For performance-driven enterprises, a single metric that captures the entire user experience on a website has long been sought but remained elusive. Online businesses especially would benefit from such a metric, because it could help them determine the best way to optimize their sites and, as a result, increase revenue.
Consumers would benefit as well. SOASTA recently conducted a survey evaluating consumer attitudes about website performance indices. The survey found that 70% of Americans' browsing behavior would be affected if websites had performance "grades."
SOASTA launched a new index called the Consumer Performance Index (CPI), and our first use case: a benchmark study of presidential candidates' websites.
We're off to an interesting start — we evaluated visitor engagement on presidential candidates' websites, generating CPI rankings providing a directional view of how presidential candidates' websites engage potential voters. We learned that website performance matters to American voters.
Donald Trump's website had the highest CPI score with a rating of 88 — meaning that, from a performance perspective, it has the highest level of user engagement. Bernie Sanders' website followed with a rating of 87. Hillary Clinton's website came in fourth with a score of 85.5, behind the website of John Kasich (86.8). And, despite her background as a tech CEO, Carly Fiorina's website came in seventh with a rating of 85.1. Jeb Bush's website came in last, with a CPI score of 77.
This is significant because we were able to evaluate the extent to which the strength of presidential candidates' websites affects voter opinion. The answer is: quite a bit. More than three in five (63 percent specifically) of Americans said that, when visiting campaign sites, their support for presidential candidates would be negatively impacted by too many requests for information and/or donations, and an equal number (63 percent) would be put off by website issues. Only 35 percent said they'd be put off if a candidate wasn't speaking to their particular needs and concerns.
Other intriguing findings:
■ 28 percent of Americans would be put off by a website that looks outdated.
■ This percentage increases with Millennials. Some 40 percent say that an outdated-looking website would negatively affect their support for a presidential hopeful.
■ 52 percent of Americans say they'd be put off if the content of a candidate's website is not clear.
Knowing that optimizing presidential candidate websites correlates to increased engagement, these findings suggest that candidates with lower CPI scores could benefit from working on the performance of their websites.
People often underestimate the value of an orderly, well-functioning website. These results speak to that. When people visit a website and have a negative experience, it affects how they perceive the brand or, in this case, the candidate. Web and mobile app performance matters now more than ever before, and it's critical that sites have real-time visibility into the user experience.
Ann Ruckstuhl is CMO of SOASTA.
The Latest
From the accelerating adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) and generative AI (GenAI) to the ongoing challenges of cost optimization and security, these IT leaders are navigating a complex and rapidly evolving landscape. Here's what you should know about the top priorities shaping the year ahead ...
In the heat of the holiday online shopping rush, retailers face persistent challenges such as increased web traffic or cyber threats that can lead to high-impact outages. With profit margins under high pressure, retailers are prioritizing strategic investments to help drive business value while improving the customer experience ...
In a fast-paced industry where customer service is a priority, the opportunity to use AI to personalize products and services, revolutionize delivery channels, and effectively manage peaks in demand such as Black Friday and Cyber Monday are vast. By leveraging AI to streamline demand forecasting, optimize inventory, personalize customer interactions, and adjust pricing, retailers can have a better handle on these stress points, and deliver a seamless digital experience ...
Broad proliferation of cloud infrastructure combined with continued support for remote workers is driving increased complexity and visibility challenges for network operations teams, according to new research conducted by Dimensional Research and sponsored by Broadcom ...
New research from ServiceNow and ThoughtLab reveals that less than 30% of banks feel their transformation efforts are meeting evolving customer digital needs. Additionally, 52% say they must revamp their strategy to counter competition from outside the sector. Adapting to these challenges isn't just about staying competitive — it's about staying in business ...
Leaders in the financial services sector are bullish on AI, with 95% of business and IT decision makers saying that AI is a top C-Suite priority, and 96% of respondents believing it provides their business a competitive advantage, according to Riverbed's Global AI and Digital Experience Survey ...
SLOs have long been a staple for DevOps teams to monitor the health of their applications and infrastructure ... Now, as digital trends have shifted, more and more teams are looking to adapt this model for the mobile environment. This, however, is not without its challenges ...
Modernizing IT infrastructure has become essential for organizations striving to remain competitive. This modernization extends beyond merely upgrading hardware or software; it involves strategically leveraging new technologies like AI and cloud computing to enhance operational efficiency, increase data accessibility, and improve the end-user experience ...
AI sure grew fast in popularity, but are AI apps any good? ... If companies are going to keep integrating AI applications into their tech stack at the rate they are, then they need to be aware of AI's limitations. More importantly, they need to evolve their testing regiment ...
If you were lucky, you found out about the massive CrowdStrike/Microsoft outage last July by reading about it over coffee. Those less fortunate were awoken hours earlier by frantic calls from work ... Whether you were directly affected or not, there's an important lesson: all organizations should be conducting in-depth reviews of testing and change management ...