One bad ingredient can spoil the pot. That’s what online ticket seller Ticketmaster.com found out this week in the AppDynamics/Mobile Strategies 360 Performance Index.

Ticketmaster placed last in mobile site performance on both 3G and 4G networks in the index for the week ending June 21. A mobile performance expert says a high number of elements and heavy weight of its home page—common culprits for low rankings—weren’t the issue for the Ticketmaster mobile site. Rather, the culprit was probably server response time.

Ticketmaster loaded 72 elements on its home page on 3G and 70 4G, compared with the average for all sites of 78 elements for 3G and 73 for 4G. Its home page weight was also lower than average at 2.17 megabytes for 3G and 1.12 megabytes for 4G compared to the average of 2.4 megabytes for 3G and 1.4 for 4G. Ticketmaster’s server response time is likely, at least in part, to blame for the low ranking, says Peter Kacandes, senior product marketing manager, mobile, web and synthetics, at AppDynamics.

“Digging a little bit further into the data, we can see that Ticketmaster.com’s server response time is quite a bit slower than others,”Kacandes says. That leads to a slow first render, also known as the time it takes for the web browser to begin drawing the visual elements of the home page. It also leads to a slower visually complete home page, or the time it takes until the browser is finished drawing the elements of the page. Both determine a Speed Score for each company in the index. Companies are ranked on the Speed Score.

Kacandes says Ticketmaster’s server response time is 5.56 seconds on 4G networks compared, for example, to higher-ranking Amazon.com’s 0.201 seconds on 4G. “As a rule of thumb, server response time should be under (or around) 200 milliseconds, which Amazon.com hits on the nose,” Kacandes says. “If Ticketmaster.com had a similar server response time, it would move up from near the bottom of the list to right around the average.”

Ticketmaster did not immediately respond to a request for comment on its mobile site performance.

The exclusive App Dynamics/Mobile Strategies 360 Performance Index tracks key mobile site metrics across a range of sites to calculate a weekly average Speed Score on both 3G and 4G mobile carrier networks. The index represents a snapshot of mobile site performance across industries, including retailers such as HSN.com, insurance companies such as NorthwesternMutual.com and restaurants such as McDonalds.com.

AppDynamics each week measures performance metrics of both 3G and 4G networks for each of the sites in the index to determine each site’s Speed Score.

They include:

• First render: The time, (in seconds) it takes until the web browser starts drawing the visual elements of a page.
• Visually complete: The time (in seconds) it takes until the web browser has completed drawing the visual elements of a page.
• Number of elements loaded: The number of resources loaded by a page.
• Complete load: The size of the home page when all data is loaded (in megabytes) 

Using these metrics, the index calculates the Speed Score. The Speed Score is a ratio that rewards businesses for displaying more visual content earlier rather than later. The earlier a mobile site looks complete to a consumer, the better the mobile experience for the visitor, even if a few remaining elements are displayed later. A site with a higher ratio of content displayed earlier will have a better Speed Score than a site with the same visually complete time but a longer first render time.

For example, site A may have a visually complete time of three seconds, loading 90% of its content in the first second and the remaining 10% in seconds two and three. Site B may have the same three-second visually complete time, but present zero content in the first two seconds and 100% in the third second. The sites have identical visually complete times, but Site A will be perceived as much faster, and will earn a better Speed Score as a result.

The index displays the average across the mobile sites for each metric as well as the average Speed Score on both 3G and 4G networks.

For the week ending June 21, the average Speed Score for 3G was 9.1 seconds compared with 9.2 seconds a week earlier. The average first render was 6.3 seconds compared with 6.5 seconds. Visually complete average was 14.1 seconds compared to 14.3. Number of elements loaded was 77.9 versus 81.75. And average weight was the same week over week at 2.4 megabytes.

On 4G, the average Speed Score was 5 seconds compared with 5.2 seconds a week earlier. The average first render was 3.6 seconds compared with 3.9 seconds. Visually complete average was 7.9 seconds compared to 8.2. Average number of elements loaded was 73 versus 76.93. And average weight was the same week over week at 1.4 megabytes.

Insurance company NorthwesternMutual.com ranked first on 3G with a Speed Score of 4.4. Its average first render on 3G took 4.3 seconds and visually complete time was 10.8 seconds. Its home page contained 65 elements and weighed on average 2.51 megabytes. 

Amazon.com nabbed the top Speed Score on 4G with a score of 1.9 seconds. Its average first render on 4G took 1.3 seconds and visually complete time was 6.8 seconds. Its home page contained 106 elements and weighed on average 0.73 megabytes. 

The index is accompanied by a chart on MobileStrategies360.com that is refreshed weekly to illustrate how each mobile site performs as well as index averages. 

Sign up for a free subscription to Mobile Strategies 360, a new weekly newsletter reporting on how businesses in all industries use mobile technologies to communicate with and market and sell to their consumers. Mobile Strategies 360 is published by Vertical Web Media LLC, which also publishes Internet Retailer, a business publication on e-retailing.

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