Testing Accelerated Mobile Pages

The Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) project is an open source initiative aiming to improve the web for everyone. In scope of this project one can create websites and ads that are consistently very fast, beautiful and high-performing across devices and distribution platforms. We have already implemented AMP at the iceclog blog. As the results are impressive – pages load in tenths of seconds – we are now planning to roll it out to the other icecat sites as well.

Reported Successes by Introducing AMP

Reported successes are all based on the dramatically improved page load speed, and a consistent scientifically based observation that lower response times lead to better readership and conversions. We can’t independently verify the claims as given below. For Iceclog we only can witness a dramatic improved page speed for AMP empowered content versions, and a lightning sign in Google search that seems to prefer (SEO!) such page versions in mobile search. We are still studying and evaluating other behavioral effects.

So, after these words of caution, a short overview of success claims I found online:

, the major American newspaper, reports an improvement in load time for AMP content versus traditional mobile web by 88%¹.

, a leading French organic retailer, reported some successes: an increase in mobile page speed of 5x, an increase in mobile conversion rate by 80%, and a subsequent decrease in mobile acquisition costs by 66%¹.

, a leading E-commerce platform in Brazil has 2 million AMP pages published, and reports an increase in page speed of 2x, an increase in mobile conversion by 15%¹.

Benefits for eCommerce from AMP

With instant page loading, consumers can find the information they want quickly and easily. Platforms such as Google, Pinterest, Bing, and Twitter all give preference to AMP, creating a supercharged discovery experience for users.  Better user experience normally leads to a higher engagement and better conversion.

The idea is that AMP super fast content loading keeps customers engaged as they move swiftly through browse and purchase flows. Better for content consumption and ecommerce.  Both for big marketplaces and small stores.

AMP’s three main components

There are three core components that AMP are built with:

• The AMP HTML that is actually HTML extended with custom AMP properties.
• The AMP JS that guarantees fast rendering of the AMP HTML pages
• The AMP Cache  that is normally used to serve cached AMP HTML pages

There are plugins for WordPress, which we used for our blog. And there are developers like converdy creating page builders that are geared towards A/B testing of AMP empowered pages to measure and further improve conversion rates.

1 Source of information: www.ampproject.org

Vazha Abramishvili

Chief Operating Officer at Icecat