A little-noticed change to Google’s AdWords policy ( http://tinyurl.com/6kqcox ) means big changes for marketers and the buyers they want to reach. Google is now charging advertisers based on how fast their Web sites’ landing pages load. Faster sites pay less. Slower sites pay more. By monetizing the performance of advertisers’ landing pages, Google is using economics to motivate online marketers to examine their technical underpinnings and eliminate performance bottlenecks.
“Now is the time for online marketers to take advantage of AlertSite’s complementary trial of performance monitoring and measurement tools, and to see–for free–how long it takes for their landing pages to download,” says Ken Gross, President and CEO of AlertSite. “You can’t optimize what you can’t measure. With AlertSite’s technology, marketers can quickly identify poorly performing landing pages, and tweak them to meet Google’s new performance requirements. And that will literally put money in the bank and lead to a better consumer experience, which is, at the end of the day, the marketer’s objective.”
AlertSite’s Adwords Landing Page Integrity Scan is available at http://www.alertsite.com/scanmypage and can be used to assess the performance of any landing page. While Google is now offering advertisers its own landing page test to show current quality scores, AlertSite is able to deliver a more comprehensive report to AdWords advertisers with key metrics and benchmarking tools that show how the site stacks up. The AlertSite report includes the following information:
— Landing Page Response Time: The time it takes the entire page to load onscreen, including all page objects such as Flash files and images
— DNS Lookup: The amount of time it takes for the Domain Name System to convert the name of a Web site to an IP address
— Connect Time: The amount of time it takes to connect to the Web site’s server once the IP address has been located
— Redirect Time: The amount of time it takes for a Web page’s old URL to be redirected to the current URL
— First Byte: The amount of time it takes the first unit of Web page information to load once the connection to a server has been established
Marketers can also consult with an AlertSite performance advisor who will make sure their site and Web applications are secure and performing optimally. The performance advisor will discuss the marketer’s unique monitoring requirements, provide a thorough overview of AlertSite’s user interface and service features, and arrange to monitor the marketer’s site at no charge, for a full month.
“Advertisers were taken by surprise by this change to Google’s AdWords policy,” Gross says. “They’ve had no time to assess and improve the performance of their landing pages. Those with slow landing pages–such as those powered by Flash or Silverlight, or with lots of graphics–could fork over much more cash per click, and throw carefully budgeted marketing plans into the red. Conversely, those who speed up their pages will get more clicks per dollar, and stretch their AdWords spend.”
To learn more about AlertSite’s array of services, including its Security Vulnerability Scan and Web Site Load Test, please visit http://www.AlertSite.com or call an AlertSite performance advisor at 877-302-5378.
ABOUT ALERTSITE.COM
AlertSite is a leading provider of web performance management solutions that ensure a customer’s web-based services and applications are always available and running at peak performance. More than 2,300 customers worldwide rely on AlertSite to understand and enhance the end-user web experience, including Rooms To Go, Purina Mills, Sierra Trading Post and Vermont Teddy Bear.