Skip to main content

Application Performance as a KPI for e-Business

Sven Hammar

Web application load times can make the difference between your e-business thriving or dying. Speedy load times are so essential to a web application’s success that they should be considered a key performance indicator.

Comparing sales data with performance data establishes a direct relationship between the two: A platform that performs faster will lead to higher sales. On the flip side, the damage can be significant when performance takes a hit. Amazon found that a 100ms increase in page load latency translates to a 1 percent drop in sales.

Customer Patience: Conversion vs. Speed

Performance is an often overlooked KPI. According to a study presented at Velocity 2013, each second of reduced load time between 15 and 7 seconds results in a 3 percent conversion rate increase, and each second between 7 and 5 seconds results in a 2 percent conversion hike.

In financial terms, a 100ms load time reduction can boost revenue by up to 1 percent. According to CA Technologies, most users will abandon an application if the load time is longer than six seconds. Sales come to a dead stop when the platform goes down or jumps to double-digit load times.

A theoretical example (by Apica) found that a business bringing in about $800,000 in weekly revenue will experience a total loss in revenue during an outage or a plummet in performance. While the revenue rate sees a brief 20 percent hike when the platform returns to service, it is not enough to compensate for the outage losses. Furthermore, when the example platform returned, it experienced load times of 10+ seconds — so the platform missed additional sales due to customer abandonment. Online sales can see as much as a 10 percent drop in revenue when performance is lacking due to visitor spikes.

SEO Impact: Google Rankings

Search engines including Google tend to favor websites that load faster over ones that load slower. So, if your site runs slower, you’ll be bringing in less traffic from search engines. However, content quality is still the most important metric, so slow load times should be treated as an opportunity for improvement rather than a reason to panic.

Establishing Relationships: Brand Impact

Load times also play into the brand loyalty KPI for application performance. Slow load times have a negative effect on brand recognition through a phenomenon called “web stress.” Waiting for a page to load is a stressful event, and continuously experiencing that stress causes an increasingly negative customer reaction to your brand.

Adding a mere half second to load times generates a 26 percent increase in frustration and an 8 percent decrease in engagement (Radware). Even if your application far outweighs the competition, people who use it will remember it as “the slow one” if it has long response times.

The Good News

There is no need to test your infrastructure on a live, unsuspecting audience. Professional advanced load testing platforms provide the means to understand how well your web applications perform under real-life end-user demands. These platforms simulate millions of concurrent, virtual users, helping your business plan and establish the best infrastructure for fast load times to meet both current and future demand.

Maximize profitability by providing a service fast enough to capitalize on conversions without overspending on unnecessary infrastructure.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...

Application Performance as a KPI for e-Business

Sven Hammar

Web application load times can make the difference between your e-business thriving or dying. Speedy load times are so essential to a web application’s success that they should be considered a key performance indicator.

Comparing sales data with performance data establishes a direct relationship between the two: A platform that performs faster will lead to higher sales. On the flip side, the damage can be significant when performance takes a hit. Amazon found that a 100ms increase in page load latency translates to a 1 percent drop in sales.

Customer Patience: Conversion vs. Speed

Performance is an often overlooked KPI. According to a study presented at Velocity 2013, each second of reduced load time between 15 and 7 seconds results in a 3 percent conversion rate increase, and each second between 7 and 5 seconds results in a 2 percent conversion hike.

In financial terms, a 100ms load time reduction can boost revenue by up to 1 percent. According to CA Technologies, most users will abandon an application if the load time is longer than six seconds. Sales come to a dead stop when the platform goes down or jumps to double-digit load times.

A theoretical example (by Apica) found that a business bringing in about $800,000 in weekly revenue will experience a total loss in revenue during an outage or a plummet in performance. While the revenue rate sees a brief 20 percent hike when the platform returns to service, it is not enough to compensate for the outage losses. Furthermore, when the example platform returned, it experienced load times of 10+ seconds — so the platform missed additional sales due to customer abandonment. Online sales can see as much as a 10 percent drop in revenue when performance is lacking due to visitor spikes.

SEO Impact: Google Rankings

Search engines including Google tend to favor websites that load faster over ones that load slower. So, if your site runs slower, you’ll be bringing in less traffic from search engines. However, content quality is still the most important metric, so slow load times should be treated as an opportunity for improvement rather than a reason to panic.

Establishing Relationships: Brand Impact

Load times also play into the brand loyalty KPI for application performance. Slow load times have a negative effect on brand recognition through a phenomenon called “web stress.” Waiting for a page to load is a stressful event, and continuously experiencing that stress causes an increasingly negative customer reaction to your brand.

Adding a mere half second to load times generates a 26 percent increase in frustration and an 8 percent decrease in engagement (Radware). Even if your application far outweighs the competition, people who use it will remember it as “the slow one” if it has long response times.

The Good News

There is no need to test your infrastructure on a live, unsuspecting audience. Professional advanced load testing platforms provide the means to understand how well your web applications perform under real-life end-user demands. These platforms simulate millions of concurrent, virtual users, helping your business plan and establish the best infrastructure for fast load times to meet both current and future demand.

Maximize profitability by providing a service fast enough to capitalize on conversions without overspending on unnecessary infrastructure.

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

Image
Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

Image
Broadcom

From growing reliance on FinOps teams to the increasing attention on artificial intelligence (AI), and software licensing, the Flexera 2025 State of the Cloud Report digs into how organizations are improving cloud spend efficiency, while tackling the complexities of emerging technologies ...