3rd Parties

2019 3rd Party Index Now Available

Post date 10/09/2019

Author Emily Wiseheart

Today, YOTTAA launched the second annual 3rd Party Index, an eCommerce 3rd party technology performance impact guide. In last year’s report, we measured the saturation and usage of individual 3rd parties across our entire client base of 1,500 eCommerce sites, and scored which of these technologies had the most impact on site performance.

As the cause of over 70% of eCommerce site latency, 3rd party technologies can have a serious impact on both conversion and shopper experience. The 2019 eCommerce 3rd Party Technology Index provides the industry with a single source of truth on how these 3rd parties are affecting site performance and online revenue.

Because we have an entire year of new data to compare to last year’s findings, this year’s report contains year-over-year comparisons, emerging trends, 3rd party usage broken down by eCommerce platform, and investigates twice as many technologies.

Below is a preview of some of the key findings from the 2019 3rd Party Index:

Year-Over-Year Analysis

Most improved 3rd party technologies

After we released the first index in 2018, many retailers across the industry were amazed to learn that detailed data on the performance of the 3rd parties on their sites existed, as they had never seen a similar report.

But retailers weren’t the only ones who took notice of the 3rd party performance details. Many of the technology vendors themselves were interested to see how their solutions were impacting eCommerce performance.

In fact, some 3rd party vendors that were labeled as top violators last year reached out to YOTTAA to see what they could do. For example, TurnTo Networks, a customer reviews technology vendor, took our feedback and improved significantly.

They ended up achieving an impressive turnaround from last year’s 3rd Party Index, and we’re happy to report they have made a 58% improvement. Checkout the full report to find out which technologies improved and which ones did worse.

Up and coming categories

There were a few categories that really stood out this year in terms of increased adoption or being a new category overall. Online brands continue to find new and emerging technologies that will help them create the best shopper experience possible.

Here’s a list of these up and coming technology categories:

Customer Information Management
User Generated Content
Payment Plans
SEO Marketing
Privacy Compliance

Download the full report for details on these categories.

Top 20 3rd Parties Deployed by Retailers

YOTTAA measures the saturation and usage of individual 3rd parties across our entire client base. Below are the top 20 3rd parties used during our evaluation period.

We noticed some new technologies making their way onto the list while we also found that some notable 3rd parties have completely fallen off this year’s chart. In the index, we also indicate the technology categories which are the most saturated by vendors and speak to Google’s ownership of many of the top 3rd parties.

Here is a preview of the list of the top 20 3rd parties used during our evaluation period. Check out the full report for the entire list of technologies and their performance ranking:

Key Takeaways

Overall, this report was designed to help retailers gain full visibility into which 3rd parties the industry is using the most and how those technologies are impacting performance. Since it contains information on nearly 400 3rd parties across a wide range of eCommerce categories, this index can be used as a technology selection guide when brands are looking to add more features and functionality to eCommerce sites.

Even though 3rd parties can have a huge negative impact on eCommerce site performance, that doesn’t mean you should get rid of them. Thousands of brands today use YOTTAA, which is purpose-built for improving the performance of sophisticated eCommerce sites. YOTTAA’s acceleration solutions optimize and sequence the loading of 3rd party technologies (regardless of their index rating), so shoppers experience fast loading website pages on every visit. The result is an eCommerce website with higher conversions and more engaging shopping experiences.