Master Bounce - Loundness - Adding Gain Etc

Question about bouncing audio, when I bounce a track and it is someone touching the "red" and then I open up the file in another application for example "Adobe audition" just to visualize were my wav levels look, my track looks as if lower and I need to use extra gain in adobe to bring it up to normal levels. For example +3 DB so it sounds comparable to other songs. Is this normal, or am I missing a few things on my output chain that will always keep my levels mastered high and clear.

 

I did some test with some other songs and loaded them in and there wave files are basically overloading always hitting the red in adobe audition, but for some reason sounds clear as day. Is there a basic key to this? What are you suggestions?

Make sure you turn off "Normalize" in the Bounce dialog, however keep in mind that touching the red without normalizing during the Bounce process means you're adding distortion.