Compound's Dexter Da Silva on Why Site Speed Matters

Compound’s Dexter Da Silva on Why Site Speed Matters

In the era of short attention spans, site speed is everything. That's not an exaggeration: According to Deloitte, lethargic initial load times are the primary reason why consumers abandon mobile carts. Any eCommerce brand looking to optimize should aim to combat those customer losses. 

That’s why the Nostra team sat down with Dexter Da Silva, Director of Product at Compound and an expert in product growth — from UI/UX to core product design and functionality. Every day, he identifies growth and A/B testing opportunities for brands to boost CVR and engagement and minimize bounce rates. 

Below, Dexter provides true expert-level insights into: 

1. How to build a robust foundation for your eCom site
2. Why fast site speed improves AOV, LTV, and more
3. The benefits of using Nostra for brands of any size

Let’s dive in. 

“Ultimately, there are only four metrics you care about: acquisitions, AOV, LTV, and conversion rate. Nostra will help with all of them. Install it, run a holdout test, and see the impact. Let the tool speak for itself."

Without Reliable Site Speed, Your Storefront will Not Convert

Site speed is a cornerstone of conversion. If you do not understand how fast or slow your site is and what’s responsible for its latency, you will not be able to make any improvements downstream, such as developing new product cards or allowing shoppers to build wishlists. 

So, if you’re ramping up your eCom site, Dexter strongly advises establishing excellent site speed from day one. He specifically recommends one turnkey solution to supercharge your site speed: Nostra’s Edge Delivery Engine™, which has set up the Compound team for impressive results. 

• After just one hour of onboarding, Compound saw a 8% bump in CVR.
  
• After running a 30-day test against Nostra, Compound found they lost money on the user segment that browsed without Nostra and gained a CVR boost on the segment that browsed with Nostra’s improved site speed.

For a deeper look at how to build an airtight foundation for your eCom website, follow these two steps from Dexter:

Step 1: Solidify your site speed so you don’t bleed acquisitions

Countless eCom brands invest in paid marketing. If someone clicks on one of your social ads, you need your site to load in milliseconds before that visitor loses interest and clicks away. In other words, a laggy site will lead you to bleed expensive acquisitions.

Step 2: Optimize your navigation for easy shopping

Here are two areas where the navigability of your website is critical: 

• Organize products intuitively — When people know what they’re looking for, they head straight to your product page. So, streamline their ability to find the specific SKUs they already know they want. 
• Give them just enough options — If someone clicks on an ad and navigates to your site, you must present them with the right options. Too many cause decision fatigue, while too few harm their ability to browse and find what they want. 

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“I consider site speed foundational. If you do not have a sound understanding of how fast or slow your website is, there is nothing you can do to improve metrics on the product side.”

Here are 2 Website Strategies Leveraged by the Highest-Performing Brands

Dexter regularly audits eCom stores to understand how brands with successful websites maintain their edge. Here are two strategies working right now: 

Tactic #1: Spotlight your user’s pain points through video

True Classic has grown by $150 million in three years. Dexter attributes part of that growth to a solid site strategy: They communicate exceptionally well with images and video. 

They claim to sell the best t-shirt for men, so their most prominent homepage feature is one of the best side-by-side product comparison videos Dexter has ever seen. It takes only three seconds to drive home the difference — far faster than a wall of text or a dozen photos.

Tactic #2: Know which emotional levers to pull to encourage conversion

This tactic goes back to basic Consumer Psychology 101. It’s less applicable to a category like B2B, but directly impacts smaller, day-to-day buys. The emotion that drives those decisions to buy can be anything, from happiness to relatability to anger. 

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Brands making $10+ million unlock a new level of success when they leverage psychographics, connecting a pain point to an emotion that makes people feel seen and understood. Take True Classics' video assets: They show shoppers that this brand knows exactly how they want their t-shirts improved. 

Ask yourself these questions to get on the right path: 

• Can we take our shoppers from a logical to an emotional place? 
• How can we elicit a reaction from our customers? 
• How do we compellingly present our brand in response? 

Improving Site Speed Supercharges Other Conversion Strategies

Once you do the hard work of understanding your audience and amplifying the emotional appeal of your product, layering on a site speed tool like Nostra only improves that CVR and more. 

Dexter distills some of Nostra's greatest value-adds for Compound so far: 

• Streamlined acquisitions — There is far less friction during the shopper’s first visit. 
• Increased AOV — It’s easier for shoppers to "Quick Add" SKUs to their carts. 
• Increased LTV — More people return since the entire shopping experience is so smooth. 

When Compound wanted to add videos to their site, they worried this would drag down their already slow Shopify storefront speeds. Introducing Nostra completely solved that issue, and their site is now faster than most. In fact, Compound's CVR and site speed increased so much that their Shopify rep reached out to ask how they managed an 80–90 Lighthouse score — something unheard of for a company of their size. 

Knowing this, Dexter highlights that no matter the size of your business, implementing Nostra is a no-brainer. In his words:

“When you look at a tool like Nostra, it is so straightforward. It’s simple to implement, causes zero headaches, and helps your website convert better. Why wouldn’t you use it?”

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Trying to optimize your website for conversions like Compound? Book a demo with Nostra to explore our products and get a free assessment of your site's performance. 

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