Presentation from Cars.com and Keynote Systems at Internet Retailer Conference 2011 on the business value of site speed and best practices to minimize impact of 3rd party content.

1. The business of site speed: Speed as a consumer benefit. Jeremiah Wilson

2. Why are third party tags killing my site? 2

3. Third Party Freak Out… IT’S NOT!!! 3

4. Pushing Over The Top Slow 4

5. Pushing Over The Top Third Party Slow 5

6. Pushing Over The Top Third Party Slow Legacy 6

7. Speed: Notjust the front end Data Aggregation Data Storage Data Organization/Extraction Display CSS, HTML, I-Frames etc. 3rd party JS 7

8. Common Site Speed Focus Data Aggregation Data Storage Data Organization/Extraction Display 20% 80% 8

9. Most Site Speed Problems Data Aggregation Data Storage Data Organization/Extraction Display 80% 20% 9

10. Agenda Example of speed increase and its impact to conversion metrics Business case generation for speed improvements 10

11. Who Am I? Involved in Interactive and Online businesses for the past 6 years. Worked as a DBA, QA all the way up to Product Management. 2 years as a SEO manager at Classified Ventures. Now a Product Manager at Cars.com 11

12. What I Am Not… Developer Site Operations Manager Keynote Expert 12

13. Example: How I Backed Into Caring About Site Speed Early 2009 –Google announced site speed as part of their ranking factors Late 2009 – Reduced total site rendering time by half at HomeFinder.com Result –Not only did our SEO numbers increase, but all other site conversion metrics skyrocketed. 13

14. What We Did… 4 month project to completely rewrite the search application from JS to PHP Addition of SOLR to help organize our data Eliminated outdated and cumbersome business logic 14

15. HomeFinder.com Results 14.77% increase in page-views per visit 7.40% decrease in bounce rate 10.40% increase in leads 15

16. Speed Impact Themes Google states that 3 seconds is the threshold where users start to become frustrated If your site is significantly above the 2-3 second threshold (1.5-2 seconds above) If you can bring the rendering time down to the 2-3 second mark Budget for a double digit increase in the page’s key conversion metric Budget that the increase decreases by half over time, but levels and stays steady after that 16

17. Summary First optimize the parts you can control Single out and measure the elements that you can’t control Do what you can to optimize what you can’t control, but don’t go overboard Build the business case about revenue lost due to the degradation in site speed Value of timeouts Value of consumers that abandon Always tell the truth. Don’t alter numbers or measurements to make the company look better. 17

18. 18 Keynote Systems – Internet Retailer Conference
June 2011 Ben Rushlo, Director
Keynote Consulting ben.rushlo@keynote.com

19. Background Performance management with the user experience in mind Optimize only what impacts the customer Work with some of the largest retailers in the world ongoing Best Buy, Wal-Mart, Sears, Puma, Lacoste etc. Provide ongoing tactical and strategic recommendations for improvement What is really causing my site to be slow? How do I compete in China? How do I mediate between internal groups who all seem to blame each other for site quality issues? How do I create a culture-changing performance management process? 19

20. Background – The Complex World Of Performance Management 20 ©2011 Keynote Systems

21. Common Retail Site Performance Issues - By Page Type Marketing Pages Front end delay is the most significant Page construction/design Client/browser processing Third parties – Tracking: ads, media tracking, analytics Third parties – Partners: provide product images/zoom Transactional Pages Back-end delay much more significant Page construction/design is important but not typically the core issue Third parties – Partners: payment, web services, etc. Third party – Tracking: still plays a role 21

22. Tag Example 22

23. Third Party Integration – Strategy for Success Tags/Tracking Pre-deployment testing Understand capacity Push down at all costs Use simple tags and framework Audit periodically Track and manage ongoing Partners/Content Providers Pre-deployment testing Set standards (SLA) equivalent (to your own) Track and manage ongoing 23

24. Complementary Analysis Browser and Purchase process on your site 2 weeks of measurement Custom analysis Diagnosis of core issues Email me – ben.rushlo@keynote.com Call me – 623.547.7068 See me after (buy me a drink?) 24

25. Sources http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lazy_loading http://blog.mozilla.com/metrics/category/website-optimization/ http://technology.edmunds.com/ Mountain photo: Mountain of china For Clackamore and the Waste Mountain thread www.flickr.com/groups/wpcgallery/discuss/72157602602986336/Raw image for recycling : )