It’s now possible for advertisers to see the loading speeds of more mobile landing pages due to an algorithm update announced Tuesday by Google Ads. With this mobile speed score update, the tool can now generate a score on the advertising console without as many ad clicks having occurred as were previously required.
The mobile speed score was introduced in July at the Google Marketing Live event.
Mobile speed scores are evaluated on a 10-point scale, with 10 being the fastest. Page speed and potential conversion rate are two of the factors used to determine the score.
We can all understand that slow landing pages are frustrating, and unfortunately, they can easily send you, along with many others away from possibly completing any kind of sale or conversion.
“Slow mobile pages can slow down your business,” said Prashant Nair, product manager, Google Ads.
“Fifty-three percent of visits to a mobile site are abandoned if it takes more than three seconds to load,” Nair said, citing Google data collected in 2016.
Google is suggesting that mobile marketers adopt mobile-specific technologies like Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) to improve mobile speed scores. “AMP pages typically load 85 percent faster than standard mobile pages. As a result, 90 percent of AMP pages see a high mobile speed score of 10,” Nair said.
There are other tools available from Google that will help marketers monitor their mobile speed: a Speed Scorecard, which compares your site speed to those of your competitors, and the Impact Calculator, which lets you estimate potential revenue loss caused by a slow mobile site.