• by Ray Schultz , February 14, 2023

Website traffic grew by 4.53% on average last year. But this was accompanied by a 1.83% increase in bounce rates, a 2.34% drop in page views per session and a 3.10% decline in conversions YoY, according to the 2023 Digital Experience Benchmark Explorer, a study from Contentsquare. 

The main problems were rage clicks (when an element is clicked at least three times in less than two seconds), slow loading time (when it takes more than three seconds for a page to load) and multiple button interactions (when a button is clicked at least three times).  

Across all industries, the main desktop issues are: 

• Any frustration — 40.1%
• Slow Page Loads — 17.9% 
• Rage Clicks — 6.9%
• Multiple button clicks — 6%
• Multiple use targets — 7% 
• Multiple Field Clicks — 4.2% 
• Low-Page Activity — 3.2%

In mobile, the leading problems are: 

• Any Frustration Factor — 32.8% 
• Slow Page Loads — 18.2% 
• Rage Clicks — 5.4% 
• Multiple Button Clicks — 5.9% 
• Multiple-Use Targets — 4.3%
• Multiple-Field Clicks — 3% 

Among sectors, retail saw a 1.52% increase in traffic and a 2.15% jump in the bounce rate. In addition, there was a 2.31% falloff in page views per session and a 3.53% drop in the conversion rate. 

But financial services enjoyed a 11.46% increase in traffic and only a 0.09% increase in the bounce rate. The page views per session fell by 5.10%. 

The media vertical fared poorly, suffering a 16.42% decline in traffic and a 12.26% increase in the bounce rate. In addition, there was an 11.19% reduction in page views per session.

Email is a relatively minor source of traffic overall, but it still figures in the mix:

Session Share: 

• Direct — 25.2%
• SEO — 22% 
• Paid Search — 17.4%
• Other  — 21.9% 
• Email — 5.1%
• Paid Social — 4.22%
• Ads, display, retargeting — 2.9% 
• Social Organic — 0%

New Visitor Share: 

• Direct — 23.8% 
• SEO — 22.6% 
• Paid Search — 23%
• Other — 14% 
• Email — 4.8%
• Paid Social — 5.5% 
• Ads, display, retargeting — 3.6% 
• Social Organic — 0% 

For this edition, Digital Experience Benchmark analyzed more than 35 billion sessions and 161 billion page views across 2,942 websites.