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3rd Party Technologies Can Slow Down Your Site

The acceleration of eCommerce growth has given rise to an ever-expanding and thriving 3rd party technology ecosystem, which delivers innovative site experiences, and back-office efficiencies for brands and retailers.

Without site optimization, all that innovation can lead to longer page loads that frustrate shoppers, and reduce conversion. This report shares the impact that the leading 3rd parties have on eCommerce websites that have been optimized for performance and speed.

Introducing the Dynamic Version of the 2022 eCommerce Technology Index

Designed to help retailers research new innovative features for their sites and understand the impact 3rd party technologies can have on site performance and digital experience, the dynamic version of the 2022 eCommerce Technology Index enables brands to dynamically search and find performance ratings for over 500 of the most popular eCommerce technologies.

In the index, 3rd parties earn a Performance Impact Rating (PIR) that measures the performance impact on an eCommerce website. PIR scores are stratified on a red, yellow, green color scale based on site performance impact.

Performance Impact Rating, by Category

Every 3rd party technology is not created equal. While some categories have little impact on a site’s performance, others are more demanding.  A category’s PIR positivity shows the expected performance impact of 3rd parties in a given category. Categories in the Red are likely to have a significant negative impact on site performance within a category, while those in Green are expected to have less negative impact on site performance. For category details, click here.

Time to Last Byte

3rd party loads may extend far beyond when the rest of the page has been painted, which can delay the usefulness of the technology. Here are the most adopted eCommerce technologies, classified into software categories, and how long it takes for each to finish loading.

How Are 3rd Parties On Your Site Performing?

Find out by downloading the 2022 eCommerce Technology Index. As the companion report to the dynamic version of the index, this PDF is designed to help retailers research new innovative features for their sites and understand the impact 3rd party technologies can have on site performance and digital experience.

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3rd Party Performance Impact

Brands are conditioned to weigh an important trade-off with 3rd party technologies: the promised experience or operational gains will come at a performance cost. Understanding the potential page load delay is central to this consideration. The chart below displays the performance impact that a 3rd party has on a site’s page load time.

Time to Interactive

It’s the ‘are we there yet’ moment for the shopper. 3rd party loads can keep the shopper from engaging. Below is the amount of time that a 3rd party delays the shopper interaction, expressed as a percentage of the entire time it takes for a page to be ready to interact with.

Most Popular 3rd Parties, by Category

Looking across the YOTTAA community of enterprise eCommerce sites, a unique collection of the most popular 3rd parties emerges. Drawing on a wide variety of technology categories, here are the most adopted eCommerce technologies:

What Are Violations And How Are They Impacting Your Site?

Site Performance Violations measure the negative impact that a 3rd party has on the site experience. A violation is a material delay caused by a 3rd party that impacts the shopper’s experience.

Performance Violations are individual errors that occur when a single 3rd party takes longer than one second to load. These performance violations do not affect onload, though may reduce or restrict access to site or 3rd party functionality

Page Delay Violations are individual errors that occur when a single 3rd party extends the time it takes for a shopper to be able to interact with a site.

The tables below detail the two leading types of violations that negatively impact site speed and shopper experience.

Violations by Page Type

Home pages slightly edge out Product Detail pages, generating the most violations per third party load. However, since shoppers, in particular buyers, are consuming multiple PDPs per session, their violation impact is magnified.

Percentage of Violations by Page and Type of Violation  

The two most trafficked pages - the product detail page and category page - generate nearly 80% of all the performance related violations. Most notably, these pages are ripe with third parties, which are at risk of not performing as intended to enhance these important steps during the shopper journey.

3rd Party Performance Impact Ratings

Below is a listing of the top 3rd party technologies (listed in alphabetical order) used across the YOTTAA community of ecommerce sites during January 2022. Use the search bar to search for 3rd parties based on name, category, or rating.

Represents a consistent negative impact on performance. 15% of technologies earned a Red rating.

Represents an inconsistent negative performance impact. 47% of technologies earned a Yellow rating.

Represents little or no performance impact. 38% of technologies earned a Green rating.

Want to learn more about 3rd Party Performance Impact Ratings? Download the full report by clicking below:

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Deep Dive: Performance Metrics by 3rd Party

Easily filter 3rd parties to see which ones are most popular with brands

Checkout Spotlight: 3rd Party Presence on Checkout

Find out which 3rd parties should be on checkout pages and which ones pose security risks

About the 2022 eCommerce Technology Index

YOTTAA tracks, monitors, and optimizes the performance of nearly 1,000 3rd parties across 2,000 eCommerce sites. The eCommerce Technology Index benchmarks the optimized performance of the most adopted 3rd parties across the YOTTAA community. These insights are drawn from eCommerce activity during January 2022, representing 4 billion page views, and nearly 800 billion 3rd party resource timing events. During this period, the YOTTAA-driven optimization resulted in an average page load savings of 1.5 seconds, or 27% speed improvement, and a reduction in the number of page delay violations by 29.6%.

Each 3rd party in the index earns a Performance Impact Rating (PIR) that measures the performance impact of a 3rd party on an eCommerce website. PIR is calculated as: [[ Performance Violations + Page Delay Violations / 3rd Party load events]]. The PIR is the truest measure of a 3rd party’s performance impact on a site, and the shopper experience. For more insights about the 2022 eCommerce Technology Index, download the full report here.

Technology Categories

Analytics and Testing

  • A/B Testing

  • Analytics

  • Event Analytics

  • Heatmap

Coupons and Deals

  • Coupons and Deals - Browser Plugin

Customer Experience and Growth

  • Channel Expansion

  • CMS

  • Commerce Search

  • Conversion Utility

  • Customer Reviews

  • Ecommerce Platform

  • Personalization

  • UGC

Customer Service

  • Chat

  • Customer Service

Marketing - Acquisition

  • Ad Tech

  • Influencer and Affiliate Marketing

  • Price Comparison

  • SEO Marketing

  • Social Media

Marketing - Retention

  • CDP and Identity

  • Direct Marketing

  • Loyalty

  • Marketing Automation

  • Marketing Tech

  • Push Marketing

  • Returns and Tracking

Performance, Privacy, Fraud

  • Acceleration

  • Ad Blocking

  • APM

  • CDN

  • Client-side Security

  • Fraud

  • Performance

  • Rum Analytics

  • Security

Site Tools and Utilities

  • Accessibility

  • Browser

  • Chrome Extension

  • Commerce Utility

  • Core JavaScript Library

  • Development Testing

  • EComm Tech

  • Error Monitoring

  • Image Hosting

  • Log Management

  • Log Management

  • Malware

  • Malware/Adware

  • Maps

  • Payment Processing

  • Search Engine

  • Tag Management

  • Video

  • Video API