Do popups slow down your website too?

[EmreElbeyoglu]

I installed a popup builder app on my site via the Shopify app store, but I saw that it affects the loading speed of the site.

Although I installed another tool, the result did not change. I've tried 4 different tools, but they all create a delay of 1-2 seconds.

Do you have a solution for this?

[JohnCodes]

Great question @EmreElbeyoglu!

Unfortunately, installing more apps will likely have a negative effect on page speed since you're adding more resources that need to load. You just need to weight the pros/cons of having your popup app installed. You said it increases page speed by 1-2 seconds, but if this boosts sales/conversions then it may be worth it to accept that increase in page speed.

Are you having the popup display right away? We've found success in waiting about 30 seconds to give the page time to load and for the user to move around before displaying the popup.

You could also look for other areas in your store that could be optimized to try and offset that increase in page speed. We have a great blog post: How to Optimize a Shopify Site: Complete Guide to Faster Load Speed. You could also run your site through our free Shopify Analyzer to see if there are any optimization opportunities to target.

Hope this helps!

[jameskosh]

Yes, popups will affect your website speed. If we're talking strictly the metrics measured by your Shopify Speed Score, Lighthouse, and PageSpeed Insights, a popup that shows up when the page loads will increase your reported "load time" and affect your score because the popup will be considered your largest content on the page (i.e. Largest Contentful Paint or LCP). This is especially detrimental to your SEO since LCP is considered a Core Web Vital by Google and starting next year these will be factored into your search rankings.

If you want to reduce the impact of a popup on your site speed, I would recommend only loading it after the page has loaded (i.e. 10 or 20 seconds after the DOMContentLoaded event has fired).

[oreoorbitz]

Yes, what everyone above said.

I recommend you find a pop up app that has a manual installation option and set it up to install when a user scrolls, this way it doesn't get counted by pagespeed insight, it'll still load, so really your not changing anything but your increasing your score, if you care about the effect the score will have on your search engine results.

I have a post with code on how to do that in this thread: https://community.shopify.com/c/Online-Store-Speed/Tips-and-resources-for-speed-optimization-focused... .

[FlatartAgency · Accepted solution]

I have worked hard on this issue for our website. Since most popup apps use some unnecessary files to the website, they slowed down the site speed significantly. Moreover, if your targeting is user-based, the system first checks this and significantly affects the website speed.

My advice is to use tools that will allow you to add popups without requiring a shopify app. I have 2 suggestions for these.

Popupsmart (Free up to 10,000 Pageview - 29 $ 100,000 Pageview) -Features https://popupsmart.com/explore-features/

speed explained on popupsmarts website

Sleeknote (Paid - $ 50,000 Pageview $ 69) Features: https://sleeknote.com/features