PlayAbly Podcast 18: Breaking the Bounce- More Sales Through Engagement

Bounce rates have been a persistent pain point for websites, but why do so many visitors leave before engaging? In this episode of the Playably Podcast, our CEO John Cheng dives deep into the psychology behind bounce rates and what makes websites "sticky."

We explore:
🎯 Why bounce rates remain high despite advancements in eCommerce.
🧠 The psychological and behavioral drivers behind engagement.
📊 How testing, interactivity, and Shoppable Games can radically transform site performance.
💡 Real-world examples of brands improving engagement by over 100% using personalized, interactive experiences.

Whether you’re a brand owner, marketer, or just curious about the power of interactivity, this episode is packed with actionable insights to help you create a website that doesn’t just convert but builds lasting relationships.

Stay tuned until the end—we’re teasing a new case study with mind-blowing results that will change how you think about website engagement!

Welcome to the PlayAbly Podcast, where we dive into the art and science of gamification, customer engagement, and driving conversions. 

At PlayAbly, we turn passive audiences into active customers through shoppable games and playable experiences that transform how brands connect with their customers. Book your free demo here.

Thanks for tuning in to the PlayAbly Podcast! Ready to engage your customers like never before? PlayAbly creates branded Shoppable Games that drive results. Don’t forget, mention the podcast during your free demo, and get $500 off (book here). Learn more at playably.ai

Get Your First Month of PlayAbly free when you mention this Podcast during your free PlayAbly Demo - learn how gamification can improve your ecommerce shop at www.playably.ai

Transcript

PlayAbly Podcast 18: Breaking the Bounce- More Sales Through Engagement

Kajal: [00:00:00] And we're back with the PlayAbly podcast. joining us once again is our CEO and founder, John Cheng. John, welcome. 

John: Hey everybody. Great to be back. 

Kajal: So today we're tackling a big problem. that is bounce rates. Bounce rates are affecting everybody nowadays and have been a pain point for websites for years.

Why do you think they've remained such a persistent issue? 

John: I think it's helpful if we take a step back and define bounce, right? Which, often in the industry is shorthand for initial reaction, So in the purest sense, it's like, how much did you engage with the page when you first got there?

But if you combine that with, time on site, and a couple of other metrics, you get a feel for what is that first impression. And as we all know, you have one chance to make that first impression. I think what's happened is as [00:01:00] Shopify and a lot of these platforms have become more prevalent, shoppers have become a bit jaded.

Because in these platforms, and they make them very easy to build a store, but no matter what theme you're using, in many ways, they look alike, right? So I think the key here is, bounce rates have stagnated for two reasons. One of which is there's a lot more stores out there.

but number two, they all look, feel the same, like maybe one has a flashier picture video, but once you've seen a hundred of those, the effect wears off. so fundamentally, bounce rates have increased. Because shoppers have become jaded and somewhat bored. 

Kajal: I hope I go to a site and it just looks like a scam because of how, they're using, comic sans font and their photos are clearly stolen from someone else on the internet. And I'm [00:02:00] like, these people are definitely going to steal my credit card information. 

John: that's a great point, 

It is a customer journey if whatever caught your attention isn't continued in the next step your defenses are going to be up shoppers vote not just with their wallets, but with their feet.

as opposed to a retail store, if you've made the effort to drive all the way and come to the front door, even if it doesn't. Look exactly like what you're expecting. You're probably still going to walk in and take a look. Whereas with a website, you're onto the next one with hardly a thought because it's so easy to click around, the analogy that you really have to grab that initial attention is so important when you look at how the customer funnels today are constructive. 

Kajal: The opposite of a website that gets a lot of bounces is a sticky website, or one that maintains the attention and engagement, able to get the customer to engage with it.

What makes something sticky? 

John: Yeah, number one, like you mentioned, the [00:03:00] context and the intent of what brought them there has to be reflected, right? So the straightforward things we've always thought about when it comes to bounce rates, such as load times, information architecture, and imagery, those are all basics and have to be there.

cause we are as shoppers conditioned. To look for them, right? you intuitively, felt uncomfortable. when you got on a shocky because you pattern match that to other experiences you've had, that led to less than good outcomes. you have to have these basics in place, but these basics have already taken us to a place where they're not just status quo, but they lull us into a stupor where we're stuck, in terms of how excited we are to be there.

It's just here's another site. It looks good. I will give it the minimal amount of attention versus, Something that delights, entertains, [00:04:00] spikes my curiosity, that is a different level of attention that I would pay to, a site if they were able to generate those types of emotions versus just satisfying my most basic insecurities.

Kajal: The barrier's higher to be a good, engaging website. That's tying back to the psychology of what happens to you when you land on it. at Playably, we do a lot of things to get websites to be more engaging and to have more people spend time on them because, that's our philosophy if they're spending more time with the brand they'll develop brand affinity and be more likely to purchase.

What are the things that we're doing? 

John: The number one thing that we focus on, and bounce rate is one of our key KPIs that, we want to affect. is moving from a passive experience to an interactive experience.

if you think about [00:05:00] shopping and internet browsing today, it's very much step back, get the information. And then potentially make a decision based on that static information. 20 years ago, that was an exciting experience because no one had been on the internet before.

Facebook TikTok, all these things that are highly interactive didn't exist yet. But if you look at it now where, I'm liking posts, I'm interacting with platforms and then you stick me on a site that is, generally very passive, I'm not only not going to interact, I'm going to be bored and go back to the stimuli, that brought me there in the first place.

the number one thing that we do is to find triggers that spike people's desire to interact, that could be psychological cues like curiosity, coming across a question I've never pondered before. or a challenge. questioning my abilities, 

It could be giving people the opportunity for social interaction. these are all modes of [00:06:00] interaction possible in a digital environment. That many brands aren't taking advantage of versus, the retail experience where You walk into a store, and somebody greets you, 

Oh, you're here with your daughter. Let me take you over to these matching sets and collections and show you things that might excite you. what we're trying to do is recreate some of that. That's digitally native. Versus trying to do the retail experience online, which, we've seen has not worked.

Kajal: I think we start out a lot with the quizzes, which I love because it becomes more personalized. I think that's what everyone is looking for is a more personalized experience rather than landing on the site. Here's your discount. It's exactly the same every time. I think that little bit of personality that you get back, you get the validation.

Hey, I put in these answers. And this is now something that I identify with myself. It not only ties you to the brand better, but it just makes the experience better. 

John: what I really love about our [00:07:00] approach to that, is traditionally, even when brands have had quizzes, they've been transactional Hey, I'm here.

I'm going to give you a product that you can now buy, which, is fine as an outcome for certain types of shoppers. But a lot of our quizzes are about. helping the shopper know more about themselves. Like you said, the Cosmo type quiz. here's your shopper personality, or here's a challenge to demonstrate how well you know a certain topic, and how that aligns with, the products you're gonna buy.

It's more relationship building than it is purely transactional. And we believe those types of interactions form the bedrock of a brand relationship, right? and they will still lead to, a purchase at a higher rate, but it'll also lead to you being top of mind, you being there when they are ready to buy.

If it's not today, there are a lot of, psychological cues that these types of. Approaches unlock that you probably weren't thinking about before. 

Kajal: can a brand [00:08:00] start thinking? oh, my website's really static. 

John: Yeah, 

Kajal: What should they be thinking about?

John: it's probably the hardest thing to do, given what we know about our brand owners and founders about how much blood, sweat and tears, how much thought and intent they put into their brands. But to sometimes take a step back and look at your site and your customer experience from a completely novice view. it's really hard to do, but if you're able to do that, it unlocks a lot of clues as to why your bounce rate and that initial engagement just isn't there. you can do this with testing and enlisting, strangers or even your friends who haven't been to your site to take a look 

What you think is happening versus people's reactions often are 180 degrees separated in terms of perspective. So the number one thing you have to do is take a hard, cold look at somebody who isn't you, who hasn't put the last 10 years into the business, who hasn't [00:09:00] picked every product that's on the page, how they're going to view it.

how they want to be, treated, what will spike their interest in what you are doing? And if there's any doubt really look at the numbers, how has your bounce rate trended over time? What is your time on site for new visitors versus returning visitors?

some of these basic inputs that we look at will help give you clues about what you need to do better. When it comes to creating that great first impression.

Kajal: I think a lot of people get overwhelmed when they, yeah. Google Analytics or whatever they're looking at. And it doesn't say, Oh, this is what's happening.

what should they be looking at? 

John: To, the one on one version of that is just start with two metrics. one is time on site and the other is scrolled so if you just look at those two metrics, I would break the audience up into two different groups, one of which is, Hey, they've got [00:10:00] great scroll depth.

And let's say over two minutes, time on site, just as a benchmark, where did those people come from? How did they differentiate from the second group, which is. They have lower time on site and zero scroll depth? That is likely a much larger audience.

they're probably going to come from different places. They're probably going to, have different behaviors than the first group. And so to triage the problem, really, you want to focus on the second group, right? You want to understand from a, content perspective, What is it that they're not doing, right?

And if it's a case where they're not scrolling deep into the page, at least you've narrowed down exactly what you need to focus on, which is that top hero section and trying different ways to engage the audience. and that's exactly what our platform does, right? What we do is we segment out the audience.

[00:11:00] We look at the ones who are having the most trouble, but have the highest potential to make a purchase. we are testing different hooks, different structures, different game mechanics, because for each of those segments, they're going to be quite different. for an older audience, they're going to want probably more of that, Cosmo quiz type here are interesting, facts about yourself.

we've seen that resonate really well with an older audience, whereas, with a younger audience, something more fast Twitch, something that, has more, social component to it, that has often worked well. Obviously you need to test them, but knowing that there's these different approaches to these different audiences, that's why making it dynamic, making it interactive is the first step, but you have to do it specific to that audience, that you're trying to work on.

Cause it's not a one size fits all approach. 

Kajal: testing, is super important. every article you Google, always says testing. is vital. [00:12:00] I saw a stat on someone's LinkedIn, a Shopify marketing expert, and they said something like, only, 5% of Shopify stores have technology installed to do any testing at all, That blows my mind because, we're first and foremost, a data company. And it's crazy how you could be making choices for your site without having any data.

So I just really want to. Focus on that testing. 

John: that's a frightening statistic, right? Cause if you think about a retail storefront, you're constantly learning from people who are walking through the door, You're looking at who they are, what questions they ask, how big their families are and what they look like when they come in. you're constantly moving the display and product around.

and you're seeing people's reactions to it. Now imagine running that store completely blind, never changing anything, and just hoping that whatever you picked six months ago works out, [00:13:00] Not only is that not a great, strategy for success but how are you ever going to improve?

How are you going to learn and do better? most importantly, how are you going to grow your market? How are you going to realize, Hey, somebody came in and they were interested in potentially buying the product, What you want to be able to do is zero in on that person, ask everyone who is like them, show them different products until you hit something that resonates with them. If anything, that's the opportunity of a digital storefront is that ability to iterate quickly. 

Part of the customer journey to do that is the very top of the funnel, right? Like we were talking about the bounce rate, number one, you have the most subjects. So you have the most amount of data to work with, right? But number two has the biggest impact on your bottom line. Sure. fixing the card experiences is great, but the more people you get into the funnel who are already engaged and excited, the more opportunity every step in your funnel has to do [00:14:00] their job, right?

So our team always recommends let's look at the top of the funnel. Let's make sure we understand who's coming in. Let's make sure we understand what they need to get engaged and let's test the different engagement patterns to get them interacting, identifying with that brand, playing our game. And once they start doing that, good things happen, further down the funnel. 

Kajal: And tying it back to something you said earlier, I think you have to be really open as a brand owner, as a founder, to what people are saying, about your store or your brand, because you're so close to it.

how many times have we given Results to clients. And they're like, Oh, these are the changes that you have to make. This is what the data is saying. This is what people said in user interviews. And then they just say, no, or they say, yeah, that's good. And then we show them what that looks like.

And they're like, no, and they keep doing what they're doing. a year later, they're not in business anymore. 

John: exactly right. if you find yourself in that position where it goes against, [00:15:00] your ingrained thinking my suggestion is to run.

The smallest test possible, If you run a 5 percent sample, 8 percent sample, and you start to see some interesting results, it becomes a question do you want to turn down that revenue? profit and cashflow based on your preconceived notions, or do you want to be pushing the envelope 

So that's a question for the owners to, answer for themselves. But at the end of the day, intuition and data need to work together. and that's what leads to success. if you're only intuition driven, many of those brands are no longer in business, frankly.

it's a different world, this is not the early days of e commerce where just having a storefront set you apart. Every day there are thousands of new stores coming online. If you're not at the forefront, if you're not serving your customers in the best way possible, someone else is.

Kajal: I think that a lot of people hear A B test and they think it's a 50 [00:16:00] 50 split, so I appreciate you mentioning that. You can just do 5 percent of your traffic. 95 goes to what you have already set up and then 5 percent goes to the new site, the new homepage, the new pharaoh image, however you do it, and it's something that you'll still be able to see.

John: you don't need statistical significance to be a hard and fast rule, right? if you start to see certain signs, you can turn up the numbers. swap the tests out and do different things just doing some testing.

Makes you question your core beliefs and by doing that you have a chance to improve them, Trying these different things is much Faster and less costly online than it would be in a retail store you are really failing Yourself and your brand if you're not doing these things 

Kajal: a good bounce rate?

John: obviously it depends on the industry. the product. and the traffic sources, if you're developing a new audience and trying new channels, it's [00:17:00] natural that the bounce rate is higher.

my answer always is a good bounce rate is one that is lower than the week before. And the week before that. instead of a specific number, I look for improvement. a trend. Or a specific audience where the bounce rate is going down, it doesn't need to be linear, but over time, you need to show improvement, which translates to your understanding that audience better.

It doesn't mean, that you don't go after new audiences because you're scared of having a high bounce rate, right? a high bounce rate would be something like 65, 75%. And that's okay. if you understand there to be progress we've seen 65 go down to 35, over a six month period with very focused testing and iteration.

And those audiences become the biggest, customer bases for some of our brands. So it's really about improvement. and understanding an audience improving the experience for them and making sure that they are [00:18:00] mesmerized, amazed, excited.

I love it when we interview prospects and the site made me curious. the site snapped me out of my stupor. I was like, Oh, this is different. This is interesting. this is something I'm compelled to interact with. if you can get that for an audience, that's the Holy Grail.

Kajal: it seems like a silly thing to focus on when you first hear it, right? Everyone wants to focus on conversion The bounce rate really is engagement. And I have to mention, the results we saw this morning that we're turning into a case study. we're releasing it soon, but for a high ALV product, we did a split test.

the baseline was 3, 400 visitors. And what we put up was a little over 800 visitors and it was a 103 percent improvement in engagement. And purchase. It created, what was it? It was like 120%. Over the baseline. Yeah. Those numbers are insane. I have to talk about it a hundred times [00:19:00] today because I'm so excited about what that's gonna do. I feel it's really important to talk about how important the boundary actually is. people Throw it away. Especially a lot of times you get reports from people you're working with and they're like, Oh, boundary, it's not important.

We're focusing on conversion people want to tell you data can tell any story, right? you can angle it to say anything you want. so I think it's cool to be able to say, Hey, we're doing this thing and this thing is working. 

John: Yeah. And that company is a 40 million a year business that's grown substantially, but, had leveled out in terms of their existing customer base.

So a lot of what we've been focused on is driving interactivity. we're building a specific game for that industry that captures attention. but to our earlier discussion even on a business like that, they're testing and iterating because they're really thinking about these new audiences.

And we started with a very small section of their audience. And we've been turning the dial up as we've been going. we've been improving every [00:20:00] step of the way. And I think we'll get their permission, but, I'd love to talk about some of the audiences that they've discovered that we've discovered with them, that are brand new.

To the using their product for their use cases, but it's going to be how they, take this to a hundred, 200 million a year business. because of this really thought around engagement. And how we build these relationships over time, it's a high AOV product. a lot of people are ready to buy today that cut, multi thousand dollar checks today.

once they're engaged, and understand the brand it's a specific product, that's a little more complex to understand. Once we use some of our gamification to help people understand the product, as soon as they are ready. They are going to come back to that brand because of the foundation, that we've helped them build.

And it's not going to be about spending more on Facebook and Google or retargeting and blasting monthly emails. It's an organic understanding of what they do and top of mind when they [00:21:00] are ready. And I think that's the Holy grail for most brands is not to spend more on paid advertising, but to truly authentically be.

the solution that people need when they need it. 

Kajal: it actually can help with media buying, right? Because if you're targeting better with your site and you know who your audience is the people who are most likely to convert, then it's easier to spend your money more wisely. 

John: and we help move that interactivity Further up the funnel, we can place it into ads, social media posts. once we discover what motivates a certain persona type, it could be, they're a completionist and they want to collect all the different aspects of a certain prize. push it out in your existing channels and you'll see your channels do better, first party data is going to be the differentiator for all brands over the next couple of years. It’s going to be harder to get [00:22:00] any third party sources, the more you can use your Interactions with your customers to understand them, serve them better and show them more empathy.

you're going to be at an advantage that most brands haven't even started to think about yet. 

Kajal: Yeah, and I think that's where a lot of brands go wrong when they start a brand and then automatically go to Amazon. Because Amazon is the data black hole. 

John: We helped so many brands, try and get off of Amazon, where they realize that, The customers are not theirs, right?

And they exist as a list of other somewhat related products and people sort by price, they don't control their reviews. They have no ability to perform customer service, you need to own the relationship with your customer Some of these other things can be nice secondary channels, but if you don't own the relationship, you won't understand what they need and what they want, and you won't be able to evolve with them over time.

Kajal: I think it's really cool that we've seen those results on a product that isn't [00:23:00] fun. 

John: it's not 

Kajal: you would think of as going to have a game. It's not something you think of as going to have a quiz or some kind of fun element. I think maybe their brand colors are a little fun, but like nothing about the product is as fun.

John: I agree. And I love that. It would be the last product. I know we've already teased it enough and we definitely had to do a session on them specifically, but yes, it just goes to speak, right? What is gamification? What is interactivity? It's very different in different contexts, psychology, behavioral economics.

They're fundamentals, of what it means to run a business and, leveraging those aspects means you'll have a better understanding of your user, have a better relationship with it and ultimately drive better sales. 

Kajal: Is there any tools specifically that you would recommend?

I know that there's a lot of testing tools out there. I think it's easy to get overwhelmed. 

John: Yeah, especially if you're new to the space, there's no reason to reinvent the wheel, [00:24:00] Shopify has basic reporting.

Google Analytics is a great starting point for A/B testing. Convert integrates well with Shopify and has basic reporting that you need. from there, having the ability to, use Google tag manager and some content management systems can be helpful for testing.

But if you're not already running multiple tests simultaneously, you don't need much more than that. The old adage, right? Don't let perfection be the enemy of progress. just get started, and once again, circling back the key metric, look at your balance, nothing else you do on the entire site matters if they're not getting past that, Divide that up into the two different segments that we talked about. run a couple of tests against them, and see what kind of impact you could make. this is our background and this is what we built our platform to focus on.

whatever we can do to help just reach out to us and we'd be happy to at least provide you some advice. 

Kajal: thank you, John. I think it's an important [00:25:00] topic and one that doesn't get covered in this space a lot

John: look forward to our next session.

Kajal: the playably podcast.