TagMan, a provider of tag management, today announced the results of its E-commerce Page Speed Survey revealing the majority (81%) of respondents are concerned about page load speeds on their sites, while less than half (35%) remove third party tags to improve performance.
Industry studies have shown that slow-loading sites decrease conversion rates for retailers. TagMan recently reported that, according to an Aberdeen Group report, every extra second a page takes to load can result in approximately a 7% loss of conversions. Additionally, a Forrester Research report indicates that 40% of shoppers will wait no more than three seconds before abandoning a retail or travel site.
The “TagMan E-commerce Page Load Speed” survey noted that approximately 60% of respondents have taken steps to improve site speed but feel they could do more. These measures include optimizing page code, performance monitoring, reduce page weight, reducing or removing third party tags, as well as adding more web servers/locations and site acceleration.
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CEO and Founder of TagMan Paul Cook explained the purpose of the survey was to understand how widespread a concern page load is within the industry. “Specifically we were interested to see how aware/concerned the industry was of the weight of tags on pages and what steps had been taken,” Cook told Retail TouchPoints. “We already knew this anecdotally from speaking to clients and prospects, particularly in the U.S., and we wanted to clarify the scale of the issue and put a number against it.”
While 71% said they are aware that optimization of third party marketing pixels/tags can speed page load times, more than half (65%) do not address tags and some retailers (35%) have chosen to reduce or remove the tags in an effort to improve site performance. Additionally, slow loading sites also impact search engine optimization (SEO).
“We were actually surprised to find how many people claimed to know that optimizing loading of marketing tags can reduce overall load times,” said Cook. “The steps they have taken were removing or reducing third party tags ― which can result in loss of data, flexibility and agility to respond to competitor’s activity by having fewer tags on your page.”
Other results from the survey include the Top 5 ways slow loading sites impact the bottom line:
- Reduced Conversions
- Visitor Abandonment
- Perceived Negative Brand Experience
- Reduced Repeat Visits
- Switching To Competitive Sites
“Creating the link between site speed and conversion is vital; the site speed monitoring in Google Analytics is a good place to start and we are working on a tool ourselves that can help clients to identify the link,” Cook noted.
The online survey was conducted in June 2011 and completed by more than 60 digital marketers mainly in the U.S. and Europe.
TagMan Introduces New Tag Management Platform
To help companies in their quest to improve site performance, TagMan recently introduced TagMan3 with Smart Tag loading capabilities. Designed to deliver faster loading page times, TagMan 3 features include parallel tag loading, synchronous tag acceleration and tag killing.