The Need for Mobile Speed: How Mobile Latency Impacts Publisher Revenue
In 2016, consumers began accessing web content more from mobile devices than on their desktop computers. But large web publishers were slow to optimize for a mobile experience, often leading to a poor user experience and site abandonment. Michelle’s team at Google partnered cross-functionally to publish a comprehensive study of over 10,000 mobile web domains to reveal a critical gap between user expectations and mobile site performance. While users expected pages to load in under 2 seconds and typically abandoned sites that take more than 3 seconds to load, the average mobile site at that time took a whopping 19 seconds to load over 3G connections. This sluggish performance was primarily due to oversized files, excessive server requests, and poor loading order of page elements.
The impact of slow loading speeds directly affected publishers' bottom lines. Sites that loaded in 5 seconds earned up to twice the mobile ad revenue compared to those loading in 19 seconds, while also achieving 25% higher ad viewability and 70% longer user sessions. Their model projected that mobile-optimized publishers would earn 2x more mobile ad revenue than non-optimized publishers. To address these issues and the opportunity ahead, publishers were encouraged to assess their current performance using page-speed tools, optimize their content, reduce server requests, and implement regular performance monitoring.
The message was clear: in a mobile-first world, speed isn't just about user experience—it's about survival and success in the digital marketplace.
https://blog.google/products/admanager/the-need-for-mobile-speed/