Engagement rates are metrics which track the levels of interaction your audience has with your content. You can measure engagement rates across most digital marketing channels, including your website and social media accounts. Typically, engagement looks like ‘likes’ and ‘shares’; more on that in a moment.  

It’s a metric that’s often used to measure the effectiveness of brand campaigns. It’s important because when a prospective client interacts with updates, blogs or videos, for example, there is a greater chance they will convert into clients.  

Opinions differ on the most important metrics for digital marketing, though there is no doubt that engagement is one of the most, if not the most, important.

How do I calculate my engagement rate?

For websites, there are five engagement metrics to review. They are:

• Average session duration. How long a visitor spends on your website indicates how engaged they are. Naturally, the longer the session, the better. To establish your average, divide the total duration of all sessions within a set timeframe by the number of sessions in that time.
• Pages per session. This refers to the average number of pages a website visitor views throughout a session.
• Bounce rate. This determines the number of sessions that lasted less than ten seconds, didn’t lead to any conversions, and had less than two page views. Reported as a percentage of total visitor sessions, the formula for calculating your bounce rate is as follows: Divide single-interaction visits by the total number of visits to your website to get the percentage of total visits during a fixed period.
• Engagement rate. This measures the percentage of sessions classified as ‘engaged’. An engaged session occurs when a user interacts with the website more than ten seconds, triggers at least one conversion event, or views two or more pages. Unlike bounce rate (its opposite), engagement rate focuses on meaningful user actions rather than exits. For example, a session lasting 15 seconds where a user scrolls, clicks or views multiple pages qualifies as engaged. This metric provides a more comprehensive view of user activity and helps assess content effectiveness by focusing on sessions with genuine interaction, not just visits or brief glances.
• User behaviour flow. This shows you patterns in how visitors are navigating your website, showing how they navigate between pages or events. It highlights entry points, drop-offs and key interactions, helping identify user engagement trends, content performance and opportunities to optimise user journeys for better conversions and retention.

To help you to do all of this, you will need to use an analytical tool, such as Google Analytics.

For social media, to work out your engagement rate, you need to look at how readers or viewers have actively interacted with your content, with likes or other kinds of reactions, shares, saves and comments. Add all these interactions together and divide by the total of followers your profile boasts, then multiply that figure by 100. It will give you the percentage of engaged visitors.

What is a good rate for engagement?

For websites, the following constitutes good engagement rates:

• As a guide, for B2C websites, the average session duration is 92.33 seconds. And for B2B websites, it’s 77.61. Anything above is a real win.  
• The average number of pages a website visitor views throughout a session is thought to be 1.89 for B2B companies. So, if you’re averaging two or more pages, your website is performing well. 
• A bounce rate of less than 40% is favourable. 
• When analysing user behaviour flows, what constitutes good engagement rates varies depending on the specific data you’re measuring. 
• For engagement rate, averages for B2B sit at around 63%, mirroring the average for bounce rate.

For social media, if you’re achieving 5% or more, your campaigns are working for you, as this is considered a superb engagement rate.  

How to track engagement rate in GA4 (Google’s next generation of Analytics)

If you’ve got this far, you’re probably wondering: ‘How does Google Analytics calculate engagement rate?’ and how it can help you.

GA4 holds the information you need. To access what you need, simply:

1. Open your GA4 account and go to reports
2. Click on the pencil icon in the top right corner to customise your engagement report
3. Under the heading of ‘Customize Report’, select ‘Metrics’, add up to 12 engagement metrics to your report
4. Save your changes and go back
5. Review your engagement rate metric per page

You can add other engagement data to your reports.

Tips on how to improve your engagement rate

If you’re not happy with what you see, there are things you can do to improve your website, and subsequently, engagement rate, including:

• Use your findings to guide your content creation strategies
• Evaluate that you are using the right platforms to interact with prospective and current clients
• Establish ambassadors for your brand
• Quantify success in each campaign you run. Work out which products or services are proving most popular
• Target the right audience by looking at the different demographics of your engaged audience. Adapt your strategy accordingly if you need to

Businesses today can gain so much from engagement findings. Having looked at what to measure, how to track engagement rate using Google Analytics and what to do with the uncovered data, it’s clear that knowing what’s working – and what isn’t – is beneficial. It equips you to make any necessary content or campaign changes.

Here at WEBPRO Creative, our specialists can help with all aspects of website development, including engagement rate assessments and enhancements. We’d be glad to assist.