overview it adds Engaged visits from ads next to it: 48%. Paid visitors engage 13 points less than the average visitor.

The gap points to the ads, not the site. The team opens the search terms and finds clicks on searches for bike repair, a service the shop does not sell. After it adds negative keywords, the paid rate climbs to 57% in July.

1. In Google Analytics, open Reports, then Acquisition, then Traffic acquisition. Engagement rate is a default column, per session source and medium.
2. Reports, then Engagement, then Landing page, lets you add it per landing page through Customize report.
3. In Explore, it works with any dimension, which helps to compare devices or countries.

Engagement rate is under Site traffic in Add a metric. Optizads reads Google Analytics' own rate for the exact days asked, so it matches what GA4 shows for the same dates.

Its sibling for ad traffic is Engaged visits from ads: the same rate, on visits whose source and medium are google / cpc. Put both on the Overview and the gap between the site and the ads is in front of you every morning.

In a report, both fit in Key figures, with a comparison to the previous period or to last year. Oppy can draw the same card in a conversation once Google Analytics is connected.

• Averaging weekly or daily rates to get the month. Read the month's own rate.
• Confusing it with Google Ads' engagement rate, which is about the ad, not the visit.
• Comparing two properties with different engaged-session timers.
• Judging a call-first landing page by it. A visitor who taps the phone number in five seconds may count as a bounce unless that tap is a key event.

• Landing page: The page people reach after clicking an ad.
• Landing page experience: One of the three parts of Quality Score: how useful and relevant the landing page is to the people who click the ad.
• Search term: What someone actually typed when your ad showed.

• Engaged sessions (GA4): An engaged session in Google Analytics 4 is a visit that lasted longer than 10 seconds, viewed at least two pages or screens, or triggered a key event.
• Bounce rate (GA4): Bounce rate in Google Analytics 4 is the share of sessions that were not engaged: 10 seconds or less, one page or screen, and no key event.
• Sessions from Google Ads (GA4): Sessions from Google Ads are the GA4 sessions whose source and medium are google / cpc, which is how auto-tagged Google Ads clicks arrive.
• Ad engagement rate: Engagement rate in Google Ads is engagements divided by impressions: how often people engage with an ad after it is shown.