In February, Google officially rolled out AMP (short for Accelerated Mobile Pages). Google says mobile web pages load 85% faster with AMP. Faster rendering means more page views, leading to more ad views (which also load much faster).
At the same time, Facebook announced Canvas, a new fullscreen mobile ad format that can instantaneously load many types of interactive content, including animations, images, GIFs, videos and more. How instantaneous? As much as 10 times faster than the standard mobile web, according to Facebook.
Although ads are only a part of Google’s AMP while Canvas is an ad product in itself, there is a clear connection between the two. Both of these advances bring mobile ‘cloud-based’ engagements to near native-loading times. By dramatically reducing loading time, the user experience is vastly improved. Google and Facebook are essentially telling the world that the user experience is now the single most important component of mobile advertising, for users and businesses alike.
When two of the top players in the digital world make such clear and similar statements on the state of the industry through their products, others will undoubtedly follow.
Who’s in?
Major publishers have already started producing AMP versions of all their content. Now, when you Google a news topic, AMP results appear at the top of the page in a carousel-style format that makes it easy to swipe left and right between stories. Twitter and LinkedIn have signed on as partners to the project, which should make social browsing smoother as well; in fact, Twitter Moments now link directly to AMPs.
While Google doesn’t use AMP as a ranking signal today, it does prominently feature AMP pages. Chances are, it will start doing so in the future, though. Over time, it will then increase the importance of using AMP just like it did with its first efforts in ranking mobile-friendly sites higher.
For publishers, brands, and even e-commerce sites, utilizing AMP means faster load times and a better user experience. After all, don’t we want our audience to engage faster regardless of the device?