Commentary
The Cost Of Milliseconds In The Digital Marketplace
- by Jack Loechner , Staff Writer @mp_research, April 5, 2017
According to a new study from Soasta, The State of Online Retail Performance, describing the cost of a few seconds in the digital marketplace, 53% of mobile site visitors will leave a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. Online retailers face enormous challenges in delivering the fast, reliable, 24x7 omnichannel experience, across multiple devices, that shoppers demand.
Understanding the impact of page load speed on metrics like conversions and engagement is a critical component in staying competitive in the age of Amazon, says the report. The study gathered data from 10+ billion online retail user experiences, then analyzed performance metrics from three different perspectives: IT, business, and user experience.
The response to three key questions were eye-opening, says the report. Those questions asked...
- What is the “magic number” for page load time that yields the highest conversion rate?
- What is the impact of 1 second of performance improvement (or slowdown) on conversion rate/ bounce rate/session length?onl
- How are high-performance pages different in terms of size, complexity, and resources, from pages that perform poorly?
47% Of All Consumers Shop Via Their Phones, But Only 1 In 5 Complete Transactions On Mobile | |||
| Desktop | Mobile | Tablet |
All visits | 42.15% | 47.42% | 10.43% |
All visits that ended in conversion | 68.46% | 21.8% | 9.67% |
Source: Soasta, March 2017 | |||
Next, optimal load times for peak conversions ranged from 1.8 to 2.7 seconds across device types. | |
Device | Conversion rate (%) |
Desktop | 1.8 sec. |
Mobile | 2.7 sec. |
Tablet | 1.9 sec. |
Source: Soasta, March 2017 | |
Finally, online retail and the sophistication of digital marketing are evolving rapidly, and only the brands that shift their current approaches can survive, says the report. Digital performance has never mattered more than it does now, creating an urgent need for solutions that deliver digital performance intelligence you can take immediate action on.
Just a 100-millisecond delay in load time can hurt conversion rates by up to 7%, says the report. A 2-second delay can decrease conversion rates by up to 37%. These impacts were felt even on tablets and phones.
Impact On Conversion Rate | |||
| Desktop | Mobile | Tablet |
Impact of 100ms slowdown on conversion rate | -2.4% | -7.1% | -3.8% |
Impact of 1s slowdown on conversion rate | -21.8% | 20.5% | 17.8% |
Impact of 2s slowdown on conversion rate | -36.5% | 26.2% | 25.1% |
Source: Soasta, March 2017 | |||
Impact On Bounce Rate | |||
| Desktop | Mobile | Tablet |
Impact of 100ms slowdown on bounce rate | 0.4% | 0.2% | 0.2% |
Impact of 1s slowdown on bounce rate | 18.4% | 49.8% | 32.3% |
Impact of 2s slowdown on bounce rate | 62.1% | 102.9% | 67.6% |
Source: Soasta, March 2017 | |||
The report concludes that the complexities of online retail and the sophistication of digital marketing are evolving rapidly, and only the brands that shift their current approaches can survive. Digital performance has never mattered more than it does now, creating an urgent need for solutions that deliver digital performance intelligence you can take immediate action on.
For more findings in the full report, please visit here.
Jack Loechner is the Editor of The Center for Media Research's daily Research Brief. You can reach him at jack@mediapost.com.
Hmmmmm. I'm very skeptical of those figures. For example, I just used the N. Marcus site to shop for a BD gift, and I wasn't going anyhwere else, though it took the page about 5 seconds to load.
I think it's very likely that Big Data mining is prone to error in areas where the miners are only guessing at the intent behind human actions. Like "econometrics", etc.