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SOASTA Announces the Consumer Performance Index to Measure How Website Performance Impacts Consumer Engagement
[October 14, 2015]

SOASTA Announces the Consumer Performance Index to Measure How Website Performance Impacts Consumer Engagement


SOASTA (News - Alert), the leader in performance analytics, announced today the Consumer Performance Index (CPI), a new way to benchmark how well a website engages consumers.

The SOASTA CPI is a metric that evaluates website performance as measured by user engagements to provide a single effectiveness score. The CPI doesn't just measure speed-it also evaluates user reaction via bounce rate. With the CPI, SOASTA measures the experience of a digital site by benchmarking it against real user performance data from high-traffic Internet sites monitored by SOASTA, including 41 of the Top 100 Internet retailers, and condensing it into a single score to help businesses determine how their website performance impacts consumer engagement.

SOASTA is also releasing today the results of a survey evaluating consumer attitudes about website performance indices like the CPI. The survey found that:

  • 70% of Americans' browsing behavior would be affected if websites had performance "grades," and that percentage increases to 81% of the Millennial women polled.
  • 53% of Millennial women said they would skip online shopping sites with poor grades, and, conversely, 56% said they would do more shopping on sites with good grades.
  • 42% of Millennial women said they would think less of tech companies whose sites had poor performance grades.

Today's Key Differentiator: Performance

Performance is now the critical differentiator for brands across the globe in all industries. The SOASTA CPI functions as a "universal translator," enabling businesses to quickly see their performance compared to that of top-performing brands. As improvement projects are undertaken, companies can monitor the CPI score to determine if their efforts are actually helping to improve consumer engagement.

Using the SOASTA CPI, companies can determine:

  • If ptimization projects are improving consumer engagement
  • How a site is performing compared to the sites of top-performing brands
  • How to improve revenue and conversion
  • What website efforts to prioritize - performance or functionality?



The CPI focuses on the interaction between a site and its visitors. Rather than just looking at the speed that a page renders, it looks at how users respond to the digital experience. This is significant because a faster and more responsive site engages its users and increases conversion.

"Because the CPI measures how a site's speed and responsiveness influence engagement and, ultimately, conversion rates, we are able to provide a metric that helps online businesses determine the best way to optimize their sites and, as a result, increase revenue," explained Tom Lounibos, CEO and Co-Founder, SOASTA. "The SOASTA CPI delivers information about how a consumer will respond, not just about how fast a site is delivered. Knowing page load times is just one piece of the optimization puzzle."


The SOASTA CPI: One Unique Metric for Visibility and Goal Setting

Most businesses simply measure the speed of their website and app using a simulation of users against their site. With the SOASTA CPI, however, they can determine how consumers are responding to their sites based on behavior on many sites with comparative response times. In addition, because the CPI condenses both site performance and consumer engagement into a single score, users of the CPI can easily gauge web performance without having to look at multiple data points. This also helps ensure that performance is optimized for all devices.

"In today's performance-driven business environment, you're not competing with another company - you're really competing for the consumer's time and attention. Companies will be well served to understand how effectively their websites engage with consumers at large," said R "Ray" Wang, Constellation Research's CEO and best-selling author.

To find out more about SOASTA CPI, visit this site: www.soasta.com/cpi

About SOASTA

SOASTA is the leader in performance analytics. The SOASTA platform enables digital business owners to gain unprecedented and continuous performance insights into their real user experience on mobile and web devices in real time and at scale. With more than 3 billion user experiences monitored, measured, tested and optimized every week, SOASTA is the digital performance expert trusted by industry-leading brands, including 41 of the Top 100 Internet Retailers, such as Target, Nordstrom, Staples, Sears, Walmart, Etsy, Nike, Best Buy, Adobe, Intuit, Microsoft (News - Alert), DirectTV, Netflix and BBC. SOASTA is privately held and headquartered in Mountain View, Calif. For more information about SOASTA, visit http://www.soasta.com.


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