More than half of marketers still have no plans to create content using Google’s Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) initiative despite new research showing that 45% of consumers are less willing to complete a purchase when navigating slow-loading webpages.
The 2019 Page Speed Report from Unbounce suggests that technical incompetence can undermine quality content as more than a third will abandon a webpage and are less likely to return to a brand’s content again if they have a poor user experience. One in ten will also inform close friends about the problem.
Page speed has been a search engine ranking signal for some time now, but there does not appear to be a great deal of urgency among marketers to update websites to ensure that pages load quickly. The report found that just 3% are making faster loading times a top priority in 2019.
“Today, everyone online expects to buy products, browse content, and find the answers to their questions with zero lag,” Unbounce’s VP of Product Marketing Ryan Engley said. “Unfortunately, as interactivity and media like video become more prevalent, the average web page size has increased, and so has the time that consumers have to wait for pages to load.”
Google’s AMP project has enabled brands to deliver faster, more engaging experiences on smartphones, and while 57% are not considering making updates right now, 23% may do so in the near future. The study canvassed the opinions of 1,150 customers and marketers in the US and Canada.
