This document discusses measuring the business impact of web performance. It provides examples showing how reducing load times by just 1 second can significantly increase conversion rates and revenue. Specifically, for a site with 25 million visits per month, reducing average load time from 4.12 to 3 seconds could increase conversions from 2.7% to 4.9%, representing a potential revenue increase of $55 million. While impossible to achieve the fastest speeds for all users, even modest improvements like reducing average time to 4 seconds for 60% of users could yield $6 million more per month. The key is to iteratively measure, target, and refine performance goals to realize significant gains.

1. Measuring the Business Impact
of Web Performance
1
Buddy Brewer [@bbrewer]

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Why Care About Performance?
Slow load times damage traffic and sales

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Why Care About Performance?
Slow load times also damage reputation

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Performance isn’t just one simple number
Web sites deliver good and bad experiences every day

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How Should I Approach Performance?
Performance optimization in three steps
How fast am I? How fast should I be? How do I get there?

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How fast should I be?
The industry has lagged here

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What is Real User Measurement?
JavaScript-based Real User Performance
Analytics

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Tracking Conversions
What’s a “Conversion”?
Orders
Shares, Likes, Comments
Page Views
Subscriptions
Signups
Dealer Locators
Game Item Purchase

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Measuring the impact of speed on business
Example 1: Impact of speed on conversion rate

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Measuring the impact of speed on business
Example 2: Impact of speed on bounce rate

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This Means We Can Measure Patience
And if we can measure it, we can manage it

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Example
Time range: 1 month
Median Load Time: 4.12
Visits: 25M
Conversion Rate: 2.7%
Average Order: $100

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Can We Do Better?
Speed increases drive business improvements
Median Load Time: 4.12s
Total Conversion Rate: 2.7%
Conversion Rate @ 3.0s: 4.9%

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Faster pages convert more frequently
4.12 sec
2.7%
3.0 sec
4.9%

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What Are We Playing For?
Impact is Measurable and Significant
Total Conversion Rate: 2.7%
Best Case Conversion Rate: 4.9%
Conversion Gap: 2.2%
Visits: 25M
AOV: $100

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What Are We Playing For?
Impact is Measurable and Significant
(4.9% - 2.7%) * 25M * $100 =
$55M

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What Are We Playing For?
Impact is Measurable and Significant
1 second = $55M

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BUT

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Potential vs Realistic Goals
Impossible to achieve ideal speed at 100th percentile
Median Load Time: 4.12s
Total Conversion Rate: 2.7%
Conversion Rate @ 3.0s: 4.9%

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Refining Performance Goals
We can make these more realistic and iterative
Target Load Time: 4 sec (vs 3 sec)
Percentile at 4 sec: 49
Target Percentile: 60th
Percentile Gap: 11%

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What Are We Playing For?
Impact is Measurable and Significant
(4.9% - 2.7%) * (11% * 25M) * $100 = $6M

23. Improving from
4.12 sec @ 50th percentile
to
4.0 sec @ 60th percentile
=
$6M / month

25. 100% data collection
Stored forever
Processed in real time
Correlated to things that matter

26. © 2014 SOASTA CONFIDENTIAL - All rights reserved. 26

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Customer Spotlight - Staples
Performance improvements lead to business gains
mPulse data led to changes in JavaScript, CSS
Reduced JavaScript size by 48%
Refactored CSS, reduced size by 83%
Shaved 1 full second off of Home page median load time
Shaved 6 seconds off the 98th percentile
Conversion improved by 10%

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Free Speed Assessment
www.soasta.com/performance