Digital Marketers Need to Care About Web Performance

Recent digital marketing trends have focused on creating a more personalized environment for users. Rather than casting out an oversized net and potentially dragging in weeds and guppies, e-commerce companies have opted to define the specific bait they use with the hope of luring their ultimate trophy customer.

To deliver this tailor-made experience, the content users are consuming needs to be relevant to their interests. This could be solving a problem, providing expert perspective on a particular subject, or offering a discounted deal on an item that would suit them. Regardless of what the action is, digital marketers are turning to added page elements and third parties to deliver what their users expect.

Though personalized marketing strategies have proven to be valuable assets, they also present a lot of challenges that could cause your website’s performance to plummet and be a detriment to your brand’s reputation. So when deciding whether you should implement a new marketing technology, it’s important to consider the impact it could have on your user experience and whether the risk is worth the reward.

Top Digital Marketing Trends of Today

Video Ads

Though it’s hardly a new form of digital marketing, video ads are gaining more of a presence on the web. Many social media sites have adopted this method and retailers have jumped at the opportunity to advertise to specific users. Running these tailored ads, though, can come at a price—typical video streaming adds complexity to the webpage, and even more so when they are using tracking services to target them. If the stream causes latency or loading errors, it can completely interrupt the user’s experience with the page and discourage them from interacting with the website (or the ad) any further.

Advertising Burst

Along with the recent increase of video ads, overall advertising spend has gone up as well. Companies are expected to spend $10 billion more on digital marketing and advertising in 2016 than last year. This includes images, videos, and personalized targeted ads via tracking links and analytics. Each of these is an extra element added to a webpage, many of which are being served by a third party vendor. Third parties tend to carry a lot of weight with them, which can dramatically slow your site down and negatively impact your performance.

Mobile Focus

The e-commerce industry has undergone a transformation, now relying heavily on mobile sites for a bulk of its revenue. While this mobile revolution offers a lot more opportunity for customers go to your site and make purchases, it also adds a whole new layer of performance optimization requirements. Retailers that have not optimized their mobile site with either an Adaptive Web Design or Responsive Web Design are vulnerable to latency and loading failures, along with an extremely unpleasant user experience.

Regardless of the methods your digital marketing team chooses to apply, it’s vital that you create a culture of performance within your company. Implementing a digital performance analytics platform will give you the insight you need to ensure your marketing strategies are not interrupting your customer experience, without inhibiting creativity and innovation.