The video is in the works. Until then, the guide will get you there.
Step-by-step guide
Where to find the Exit pages report
In the side menu, click "Behavior".
A submenu opens. Choose "Exit pages" there.
The Exit pages report opens.
What is an exit page?
The last page a visitor opens before leaving your website. And that often says more than the entry. Because this is where it is decided: did the visitor leave satisfied, or did they give up in frustration?
Here is the tricky part: an exit page is not automatically a problem. Somebody who lands on the thank you page after a purchase and then leaves did everything right. That is exactly how it should go. But somebody who bails out in the middle of the cart leaves a very different question behind: what scared them off at the last moment?
In short: a high number of exits is sometimes a good sign and sometimes a bad one. It depends on where it happens.
The period being analyzed always follows the date selection at the top. Set a different period there, and the entire report adjusts immediately.
When you should check here
Whenever you want to know where your visitors are dropping out. The Pages report shows you every page that was opened. The Exit pages report filters out the decisive question: which page was the end?
Fits questions like: where am I losing visitors right before it gets serious? Does a path end where it is supposed to, or in the middle of the process? And which pages need a rework?
The table
For each exit page you see a row with the URL (and the page title, if there is one) plus these columns:
| Column | What is behind it |
|---|---|
| Exits | How often this page was the last page of a visit. |
| Unique visitors | How many different visitors exited here. |
| Bounce rate | The share of visitors who left right after this page without looking at anything else. |
| Ø Time on exit page | How long visitors stayed on the exit page on average. |
Together these values tell you whether an exit is a clean finish or a drop-out you should take a closer look at.
Related report
Below the table you find a link that lets you switch the perspective:
| View | What you see with it |
|---|---|
| Exit page title | Your exit points bundled by page title instead of by individual URL. |
Click "Related report: Exit page title" to switch. All URLs with the same title are then bundled into one row, so campaign parameters no longer distort your numbers. "Back to exit pages" takes you to the URL view again.
That way you see your exit points either per individual address or cleanly bundled per piece of content.
What you can set here
- Switching views: through the "Related report" link, see above.
- Sorting: click a column heading to sort ascending or descending.
- Entries per page: at the bottom you choose how many rows are shown (10, 25, 50, or All).
- Paging: with long lists, you page through at the bottom.
Aha moments you will recognize
And then there are the spots where it suddenly makes sense:
- The cart sits at the very top of the exits. A clear signal that visitors are bailing out right before the purchase. Maybe the shipping costs come as a surprise, maybe a payment method is missing, maybe the form is too long. This is exactly where you lose real money, right before the finish line.
- A harmless info page suddenly has plenty of exits. Not always bad. Somebody who found your hours or your phone number leaves satisfied afterward. The question for you: is this a dead end on purpose, or one that was supposed to lead somewhere?
- Your thank you page has hardly any exits. Sounds harmless, but it is not. If hardly anybody arrives on the confirmation page after a purchase, the visitors may be quitting even earlier. Then it is worth looking at the pages before it.
What is in it for me
The Exit pages report shows you where your visitors drop out. And the end of a visit often reveals more than the beginning:
- Track down problem exits. Plenty of exits at a spot where visitors are supposed to keep going (cart, form, pricing page) is a clear warning sign. That is where you start.
- Put good exits in perspective. Thank you pages, confirmations, and contact pages are allowed to have plenty of exits. That is the natural end of a path, not a mistake.
- Find the holes in the process. Where does a visit break off even though it should continue? Those spots are costing you deals.
In short: you do not just see that somebody left, you see where they left and whether that goodbye was intended.
Common questions
Is a high exit rate always bad?
No, and that is the most important point about this report. It depends on where the exit happens. On a thank you page or a finished article, it is completely normal. On a page that is supposed to lead somewhere, it points to a problem.
Why do exits and the bounce rate differ?
A bounce is a special case of an exit: the visitor sees one single page and leaves again without clicking anything else. An exit, on the other hand, can also come at the end of a long visit, after five or ten pages. That is why the numbers are not the same.
What does switching to "Exit page title" mean?
When you switch, Trustlytics bundles all exit pages with the same page title into a single row, regardless of the exact URL. Handy when the same page is reached through several campaign links and you want the overall picture per piece of content.
What is the difference between an exit page and an entry page?
The entry page is the first page of a visit, the exit page the last. On short visits where somebody looks at one single page, it is even the same page: entry and exit fall together.
What is the difference between exits and page views?
The Pages report counts every view of a page, no matter where in the visit it happened. The Exit pages report only counts when that page was the last one in the visit. So a page can have plenty of views and rarely be the exit.