Engaged Session
Intermediate PronunciationEN/ɪnˈɡeɪdʒd ˈseʃən/
An engaged session is a session that passes a defined engagement threshold: it lasted long enough, viewed more than one page, or contained a key event.
The threshold is set by the tool, which makes it both configurable and inconsistent; in GA4 the default is a session longer than ten seconds, or with at least two pageviews, or with one key event, and an administrator can raise that ten seconds to sixty. Engagement rate is the share of these sessions out of all sessions and, under the same definition, is the complement of bounce rate, meaning a bounce is no longer a single-page session but a non-engaged one. Comparing engagement rates from two tools with two different thresholds is therefore misleading.
FAQ
No. An active session is one that is open right now; an engaged session is one that passed a quality threshold, whether it is still open or already closed.
Older tools defined a bounce as a single-page visit with no regard to time; under the engaged-session definition a session that viewed one page but stayed thirty seconds is not a bounce. The two numbers come from two definitions and cannot be compared directly.