Engagement Rate (ER) is the share of traffic that actually interacts with your site, not just loads a page. Instead of treating every session equally, ER highlights visits where users perform meaningful actions—clicks, form starts, reaching a defined scroll depth, viewing multiple pages, or spending enough active time. It’s a quality layer over raw volume metrics like pageviews and counts of unique visitors.
How to calculate Engagement Rate
Decide whether you measure by sessions or by users and keep that choice consistent.
Session-based:Engagement Rate = (Engaged Sessions / Total Sessions) × 100%
User-based:Engagement Rate = (Engaged Users / Total Users) × 100%
Mini-example: if you logged 8,000 sessions last week and 4,600 met your engagement criteria,ER = 4,600 / 8,000 × 100% = 57.5%.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Total sessions | 8,000 |
| Engaged sessions | 4,600 |
| Engagement Rate | 57.5% |
To prevent metric drift, document what counts as engagement in your tracking spec: e.g., ≥30s active time, ≥50% scroll depth, ≥2 pages, or a key event that aligns with a goal.
Why it matters
- Quality over volume. ER filters out low-intent noise better than naked pageview counts.
- Channel diagnostics. Compare ER by acquisition to see which sources bring the right users.
- UX & content tuning. Correlate ER with time on page, pages per session, and average session duration to localize friction.
Engagement Rate vs. Bounce Rate
They move in opposite directions under classic definitions: higher ER usually means lower bounce rate. Use both, and tie them to outcomes like conversion rate and exit rate to see whether attention turns into progress down the funnel and ultimately a goal completion.
Pitfalls & tips
Loose definitions inflate ER (autoplay videos, noisy scroll events, accidental taps). Audit your events, keep criteria stable, and segment by device, landing page, and source. ER is most useful when it predicts a concrete business outcome, not just “activity for activity’s sake.”