Faster loading mobile sites earn publishers more ad revenue: Google
Mobile speed impacts user engagement and publisher revenue, according to a study by Google. Google analysed over 10,000 mobile web domains and found that most do not meet standards for being fast and relevant, concluding that mobile sites loading in five seconds earn publishers up to twice as much ad revenue as those loading in 19 seconds. The study found that the average load time for mobile sites is 19 seconds. According to Google, slow times deter users from engaging with a site, with over 50% of visits likely to be abandoned if a page takes over three seconds to load.
Rachael Power writes for TechForge Media, writing about marketing tech, connected cars and virtual reality. She has written for a number of online and print titles including the Irish Times, Irish Examiner, accountingWEB and BusinessZone. Rachael has a passion for digital marketing, journalism, gaming and fitness, and is on Twitter at: @rachpower10.

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It’s not something you would typically think of, but according to a new study by Google, mobile speed can impact user engagement and publisher revenue.

Google analysed over 10,000 mobile web domains for The Need for Mobile Speed and found that most don’t quite meet the standards for being fast and relevant.

In fact, the average load time for mobile sites is 19 seconds over 3G connections – which is pretty slow.

It projected that publishers whose mobile sites load in five seconds earn up to twice as much mobile ad revenue than those whose sites load in 19 seconds.

The study also found that sites which had five second load times had around 25% higher ad viewability and 70% longer average sessions.

Slow times just put users off engaging with a site in general too, according to Google’s research. Over half of visits are likely to be abandoned if the page takes over three seconds to load and one out of two people expect a page to load in two seconds.

In addition, 46% of people say waiting for pages to load is something they hate the most when browsing the web on mobile.

This is quite bad news for marketers in particular, as if people are coming to the site and leaving, then your content isn’t being read and your leads aren’t being generated.

But what makes mobile sites slow?

File size, the number of server requests and the order in which the different elements of the page are loaded, according to Google.

The study found that the average size of content on mobile sites is 1.49 MB, which takes seven seconds to load over 3G connections. In addition, it found mobile pages make an average of 214 server requests, and nearly half of all server requests are ad-related.

There are things you can do however to find out what your mobile site’s problem is and how to fix it. While this may not be within the remit of marketers, depending on what kind of business you work for, it’s definitely something you can bring up with the IT department.

The three-step process Google recommends is:

Assess the current performance of the site using tools like PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Test, and Web Page Test

the current performance of the site using tools like PageSpeed Insights, Mobile-Friendly Test, and Web Page Test Execute changes that eliminate bulky content, reduce the number of server requests, and consolidate data and analytics tags. Switch up the element order and select the minimum number of pieces to show above the fold first — styling, javascript logic, and images accessed after the tap, scroll or swipe can be loaded later

changes that eliminate bulky content, reduce the number of server requests, and consolidate data and analytics tags. Switch up the element order and select the minimum number of pieces to show above the fold first — styling, javascript logic, and images accessed after the tap, scroll or swipe can be loaded later Monitor performance after making changes and run A/B tests to regularly audit the setup of your site, flagging and removing anything that adds latency

It also recommends that you should take a look at open source solutions like Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) and progressive web apps.