The benefits of speed from mobile: more conversions and less bounce rate

It is always time to talk about site speed, especially from mobile and especially now, in view of the announced start of the Google Page Experience update, which from 2021 will reward sites that offer better performances (which translate into positive experiences for users). A recent study by Deloitte offers us some further ideas and gives us the concrete results of the interventions on this front, revealing us that it is enough to improve the performances even slightly to obtain excellent feedbacks on conversions.

Speed is increasingly important for all sites

The report, brought to us by Searchengineland, starts from a few assumptions: for some years now the speed of the pages is a ranking factor on Google, the focus on the topic continues to grow, some predictions claim that l’m-Commerce (mobile sales) will double from 2019-2023 to represent three quarters of total e-commerce sales, and, on the practical front, taking care of performance can have a significant impact on conversions and revenues for brands in all sectors.

Deloitte uses the expression dominant digital touchpoint to refer to the predominance of mobile device use nowadays, a real “mobile-first world“, and so the experience of the user browsing from smartphones is increasingly synonymous with brand experience, but mobile often increases website traffic but brings even less conversions than the desktop.

Deloitte study: milliseconds generate millions

In order to develop its study, the international consulting company has created a methodology developed to measure the performances of the mobile site: it first analyzed 70 brands, selecting the 37 that have passed a long process of “analysis, technical and qualitative audits“; then developed a KPI framework and mapped conversion paths, identifying four key speed parameters, and then developed a statistical model to measure their impact.

Data on site speed were measured with Google Lighthouse “and aggregated with web analytics brand data”.

Analysis of four vertical typologies

Deloitte examined four vertical sectors: retail, travel, luxury (clothing) and lead-generation and measured conversions in each case; in this context, conversion is “the number of users who made transactions, added to the cart, clicked contact us or completed a form, in the case of lead-generation“.

Speed and conversions are closely correlated

The analysis confirmed that the speed of the page is directly related to a greater engagement and a better progression of the funnel: in detail, the fastest mobile sites have obtained a greater number of page views, higher conversions and a higher average value of orders per customer in each of the verticals measured.

Small speed improvements, big result improvements for the site

In practical terms, an improvement of just 0.1 seconds in site speed determines:

• Retail