Case Study

NSI Prioritizes Page Speed to Drive a More Profitable Experience

nsi page speed header

OVERVIEW

Northern Safety and Industrial (NSI) is always prioritizing ways to better serve its customers, continuously making improvements to optimize its digital experience.

Challenge

NSI’s mission statement centers around delivering the products and services their customers need and desire. Their customers’ needs grew in 2020 due to the pandemic, which created a surge in demand for their products. Keeping up with the demand for inventory was one challenge, but the company also understood the importance of providing an optimal digital experience that meets their customers’ expectations.

nsi safety equipment

nsi safety equipment

Solution

NSI partnered with Blast to better understand and optimize their on-site experience. As part of this partnership, Blast provided strategic recommendations to improve the entire experience, from acquisition to on-site engagement.

For example, Blast presented specific recommendations on page speed to optimize organic channel performance. Furthermore, Blast collaborated with NSI on turning these insights into action. In fact, within a short amount of time, NSI implemented a number of top priority page speed recommendations in January 2021.

Results

To properly measure the business impact of implementing these page speed recommendations, performance had to be evaluated over a span of several months. Specifically, Blast analyzed average page load speed, average revenue per user, and revenue by looking at data month-over-month (MoM) from January through March 2021.

Performance from January to March showed a 21% improvement in average page load speed, 51% increase in average revenue per user, and 50% increase in revenue for the organic channel.
load speed revenue per user

MoM Impact on Revenue

Blast and NSI wanted to provide additional statistical rigor to ensure that these business impacts were not due to mere chance (for example, statistical significance of 50% or less). The only way to truly establish causation is through a formal experiment, which isn’t always possible, especially for page speed recommendations.

As the next-best approach, Blast data scientists applied Regression Discontinuity Design (RDD) modeling to the data. In doing so, NSI was able to see that there was a significant decrease in average page load speed around the time they implemented the recommendations (more than a -1 second decrease in page load speed, with 99% statistical significance). Moreover, Blast was able to establish confidence in the impact to average revenue per user, as the model shows a jump in average revenue per user (more than a $3 increase, with 91% statistical significance) at the time the recommendations were implemented. Finally, in analyzing revenue performance, we were able to see an increase in daily revenue (more than a $3,000 increase, with 73% statistical significance).

average page load time pre SEO

average revenue post seo

daily revenue post seo

Ultimately, pairing this RDD modeling with the significant MoM improvement in metrics seen for the organic channel lends greater confidence in these results. Specifically, it provides additional rigor to the insight that page speed improvements had a positive impact on key business metrics for NSI.

At Blast, the most common mistake we’ve seen brands make is not taking action on the insights they receive to improve their digital experience. In the end, these brands struggle to recognize the return on investment (ROI) from their efforts. In this case, NSI did an excellent job in taking fast action on key insights, which drove a positive impact on their business metrics. By partnering with Blast, NSI achieved a 8.5x ROI for this effort.

Project Overview

Goals

  • Deliver an optimal digital experience that meets customers’ expectations

Approach

  • Provide strategic recommendations to improve the customer experience, from acquisition to on-site engagement

Results

  • 21% improvement in average page load speed
  • 51% increase in average revenue per user
  • 50% increase in revenue
  • 8.5x Return on Investment (ROI)

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