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Outside of the marketing context, the word “bounce” is actually kind of fun. It reminds us of childhood hours passed in an inflated bounce house, of a basketball game, or maybe even a game of jacks.

But when it comes to your website’s analytics, it’s part of a metric that can be really confusing when you first stumble upon it: The bounce rate.

A lot of questions pop into your head. Is a bounce rate close to 100% good, or bad? Is it at all like a bounced email? Is it a fluffy metric that I should ignore? And if I want to fix it, what should I do? 

Luckily, you’re not alone. Many marketers have asked those questions and might not have found a solid answer yet. We’re here to shed some light on the elusive bounce rate. We’ve put together a quick overview of what constitutes a bounce rate — and what doesn’t — and help you find some ways to fix it.

What is Bounce Rate?

To answer what is perhaps the most important of these questions: No, your website bounce rate is not the same as your email bounce rate. Your website’s bounce rate is the percentage of people who land on a page on your website, then leave. They don’t click on anything else. They just get to one of your pages, hang out for a bit, then leave.

Keep in mind that bounce rate is different than an exit rate. Bounce rates only measure “one-and-done” visits — the ones in which people arrive and leave your website without navigating away from a single page. Here’s what they look like in your HubSpot Web Analytics Dashboard, for example:

Exit rates, on the other hand, are a little more complicated. They include the percentage of people who leave your website from a certain page — but, that’s not necessarily the only page they’ve visited on your website. The page from which they exited could be the last in a long sequence of page visits. That’s why the exit rate isn’t always as troubling as bounce rates.

Comparing Bounce Rates and Exit Rates

Let’s say you were comparing bounce rates and exit rates for a thank-you page. A high bounce rate on that page would be kind of alarming, because that means people are only viewing that page alone, then clicking away. Even worse, they didn’t fill out a form to get to it, which means you’re losing out on conversions.

But a high exit rate, on the other hand, wouldn’t be cause for concern. It would mean that this page was the last in a chain of visits — people exiting from that page probably arrived from its preceding landing page, downloaded the offer on the thank-you page, and left to go make use of the content they just downloaded.

Keep in mind that this scenario is hypothetical, and these takeaways can differ based on other page metrics — but it serves as a simple illustration of the difference between bounce and exit rates.

How to Reduce High Bounce Rates

Now you know what a bounce rate is. But what can you actually do about it?

In general, high bounce rates might indicate that the page is irrelevant or confusing to site visitors. But don’t jump into drastic actions like deleting a page or undertaking a redesign right away. There are some important steps you need to take before you figure out which action to take.

Remember: Bounce rates really only tell you that someone landed on a web page and left it without visiting any other page on your website. It doesn’t tell you how someone interacted with your page. That’s why it’s important, says HubSpot’s Principal Product Marketing Manager Jeffrey Vocell, to take “practical steps” to examine other metrics and pieces of your web presence to see what might be behind the bounce rates. We’ve outlined these steps below.

1) Ensure your website is mobile-friendly.

There are now more searches and traffic coming from mobile devices than desktops. That makes it crucial, says Vocell, “to not only provide a mobile-ready experience,” but to make sure that experience is engaging. How annoying is it when you arrive at a mobile site, only to have to zoom-in to read its content? Having a responsive site is no longer enough — engagement with the mobile version has to be user-friendly and interactive.

Video is one particularly engaging type of content. It can often explain complex topics more concisely than text, which might be why 4X as many customers would rather watch a video about a product than read about it. But when it comes to mobile usage, long videos require a significant amount of data and might therefore slow the user experience — causing the visitor to bounce. For that reason, Vocell suggests eliminating these longer videos from your mobile site, or creating more concise versions that still address the most important points.

This kind of improvement, however, isn’t limited to video. Take a holistic approach to evaluating your mobile experience, and consider how you’ll address contingencies like these.

2) Look at your bounce rate based on different sources.

Sometimes, the sources directing traffic to a given page might have something to do with its bounce rate. That’s why the HubSpot Web Analytics Dashboard allows you to break down the bounce rate according to source:

Let’s say your bounce rate is particularly high for visitors coming from social media — take a close look at the message you’re using to accompany the content you’re distributing.

“Does it truly match what the content is about?” Vocell challenges marketers to ask. “Would a visitor clicking on that link in Twitter, or Facebook expect to see the headline, and initial image?” If the answer to either of those questions is “no,” your promotion strategy might need some work.

When you’re distributing your website’s content, make sure the messaging actually matches the page to which you’re directing visitors. You have to clearly meet the expectations of the visitor — regardless of source.

3) Avoid other disruptions that might hurt the user experience.

We’ve already discussed the importance of a good mobile user experience — but that actually goes for all platforms. Things like full-screen pop-ups, for example, are not only annoying, but given Google’s recent algorithm update, they can also result in search penalties.

But the key thing to consider is the user. “You want visitors to be drawn into your page and stay for as long as needed to convert,” says Vocell, and while “some pop-ups are good,” — like well-crafted inbound messages that add context to a site — avoid any that significantly disrupt the user experience in a way that might cause visitors to leave.

4) Determine which keywords this page ranks for — and if your content sufficiently covers those topics.

Remember how we cautioned against misleading visitors about your site’s content in social distribution? The same goes for keyword rankings. “Matching keyword intent to your content is important to ensure organic visitors get the content they expect,” explains Vocell.

Let’s say someone is searching for “marketing automation software solutions” — it’s likely that this person is looking for software to help nurture leads into customers. But if someone is using the query, “What is marketing automation?”, she’s probably not at a stage where she’s looking to buy a product. Rather, this person is looking for content that’s more informative than anything else.

So when you evaluate the keywords for which you’re page is ranking, make sure they’re aligned with the actual content. Once you’ve done that, try looking at a topic-cluster framework — the kind that groups your site’s pages into clusters according to subject — to help attract organic traffic to the right pages.

Let’s Bounce

When you’re investigating bounce rates, make sure you’re looking at the full picture. Take a look at the time people spend on your site, where they’re coming from, and what device they’re using — and if your content and experience are aligned with all of those factors. You might uncover patterns that show how you can fix the bounce rate problem.

Think of bounce rates like your car’s “check engine” light. When it goes on, you know there might be a problem — but you need to check all of the car’s systems to accurately diagnose the issue. There’s no one-size-fits-all fix for bounce rates, but knowing what they are and how they can inform your marketing strategy can help ensure your website’s success.

What have you done to address your bounce rates? Let us know in the comments.

Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in April 2014 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

Did you know that people in the U.S. spend 20% of their mobile time on Facebook or Instagram? And there are over 1.8 billion people using Facebook every month?

With so many active users, Facebook Ads are a no-brainer for any marketer looking to reach new audiences in a place where people are already spending a significant amount of time.

Facebook’s business platform has grown to be more and more sophisticated, giving advertisers more options to reach new audiences and retarget previous site visitors back to their brand. However, with so many different options, it can be difficult for advertisers to figure out which Facebook Ad type is best for any given campaign objective.

In this post, we’ll walk through each of the different Facebook Ad types and help you figure out which ads you should run for different campaign goals.

Special note: One ad type, Facebook Lead Ads, is increasingly useful for inbound marketers because it allows Facebook users to fill out lead generation forms directly within the Facebook app. 

Want to dive deeper into Facebook lead generation ads? We’ve put together a comprehensive guide on the Facebook lead ads type and how to use them. 

The Facebook Ad Types: What Are You Options?

App Engagement

App engagement ads are meant to generate activity within an app among your current users, or highlight app features before asking a new user to download. Here’s an example of an engagement ad below:

While this ad example could be targeted towards new and existing users, the ad’s copy and call-to-action focus on specific features, which encourages activity within the app — rather than just a download or install.

App Installs

While app engagement ads are intended to highlight specific features to drive in-app engagements, app install ads are focused on generating new users. Instead of calling out specific features, app install ads are more likely to showcase the app’s core purpose and main functionality. 

Brand Awareness

At some point, you may want to use Facebook ads to expose as many people as possible to your brand’s name and products. If that’s the case, use the brand awareness Facebook ad objective.

Facebook’s brand awareness ad type could technically be used for any campaign. But it’s meant to be used for remarkable content that drives brand awareness by enticing Facebook users who are scrolling on their news feed. For brand awareness campaigns, don’t just think about what you want to get out of it. Instead, focus on creating remarkable content that makes users who view it want to know more about your brand.

In the example above, Spotify’s ad uses a creative, colorful video that focuses on finding new music and playlists for users to enjoy. While a user might see the add and decide to sign up for Spotify immediately, Spotify used the brand awareness approach to create compelling content to draw the user’s attention.

Store Visits

While some brand awareness campaigns are meant for wide-ranging audiences, other businesses might be focused on acquiring customers in a specific location.

Store visit ads allow you to create campaigns that target users in a specific geographic location. If you have multiple locations, you can use the same creative template and target Facebook users who are spending time in each of your localities, too.

To use the store visits ad type most effectively, Facebook requires you to set up a locations structure on your business’s Facebook page. 

Local Awareness

Whether you have a new store opening or just want to boost awareness for one of your store’s exisiting locations, use the local awareness ad type to drive brand awareness in specific geographic regions. This ad type is largely the same as brand awareness ads, but will be more oriented and targeted via location than larger overarching audiences. 

For example, Cold Stone Creamery used a local awareness ad to target people in a geographic area when their store in Bangladesh opened. Notice how in this ad Cold Stone chose to use a video as the creative asset featured in the ad. This is a great way to engage users and entice them to stop scrolling down their newsfeed. 

Website Conversions

While brand awareness campaigns might be more high-level and goaled with long-term attribution, website conversion campaigns are meant to encourage users to click on ads and convert on your website immediately. 

Website conversion ads are meant to drive specific actions on a specific page on your website, so make sure to use them correctly. Instead of simply encouraging the user to click on your website to “learn more,” use website conversion ads to drive sign ups to a newsletter, start a free trial, or download an offer. 

For example, Lyft used a website conversion ad to encourage users to become a Lyft driver with a special offer. The add encourages conversions by using a specific “Apply Now” call-to-action and creates a sense of urgency by showcasing the offer as being for a “Limited Time” only.

Clicks to Website

Many of your campaigns will be goaled on getting users to take specific actions, like filling out a lead generation form, while other ad campaigns might be goaled on generating traffic to your website.

For traffic-oriented campaigns, use the clicks to website ad type. This ad type allows you to send users to specific blog posts, site pages, or product offers in a variety of creative formats. For example, Wikibuy used a website clicks ad to drive traffic to one of their blog posts hosted on Medium:

With the click to website ad type, you also have a variety of creative options. You can include a carousel of images to send users to different links, or canvas mobile ad feature to tell a story with your ad.

Event Ads

Have an important event coming up that you want to generate some buzz and attendance for? Use the event ads type to promote a Facebook event and get more responses.

The event ads type is relatively straight forward. If you are already using Facebook’s event feature to generate attendance, this ad type is a great addition to your campaign strategy.

However, if you want to drive event sign-ups on solely on your website’s sign-up page, it might be better to use a different ad type, like website conversion ads, to meet your on-page goal. 

Offer Claim Ads

During the website conversion ads section, we touched on the fact that you could use conversion-focused offers as a landing point for your Facebook ad. That said, Facebook also allows you to set off-site offer downloads as a campaign objective. 

Whether you have discounts, holiday deals, or content-specific offers to promote via Facebook ads, the offer claim objective allows you to customize your ads with calls-to-action specific to the offer. For example, you might use a “Learn More” call-to-action if you’re offering something that’s good only for the first 500 sign-ups, like in the ad example below:

As you can see, the offer claim Facebook Ad type should lead your users directly to a sign-up page on your website where they can claim the offer you promoted.

Lead Generation (Full Form) Ads

In a traditional lead generation conversion path, users are driven to a landing page where they fill out a form. For example, you might use a Facebook offer claim ad (like we discussed in the previous section) to drive users to your website and have them fill out a form there.

The downside to this conversion path is that users are required to leave Facebook altogether once they’ve clicked on the ad to actually claim what you’re promoting. Luckily, Facebook offers the lead generation objective, which allows you to collect lead information without forcing your audience to ever leave the Facebook app. 

Here’s an example that shows the conversion path the user goes through on a Facebook lead ad: 

First, the user see a traditional conversion-focused ad:

Once the user clicks on the add and/or call-to-action (in this case, Sign-Up), they see this pop up within the Facebook app:

Next, the user can click the register button and see an form (of your choosing) with their information auto-filled.

Once the user submits the form on the lead ad, they can click out of the ad and go back to browsing on Facebook. It’s a great user experience and Facebook will sync with your CRM so your leads are right where you want them. 

Want more information on how to set up and successful target Facebook lead ads to the right users? Check out this comprehensive guide. 

Page Likes

In some cases, you may want to use Facebook Ads to expand your organic reach. When this is your campaign goal, you should use the page like ad type to encourage new users to “like” your page. Once they do, they’ll be able to see your organic content when you post it.

Page like campaigns are best for advertisers who put lots of effort into their social media presence and produce content specifically for their Facebook users to drive engagement.

Keep in mind, you can also ad a “like page” call-to-action option to other ad types if you want to accomplish two goals with one ad. 

Post Engagements

If you regularly post content on your Facebook page, you probably know that some content performs better than others. With Facebook post engagement ads, you can drive more engagement on individual posts and expand its original reach. This helps you generate more activity on your posts and helps you get more organic followers quickly by offering them the kinds of posts they’ll see more of if they follow you.

In the example below, the ad is promotes an update this company made to their Facebook photos. Notice that the add displays the post engagement (likes, comments, shares) along with the post to encourage viewers to also engage with it.

The ad also features a “like page” button which allows the advertiser to generate both page likes and post engagements all in one post. 

How to Choose which Facebook Ad Type to Use

We’ve covered all of the different Facebook Ad types campaign objectives you can use to meet your specific ads goals. But is that all encompassing? Not really. 

In reality, many of the Facebook Ad type campaign objectives overlap, and you could use multiple ad types to accomplish the same objective. Additionally, Facebook has many different options for you to choose from once you pick a campaign objective, which means choosing an ad type isn’t even half of the battle. 

So how do you decide which ad type to use?

1) Define your campaign goal.

Before you begin any ad campaign, you first need to determine what the goal of your campaign is. Are you trying to drive conversions on your website? Drive attendance for an upcoming event? Simply get more customers to your local store?

Don’t just come up with a campaign around which ad type you want to use. Instead, start with your own marketing needs and build your ad around it. 

2) Choose relevant types you could use.

Once you’ve defined the goal of your ad campaign, take a look at the different Facebook Ad types available to you. Luckily, you already know what each of the ad types are. 

Choose the type most relevant to your goals. You probably noticed Facebook has multiple ad types you could use for a single objective. If your goal is to drive downloads for an ebook, for example, you could use any one of the following options: 

1. Clicks to Website
2. Website Conversions
3. Lead Generation
4. Offer Claims

3) Narrow down your options.

Once you’ve chosen which ad types are most applicable to your needs, choose the one you think will work best for you campaign. Or, use the same creative, copy, and targeting options to set up a campaign test using different ad types and see if one performs better than the other. 

4) Write copy and create assets.

One great feature of Facebook’s Ads Manager tool is the wide range of creative and layout options you have available to you. Not only can you choose between image, video, photo grid, and carousel layouts,  you can also customize your ads for mobile and desktop audiences. 

Facebook also has lots of different calls-to-action you can use on your ads, or you can choose not to use one at all! As you run different ad campaigns, make sure to test and analyze what works best for your audience. 

6) Use different ad types for different campaign goals.

Don’t just stick to one ad type for all of your campaigns. Instead, make sure you’re optimizing your ads for the right campaign objectives. Try out different Facebook Ad types and different ad campaigns to optimize your ad strategy for your audience. 

7) Target the right audience.

Creating the draft of your ad is only half the battle. The other half is figuring out how to target the right audience for your ads campaign. 

Luckily, our free guide to Facebook Lead Ads has an in-depth section on how to set up your targeting strategy for any ad campaign you run. 

8) Test, analyze, and repeat.

Once you’ve defined your campaign objective, selected your ad type, created your ad, and targeted the right audience, it’s time to analyze your results. 

Remember: digital advertising is all about testing, analyzing, and optimizing future ad campaigns over time. Make sure you follow this important final important step, and you’ll be on your way to implementing a high-ROI ads strategy in no time. 

You may be wondering, “Okay, which Facebook Ad type should I definitely try right away? 

We just put together this in-depth guide on Facebook Lead Ads. It’ll help you learn everything you need to know about optimizing lead generation ads that allow users to submit forms to you without ever leaving Facebook. Check it out here or click the banner below.