A Forrester Total Economic Impact™
Study Commissioned By Google
November 2017

The Total Economic
Impact™ Of Accelerated
Mobile Pages (AMP)
Cost Savings And Business Benefits From
Building Fast, High Performing Mobile
Experiences With AMP

Table Of Contents
Executive Summary

1

Key Findings

1

TEI Framework And Methodology

3

The AMP Journey

4Interviewed Organizations

4

Key Challenges

4

Solution Requirements

5

Key Results: eCommerce

5

Key Results: Publishers

6

eCommerce Composite Organization

6

Financial Analysis

7

Profit Growth From Increased Conversion Rate

7

Profit Growth From Increased AMP Site Traffic

8

Flexibility

9

Pilot/Proof-Of-Concept Costs

11

Training And Ramp-Up Costs

12

Site Development And Maintenance Costs

13

Performance Testing, Analysis, And Reporting

14

Financial Summary
AMP: Overview
Appendix A: Total Economic Impact

16
17
18

ABOUT FORRESTER CONSULTING
Project Directors:
Adam Schlegel
Benjamin Brown

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© 2017, Forrester Research, Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized reproduction
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Opinions reflect judgment at the time and are subject to change. Forrester®,Technographics®, Forrester Wave, RoleView, TechRadar, and Total Economic
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Executive Summary
Key Benefits

Profit growth from a 20%
increase in conversion rate:$676,822

Profit growth from a 10%
increase in AMP site visitors:$328,625

The convergence of shrinking customer attention spans and the seeminglyinterminable appetite for better content and website monetization havecreated a plethora of poor mobile experiences, characterized by slow,
unresponsive pages, and obtrusive ads that damage the customer
experience. Google commissioned Forrester Consulting to conduct a Total
Economic Impact™ (TEI) study to examine the potential return on
investment (ROI) organizations may realize by building fast, higher
performing mobile experiences using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP).
The purpose of this study is to provide readers with a framework toevaluate the potential financial impact of using AMP.
AMP is an open source framework that allows organizations to easily
create fast, engaging, and high-performing web pages with their existingdeveloper skill sets and minimal additional training. To better understandthe benefits, costs, and risks associated with this investment, Forresterinterviewed four companies with experience using AMP.
Prior to building AMP experiences for their customers, interviewees were
plagued by dismal page load times, poor responsiveness, and stark
performance inconsistencies across their desktop and mobile sites. Using
AMP, the eCommerce vendors and publishers interviewed for this study
improved site viewability, customer engagement, and site monetization.

Key Findings
Quantified benefits. The following risk-adjusted present value (PV)quantified benefits are representative of those experienced by eCommercecompanies interviewed for this study. The ROI figure included in thisanalysis is based on a composite organization representative of existing
AMP eCommerce vendors interviewed for the study:“AMP is the content
delivery method of the
future because it’s fast,
verifiable, and secure.”
Chief executive officer,
eCommerce vendor› Profit growth from a 20% sales conversion rate increase. A/B testing
conducted by the eCommerce vendors interviewed for this study
demonstrated a 20% increase in conversion rate of site visitors tocompleted purchases from their AMP pages, driving increased profit of$676,822 over three years.
› Profit growth from a 10% year-over-year increase in AMP sitetraffic. Both the publishers and eCommerce organizations that wereinterviewed for the study indicated that they were able to increase sitetraffic volume using their AMP pages. Site traffic increases compoundedthe value of conversion rate increases experienced by AMP eCommercesites, driving $328,625 in profit growth over three years.
Unquantified benefits for publishers and eCommerce organizations.
The interviewed organizations experienced several benefits of AMP thatwere not directly quantified nor included in the return on investment (ROI)
calculation for this study:› Improved discoverability and site traffic by 10%. While increased sitetraffic is included in the ROI for this study, from the perspective of an
eCommerce site, publishers also benefit from higher site traffic volumes.
› Improved customer and reader engagement. Once on the AMP site,
publishers and eCommerce interviewees indicated that site visitors
better engaged with their content and products. Interviewees
experienced a 60% increase in pages per visit, 0.3% increase in return
visitors, while time spent on page per visit increased twofold.

1 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)› Improved page load time. Runtime performance failures plagued thelegacy pages of most organizations interviewed for this study, with this
impact being particularly pronounced in areas with poor bandwidth.
Interviewees eliminated slow render-blocking scripts and used AMP's
prerendering mechanisms, cached pages, and other performance
boosters to reduce page load times in AMP by over 80%.

ROI
377%

› Reduced customer support costs. One interviewee saw a reduction incustomer service requests as a result of its improved AMP experience.
While this effect was only measured by one interviewee, it is possiblethat other organizations could achieve similar results.

Benefits PV$1 million› Better advertising performance. A publisher interviewed for the study
indicated that it saw a 20% increase in its ad placement click-throughrate (CTR). While this effect was only measured by one interviewee, it ispossible that other organizations could achieve similar results.
Costs. The interviewed organizations experienced the following riskadjusted costs:

NPV$794,620› AMP pilot and proof of concept (PoC). These are the resource costs
for developer, designer, analyst, and executive oversight needed to build
an AMP pilot page and conduct A/B testing for the PoC.

Payback<6 months› AMP training and ramp up. These are the resource costs fordevelopers to train and familiarize themselves with AMP components.
› AMP design, development, and maintenance. These are the resource
costs for developer, designer, and executive oversight needed for the full
AMP page development and ongoing site maintenance effort.
› AMP performance testing, analysis, and reporting. This cost is for aninternal data analyst resource to conduct ongoing AMP pageperformance testing, analysis, and reporting.
Forrester’s interviews with four companies that have built AMP
experiences and subsequent financial analysis found that a composite
organization based on these interviewed companies experienced benefitsof $1,005,447 over three years versus costs of $210,827, adding up to a
net present value (NPV) of $794,620 and an ROI of 377%.
Benefits (Three-Year)

Financial Summary$677K

Payback<6 months

Total
benefits
PV, $1.0M

Total
costs PV,
$211K
InitialYear 1

Year 2

Year 3

2 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)$329K

Profit growth fromincreased conversion rate

Profit growth fromincreased AMP site traffic

TEI Framework And Methodology
From the information provided in the interviews, Forrester has constructeda Total Economic Impact™ (TEI) framework for those organizations
considering building AMP sites.
The objective of the framework is to identify the cost, benefit, flexibility, andrisk factors that affect the investment decision. Forrester took a multistep
approach to evaluate the impact that AMP can have on an organization:

The TEI methodology
helps companies
demonstrate, justify,
and realize thetangible value of IT
initiatives to bothsenior management
and other key
businessstakeholders.

DUE DILIGENCE
Interviewed Google stakeholders and Forrester analysts to gather data
relative to AMP.
CUSTOMER INTERVIEWSInterviewed four organizations using AMP to obtain data with respect tocosts, benefits, and risks.
COMPOSITE ORGANIZATION
Designed a composite organization based on characteristics of theinterviewed organizations.
FINANCIAL MODEL FRAMEWORK
Constructed a financial model representative of the interviews using the
TEI methodology and risk-adjusted the financial model based on issues
and concerns of the interviewed organizations.
CASE STUDY
Employed four fundamental elements of TEI in modeling AMP’s impact:
benefits, costs, flexibility, and risks. Given the increasing sophisticationthat enterprises have regarding ROI analyses related to IT investments,
Forrester’s TEI methodology serves to provide a complete picture of thetotal economic impact of purchase decisions. Please see Appendix A for
additional information on the TEI methodology.

DISCLOSURES
Readers should be aware of the following:This study is commissioned by Google and delivered by Forrester Consulting. It
is not meant to be used as a competitive analysis.
Forrester makes no assumptions as to the potential ROI that otherorganizations will receive. Forrester strongly advises that readers use their own
estimates within the framework provided in the report to determine theappropriateness of an investment in building AMP mobile web pages.
Google reviewed and provided feedback to Forrester, but Forrester maintains
editorial control over the study and its findings and does not accept changes tothe study that contradict Forrester’s findings or obscure the meaning of thestudy.
Google provided the customer names for the interviews but did not participate
in the interviews.

3 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)The AMP Journey
BEFORE AND AFTER THE BUILDING AMP MOBILE EXPERIENCES

Interviewed Organizations
For this study, Forrester conducted four interviews with brands using AMP to build fast, high-performing
experiences for their customers and readers. As seen in the table below, interviewed brands included both
eCommerce companies and publishers. While the key performance indicator (KPI) uplift objectives and businessvalue outcomes of AMP users varied across eCommerce and other publishing use cases, interviewees shared asimilar set of mobile experience challenges and solution requirements in making their decision to build out AMP
experiences.
AMP USE CASEREGIONINTERVIEWEESKEY METRICS

eCommerce

USA

Chief executive officer
Head of operations and R&D

4M to 5M unique monthly visitors
100K AMP pages
70% mobile visitors<100 employees

eCommerce /brand websites

EMEA

Senior manager, digital analytics

370 distinct websites
80% mobile visitors
100K+ employees

Publisher

GlobalLead product manager
Senior product manager

100M unique monthly visitors
1,000 daily AMP articles
55% mobile visitors
10K+ employees

Publisher

GlobalChief product officer

200M unique monthly visitors
1,500 daily AMP articles
750 employees

Key Challenges
Prior to building AMP mobile web pages for their buyers and readers,interviewees shared a number challenges and pain points with theirmobile experience that diminished reader engagement and hurt thecustomer experience. These challenges included:› Poor page load times and high bounce rates. Interviewees
indicated that their non-AMP mobile web pages were bogged down by
distracting JavaScript, resulting in terrible page load times, runtime
errors, and high visitor bounce rates.
› Disparity across interviewed brand’s desktop and mobile user
experiences. Several interviewees indicated that they historicallyfocused on the desktop experience, doing very little in terms of mobile
web optimization. All interviewees noted that from leadership on down,
their organizations knew they were missing an opportunity and were
eager to try new platforms to improve their mobile experience.
› Inability to engage mobile visitors with their content, products,
and brand through mobile channels. Slow page load times createdpoor mobile experiences, high bounce rates, and low user engagementlevels. As one publisher put it, “AMP has made us think harder about
how to make our own mobile site faster, because we have seen a
direct relationship between site performance and engagement.”

4 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)“We see how quick our AMP
experience is, and so when weclick on our old mobile web
pages, we realize, ‘Damn,
that’s slow.’”
Chief product officer,
publisher“Leadership was excited andinterested in exploring AMP —they are eager to try new
platforms.”
Senior manager,
publisherSolution Requirements
The interviewed organizations searched for a solution that could deliver
the following business outcomes:› Ability to maintain design and layout flexibility while concurrently
improving speed and mobile performance. While interviewees
desperately needed to improve the speed and performance of theirmobile web sites, this could not be done at the expense of theirunique brand style, analytics tracking capabilities, ad placement, androbust site features that encourage deeper funnel interactions with
their sites and brands.

“With the new changes to AMP,
it’s becoming almost turnkey
to build [new pages].”
Chief executive officer,
eCommerce vendor› Simplicity to build and experiment with using existingorganizational resources. Organizations were looking for a solutionthat they could quickly pilot and test against their current mobile web
sites. Interviewees were attracted to AMP’s simplicity and readymade
resources and templates, as they were able to quickly build, test, anditerate on their AMP sites to drive performance improvements.
› Rapidly impact site traffic, engagement, retention, and clicks.
Given the growing strategic importance of high speed mobile web toboth publishers and eCommerce vendors, interviewees were looking
for a solution that could generate rapid business results without
massive incremental investment requirements.

Key Results: eCommerce
eCommerce vendors interviewed for the study revealed the following key
results from their investment in building AMP mobile experiences:› Improved page speed, better customer engagement, and anenhanced customer experience. eCommerce vendors interviewed
for the study experienced an over 80% reduction in their page load
time, a 60% increase in page views per user visit, and a twofold
increase in time spent on page. When speaking about the impact of its
AMP business-to-consumer (B2C) content marketing pages on its
channel sales, one vendor also provided anecdotal evidence ofimproving its click-through to e-retailer rate, although it was not able toquantify this metric at the time of the interview.
› Increased AMP traffic volume and improved sales conversions.
More responsive, higher-performing mobile web experiences improvedsite monetization, including a 20% increase in sales conversions onsite visits. The performance and search benefits of AMP drove a 10%
increase in overall site traffic.
› Delivery of fast, verifiable, and secure mobile experiences. In theface of diminishing consumer attention spans and hyper-competition
for mobile consumers’ share of wallet, AMP helped organizations staycompetitive with fast, compelling, and secure eCommerce
experiences, ultimately driving measurable revenue growth.

5 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)“AMP is the content delivery
method of the future because
it’s fast, verifiable, andsecure.”Chief executive officer,
eCommerce vendor

Key Results: Publishers
Our interviews with publishers revealed the following key results fromtheir investment in building AMP mobile experiences. While these key
results were not included in the ROI or benefit calculations highlighted in
the Executive Summary or Financial Analysis sections of this case study,
publishers indicated that they benefited from their investment in building
AMP mobile experiences in the following ways:› Improved content discoverability and performance. Publishers’
AMP pages were fast and highly responsive, with interviewees
revealing nearly 90% reductions in their page load times. As a result,publishers saw reduced bounce rates and significant increases in sitetraffic, with one interviewee indicating that they were receiving 5 million
to 8 million additional article clicks each week on their AMP pages.
› Measurable improvements in reader engagement. One of the key
catalysts for adopting and building AMP sites was the desire to better
engage mobile readers on publisher sites. As one interviewee put it,“AMP has made us think harder about how to make our own mobile
site faster, because we have seen a direct relationship between
performance and engagement.” Following the development of their
AMP pages, publishers reported material increases in page views per
visit, time spent on page, and return visitors.
› Improved advertising performance and enhanced monetization
opportunities. One publisher reported a 20% increase in adplacement click-through rate (CTR). When ad placements generate
more clicks for advertisers, those placements become more valuable— driving increased revenue for the publisher. While this interviewee
wasn’t monetizing clicks under a cost per thousand impressions (CPM)or pay per click (PPC) model, other publishers could reasonably expect
to grow advertising revenue by monetizing any CTR improvement.

“AMP allows our editorial
content to shine. It loads
quickly, it’s very stable,
images and videos rendernicely — it’s ultimately a goodexperience for our users thatallows us to end up on top.”
Chief product officer,
publisher“AMP has made us think harderabout how to make our own
mobile site faster, because wehave seen a direct relationshipbetween performance andengagement.”
Lead product manager,
publishereCommerce Composite Organization
Based on the interviews, Forrester constructed a TEI framework, acomposite eCommerce organization, and an associated ROI
analysis that illustrates the areas financially affected. The composite
organization is representative of the two eCommerce companies
that Forrester interviewed and is used to present the aggregate
financial analysis in the next section. Forrester also leveraged inputs
from interviewed publishing companies to better understand thenuances of consumer engagement, site discoverability, and pageperformance on AMP sites relative to their non-AMP mobile web
counterparts. The composite organization that Forrester synthesizedfrom the customer interviews has the following characteristics:

Key assumptions
4 million site visits/month
1% pre-AMP conversion rate
$50 average order value
10% profit margin› Composite organization overview. The organization is a US-based eCommerce vendor with over $20 million in
annual sales. The vendor has been in business for three years and has 10 employees.
› Content platforms and distribution channels. The composite partner receives an average of 4 million uniquesite visitors per month prior to building its AMP pages, 70% of which is mobile traffic. Ninety percent of all mobile
traffic lands on an AMP page, accounting for 63% of total visits to the composite organization’s site.
› Customer characteristics. While most of the organization’s current sales were from US-based transactions, anincreasing share of its business mix was from global sales. The organization had an average conversion rate ofon-site visits of 1%, average order values (AOV) of $50, and an average operating profit margin on sales of 10%.
› AMP environment. The composite organization built 30 AMP pages using six custom AMP templates.
6 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)Financial Analysis
QUANTIFIED BENEFIT AND COST DATA AS APPLIED TO THE COMPOSITE

Total BenefitsREF.

BENEFITYEAR 1YEAR 2

YEAR 3TOTAL

PRESENTVALUE

AtrProfit growth from increased
conversion rate$272,160$272,160$272,160$816,480$676,822

Btr

Profit growth from increased
AMP site traffic$77,112$159,082$169,104$405,298$328,625

Total benefits (risk-adjusted)$349,272$431,242$441,264$1,221,778$1,005,447

Profit Growth From Increased Conversion Rate
In the face of growing mobile device traffic, mobile web performance wasof mounting strategic importance for the composite organization. Despite
dedicating significant time and resources towards building a responsive
mobile experience for its customers, the organization found that its site
was still bogged down by heavy JavaScript and obstructive ads, resulting
in poor responsiveness, slow page load times, high bounce rates, andfrequent runtime errors. These mobile experience issues materially
impacted its customer’s experience, increasing the likelihood of cart
abandonment prior to transaction completion.
To better capitalize on the composite organization’s growing mobile web
segment, its leadership decided to build out and test AMP experiences
for both the product landing pages and all the subsequent pages
following the customer buying journey. Interviewed organizations statedan importance for using AMP deeper in the sales funnel (beyond productlanding pages) to achieve the best business outcomes, with one
interviewee stating: “Our users don’t convert on our landing page. We try
to keep the customer in the AMP site throughout the customer buying
journey.” If a customer starts off on a fast landing page but the next pageis sluggish, the opportunity to provide a better customer experience has
been ruined.
As a result of building and implementing a series of sequential AMP
pages across the mobile customer journey, the composite organization
was able to improve its conversion rate by 20% for customers who
accessed its AMP site relative to its legacy responsive mobile web site.
This increase in conversions significantly increased revenue and directly
impacted the composite organization’s bottom line.
In modeling the impact of AMP in increasing the composite
organization’s conversion rate, revenue, and profitability, Forrester madethe following assumptions:› The organization had 4 million unique visitors per month, with 63% of
these accessing AMP mobile web pages.
› Prior to adopting AMP, the organization had a 1% conversion rate onsite visits.
› The AOV of transactions made on the site was $50.
› The composite organization had an operating profit margin of 10%.
7 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

The table above shows the total of all
benefits across the areas listed below,
as well as present values (PVs)discounted at 10%. Over three years,
the composite organization expects
risk-adjusted total benefits to be a PVof more than $1 million.

“Our users don’t convert on ourlanding page. We try to keep
the customer in the AMP sitethroughout the customer
buying journey.”
Chief executive officer,
eCommerce$676,822
three-year
benefit PV

Profit growth fromincreased conversion
rate:
67% of total benefitsForrester realizes that conversion rate increases and the associatedprofit impact will vary significantly across companies, countries, andindustry verticals. Specific risk considerations include:

Impact risk is the risk that the businessor technology needs of theorganization may not be met by theinvestment, resulting in lower overall
total benefits. The greater theuncertainty, the wider the potential
range of outcomes for benefit
estimates.

› Conversion rate increases will vary depending on each organization’s
existing mobile web maturity, product and solution portfolio, andindustry.
› Average transaction sizes and profit margins will vary significantly
across companies, industries, and regions. Forrester advises potential
AMP adopters to consider their current business metrics within theprovided TEI model in calculating the profit impact of AMP on their own
organizations.
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by
10%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $676,822.
Profit Growth From Increased Conversion Rate: Calculation TableREF.

METRICA1

YEAR 1YEAR 2

YEAR 3

Unique visitors per month

4,000,000

4,000,000

4,000,000

A2

Percentage of visitors accessing AMP pages

63%

63%

63%

A3

Months per year

12

12

12

A4

Annual AMP page visitors

30,240,000

30,240,000

30,240,000

A5Conversion rate prior to AMP

1%

1%

1%

A6

Increase in conversion rate from AMP

20%

20%

20%

A7

Average transaction size

$50

$50

$50

A8

Profit margin

10%

10%

10%

At

Profit growth from increased conversion rate

A4*(A5*A6)*A7*
A8$302,400$302,400$302,400

Risk adjustment↓10%$272,160$272,160$272,160

Atr

CALC.

A1*A2*A3

Profit growth from increased conversion rate(risk-adjusted)

Profit Growth From Increased AMP Site Traffic
In addition to improving the conversion rate that eCommerce vendors
attained on their AMP mobile web visits, interviewees also revealed thatthey were able to significantly grow traffic to their AMP pages relative totheir legacy non-AMP mobile web pages. Site traffic increases
compounded the profitability impact of AMP, as end customers
converted at a higher rate on eCommerce vendors’ AMP sites relative totheir legacy, non-AMP counterparts. Interviewees identified improved site
discoverability, faster load times, and reduced bounce rates as some of
the key attributes of AMP pages in contributing to the increase in sitetraffic reported by AMP site owners.
In calculating the impact of AMP in driving higher site traffic, along withthe corresponding revenue and profitability implications, Forrester madethe following assumptions for the composite organization:

8 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)$328,625
three-year
benefit PV

Profit growth fromincreased AMP traffic:
33% of total benefits› The organization’s AMP sites realized a 5% year-over-year increase insite traffic in Year 1 of the analysis while it tested and finetuned theperformance of its site. It experienced 10% year-over-year increases in
AMP site traffic in years 2 and 3 of the analysis.
› The post-AMP conversion rate of 1.2%, which represents a 20%
increase from the composite organization’s baseline conversion figure,is applied to net new site traffic in calculating the profit uplift associatedwith AMP.
› The AOV on transactions made through the site was $50.
› The composite organization had an operating profit margin of 10%.
› Year-over-year increases in site traffic compound and increase thenumber of unique site visitors the composite organization has eachyear of the analysis. Since customers may use different platforms anddevices when reengaging and making subsequent visits to an
eCommerce site, we made no assumptions regarding each customer’s
propensity to visit an AMP site specifically, as seen in row B1 below.
Our interviews revealed that AMP site owners experienced a range ofsite traffic increases. Furthermore, Forrester realizes that increases insite traffic can be impacted by myriad factors outside the use of AMP. To
account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this benefit downward by
15%, yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $328,625.
Profit Growth From Increased AMP Site Traffic: Calculation TableREF.

METRICCALC.

YEAR 1YEAR 2

YEAR 3

B1

Baseline unique visitors per year

B1PY+B4PY

48,000,000

49,512,000

52,631,256

B2

Percentage of visitors accessing AMP
pages

63%

63%

63%

B3

Increase in site traffic from AMP pages

5%

10%

10%

B4

Increase in annual AMP site visitors

1,512,000

3,119,256

3,315,769

B5

Post-AMP conversion rate

1.2%

1.2%

1.2%

B6

Average transaction size

$50

$50

$50

B7

Profit margin

10%

10%

10%

Bt

Profit growth from increased AMP sitetraffic

B4*B5*B6*B7$90,720$187,155$198,946

Risk adjustment↓15%$77,112$159,082$169,104

Btr

B1*B2*B3

Profit growth from increased AMP sitetraffic (risk-adjusted)

Flexibility
The value of flexibility is clearly unique to each website owner, and themeasure of its value varies from organization to organization. There are
multiple scenarios in which a content producer might choose to
implement AMP and later realize additional uses and business
opportunities, including:

9 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Flexibility, as defined by TEI,
represents an investment in additional
capacity or capability that could beturned into business benefit for a future
additional investment. This provides anorganization with the "right" or theability to engage in future initiatives but
not the obligation to do so.

› Content producers will pair AMP landing pages with progressive
web applications (PWA) to deliver highly interactive experiences
without sacrificing performance. Consumers can be resistant todownloading too many dedicated mobile applications, and as a result,organizations are turning to PWAs to deliver the rich, interactive
experiences that are on par with dedicated mobile applications, suchas shopping carts or subscription-only content. As one publisher
shared with Forrester: “When users land on the AMP page, it actually
downloads the shell for our PWA. By the time they get to the PWA
page, it’s even faster than if they had come directly from Google to thePWA.” First movers identify that developing this pairing is still in its
initial stages and is not yet formally documented, but they projectsignificant benefits by leveraging the symbiotic combination of AMP’s
speed with PWA’s interactivity.

“When users land on [our] AMP
page, it actually downloads theshell for our PWA. By the timethey get to the PWA page, it’seven faster than if they had
come directly from Google to
the PWA.”
Lead product manager,
publisher› Constant development of capabilities and documentation will
enable website owners to leverage AMP throughout an increasing
portion of their funnel. AMP’s open source nature combined withbacking from Google has resulted in constant, speedy development of
new features enabling pages rich in design and interactivity. For
example, an eCommerce site may soon be able to implement AMP
pages as the backbone of the core shopping cart, checkout, andpayment pages. Developers can also leverage the growing availabilityof templates and documentation to build and release these newcapabilities quickly throughout their website’s funnel.
› Website owners see the potential eliminating their existing mobile
websites, to instead leverage AMP pages for 100% of their mobile
traffic. While all interviewees for this study currently utilize paired
mobile website and AMP pages for their content, several are looking
forward with the goal in mind of completely dissolving their legacy
mobile website in favor of the one built with AMP. They identified
deeper-funnel interactivity and complete analytics integration as
inhibitors for relying solely on AMP at this time; however, they expect
these feature sets to mature and ultimately see significant cost savings
by eliminating their mobile web pages to reduce development, hosting,and maintenance costs. Not all ad platform tracking codes are yet
supported, so as one eCommerce interviewee explained, “We stillneed [our legacy] responsive website because AMP doesn’t support all
the analytics tracking yet . . . but ultimately, we envision only having an
AMP site.”› Content producers aim to leverage ads built in AMP HTML on
their pages in order to improve user experience and driveincreased ad revenue. More and more advertisers are creating AMPoptimized ads, which ensure that ads render with the same speed as
the other page content — ultimately driving a better user experience.
Interviewees felt that it’s likely that reducing loading times foradvertisements would result in more traffic to their advertisers andimproved KPIs, such as CPM.
Flexibility would also be quantified when evaluated as part of a specificproject (described in more detail in Appendix A).

10 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)“We still need [our legacy]
responsive website because
AMP doesn’t support all theanalytics tracking yet. . . but
ultimately, we envision only
having an AMP site.”
Chief executive officer
eCommerceTotal Costs
REF.

COST

INITIAL

YEAR 1YEAR 2

YEAR 3TOTAL

PRESENT
VALUE

Ctr

Pilot/proof-of-concept
costs$8,146$0$0$0$8,146$8,146

Dtr

Training and ramp-up
costs$12,058

$0

$0

$0

$12,058$12,058

Etr

Site development andmaintenance costs$41,990$3,118$3,212$3,308$51,629$49,966$0$55,000$56,650$58,350$170,000$140,657$62,194$58,118$59,862$61,658$241,833$210,827

Ftr

Performance testing,analysis, and reporting
sis, and reporting
Total costs (risk-adjusted)

Pilot/Proof-Of-Concept Costs
These are the internal resource costs for developer, designer, analyst,
and executive oversight needed to build an AMP pilot page and conduct
A/B testing for the PoC.
› Content producers found that an initial pilot was an effective way totrial AMP. One interviewee recommended to “build a proof of concept
in two days for one of your page types; spend another day to make it
look, feel, and interact similarly to the legacy experience; and thenspend time on the harder decisions — like if, when, and how to deploy.
Don't belabor [building AMP Pages] and stall your work.”› Interviewees identified that developers found the process to build an
AMP page to be faster than building a comparable mobile website
page, due to its simplicity and the reduced usage of JavaScript.
› The AMP Project also now makes prebuilt templates available across avariety of page types, which can enable a developer to mock up apage in only hours rather than days.
The composite organization piloted AMP pages by building an initial
proof of concept, involving a cross functional team of a developer, adesigner, an analyst, and an executive team member.
› Forrester projected that the composite organization was able to build
the initial proof of concept over one week, with a web developer anddata analyst devoting their entire effort to the project while a designerand executive team member each devoted approximately half of theireffort. This should be seen as a very conservative estimation of therequired labor, as companies could likely build their proof-of-concept
much faster — in only one or two days — by utilizing the extensive
templates, samples, and documentation available online for AMP.
› Forrester utilized the fully loaded salary for each of these positions witha 25% burden rate to calculate the overall costs.
Forrester recognizes that organizations may have differing architecturalor design requirements that may affect the expense of creating a pilot.
However, with the context that AMP is very easy to learn for an HTMLdeveloper and the understanding that a proof of concept should not be
belabored nor made overly complex, this risk was deemed to be minimal.
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 5%,
yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $8,146.
11 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

The table above shows the total of all
costs across the areas listed below, as
well as present values (PVs)discounted at 10%. Over three years,
the composite organization expects
risk-adjusted total costs to be a PV of
more than $210,000.

$8,146three-year
cost PV

Pilot/PoC:
4% of total costs“Don't belabor [building AMP
Pages] and stall your work.”
Chief executive officer,
eCommerce

Implementation risk is the risk that a
proposed investment may deviate fromthe original or expected requirements,
resulting in higher costs than
anticipated. The greater theuncertainty, the wider the potential
range of outcomes for cost estimates.

Pilot/Proof-Of-Concept Costs: Calculation TableREF.

METRIC

C1

Senior web developer hours to build out pilot/proof ofconcept

40

C2

Data analyst hours for pilot/PoC phase40

C3

Designer hours for pilot/PoC phase

20

C4

Executive team member hours for oversight and approval

25

C5

Senior developer fully loaded hourly rate

25% burden rate

$68.51

C6

Data analyst fully loaded hourly rate

25% burden rate

$48.08C7Designer fully loaded hourly rate

25% burden rate

$42.07

C8

Executive fully loaded hourly rate

25% burden rate

$90.14Ct

Pilot/proof-of-concept costs(C1*C5)+(C2*C6)+(C3*C7)+(C4*C8)$7,758Risk adjustment

↑5%

Ctr

CALC.

Pilot/proof-of-concept costs (risk-adjusted)

INITIAL$8,146

Training And Ramp-Up Costs
This category accounts for the resource costs for internal training ofdevelopers to fully utilize AMP’s features and style.
AMP is based off standard HTML code, and interviewees noted that it isvery simple to learn for a front-end developer with existing HTML andCSS knowledge. Extensive documentation is available through the AMP
Project, github, and a variety of sources for a developer to quickly learn
the necessary elements and rules. This documentation and related
templates are free and open source for anyone to access.

6%$12,058
three-year
cost PV

Forrester’s model assumes that four developers each take one week totrain and ramp up on AMP at a fully loaded amortized salary of $69 per
hour.
Some organizations may face more difficult challenges due to theirsystems, ad partners, or interactivity needs and consequently may needto stretch AMP further than others. The interviewees for this study notedthat there are some features that can be implemented in AMP andlearning to implement those technologies may take more training. Overtime, these features are becoming a core part of AMP, but websites thatwish to push the envelope may face additional costs to be on the
bleeding edge.
To account for this risk, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%,yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $12,058.

12 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

Training andramp-up costs:
6% of total costs

Training And Ramp-Up Costs: Calculation TableREF.

METRIC

D1

Training hours and ramp-up time per developer

40

D2

Number of senior web developers trained on AMP

4

D3

Senior developer fully loaded hourly rate

25% burden rate

$68.51

Dt

Training and ramp-up costs

D1*D2*D3$10,962

Risk adjustment

↑10%

Dtr

CALC.

Training and ramp-up costs (risk-adjusted)

INITIAL$12,058

Site Development And Maintenance Costs
This category accounts for the resource costs to develop the AMP pages,
implement them within the CMS, and maintain them for the long term.
To implement AMP across an entire website, the organization needs todevelop AMP page templates within its CMS. As they populate newpages of content, such as dynamic product listings and news articles, the
CMS system automatically generates a AMP page of that content. This
organization has chosen to generate “paired” AMP pages alongside thedesktop and legacy mobile website versions, though it plans toeventually dissolve its legacy mobile website templates in favor of AMP.
Interviewees identified several key elements to the process:› It was key to involve a cross-functional team of developers, designers,
ad-tech specialists, data analysts, and leadership during thedevelopment process. It was essential that these experts worked
together to build AMP pages to avoid sacrificing design goals, analytics
tracking, or advertisement placement.
› Ultimately, Forrester’s interviewees were very happy with their ability tocreate AMP pages that mirrored the design goals of their mobile anddesktop versions. The lead product manager at a major publisher
noted: “I wouldn’t say there were any major design sacrifices. We wereable to get our [legacy and AMP pages] very close in design . . . and as
AMP has evolved, it can support even more of the content that wecreate.” The chief executive officer at an eCommerce business shared
the sentiment, noting that: “Our AMP pages look almost identical to ourmobile responsive pages. . . . And with the new changes to AMP, it’s
becoming almost turnkey to build them.”
This model includes the initial effort of four senior web developers, one
designer, and one executive to build out the AMP page templates for theorganization over a three-week period, with the developers devoting
100% of their time and the designer and executive devoting one-third of
their time to the project. After initial launch, occasional updates weremade to keep the website up to date with new AMP features and adjust
to new integration, content, or design needs that arose over time.
Forrester’s analysis did identify some risks, however: interviewees notedthat it could be challenging to effectively leverage AMP when pursuingfeatures beyond the official specifications, such as for deeper-funnel
interactivity or certain ad-tech integrations. As one interviewee noted:“Building [AMP pages] is the easiest part. Learning how to leverage AMP
13 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)$49,966

23%

three-year
cost PV

Site development andmaintenance:
23% of total costs“We were able to get our[legacy and AMP pages] very
close in design . . . and as
AMP has evolved, it can
support even more of thecontent that we create.”
Lead product manager,
publisher“Our AMP pages look almost
identical to our mobile pages. .
. . And with the new changes
to AMP, it’s becoming almost
turnkey to build them.”
Chief executive officer,
eCommerceeffectively is where the real effort lies.” However, AMP is progressing
quickly, and the interviewees noted that most of the challenges they
faced were due to early adoption — new documentation, templates, andfeatures that have been added to AMP during the past six months havedrastically reduced these challenges.
To account for these risks, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%,yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $49,966.
Site Development And Maintenance Costs: Calculation TableREF.

METRICE1

INITIAL

YEAR 1YEAR 2

YEAR 3

Number of senior web developers tobuild and maintain AMP portfolio

4

1

1

1

E2

Senior developer hours to build out
AMP portfolio

120

E3

Senior developer hours spent on
ongoing AMP page maintenance andaugmentations

30

30

30

E4

Designer hours spent on building AMP
portfolio and augmentations

40

8

8

8

E5

Executive team member hours foroversight and approval

40

4

4

4

E6

Sr. developer fully loaded hourly rate

3% annual increase$68.51$70.57$72.68$74.86

E7

Designer fully loaded hourly rate

3% annual increase$42.07$43.33$44.63$45.97

E8

Executive fully loaded hourly rate

3% annual increase$90.14$92.84$95.63$98.50Et

Site development andmaintenance costs(E1*(E2+E3)*E6)+(E4*E7)+(E5*E8)$38,173$2,835$2,920$3,008Risk adjustment↑10%$41,990$3,118$3,212$3,308Etr

CALC.

Site development andmaintenance costs (risk-adjusted)

Performance Testing, Analysis, And Reporting
Page performance is essential to both publishers and eCommerce intheir pursuit of increased revenue. While AMP is uniquely skilled at
improving page speed and user experience, it is essential thatorganizations invest in careful testing and analysis of other KPIs on their
AMP pages, such as conversion rates and advertisement CPM.
Careful analysis was needed, as one customer identified, because AMP
performance is not apples to apples with their normal web page. For
example, “we’re getting more visits [due to our placement in Google’s
AMP carousel], but the pages per session is not higher because it’sreally easy to [swipe to different articles on the same topic] from a user
perspective.” They found that render time was significantly better, and soeven in cases where bounce rate was not lower, their analysis identified
that this had a positive impact on their user’s time spent actually reading
their articles and on their search engine optimization (SEO).
The model organization devoted 50% of one data analyst’s time to theongoing monitoring and improvement of its AMP pages. However, it
14 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)$140,657
three-year
cost PV
67%

Performance testing,analysis, and reporting:
67% of total costscould take more or less effort than expected to integrate and measure
the performance differences between AMP, the mobile web, and desktop
versions potentially resulting in increased resource cost.
To account for this risk, Forrester adjusted this cost upward by 10%,yielding a three-year risk-adjusted total PV of $140,657.
Performance Testing, Analysis, And Reporting: Calculation TableREF.

METRICF1

YEAR 1YEAR 2

YEAR 3

Ongoing data analyst resource for A/B
testing and AMP page analytics

0.50

0.50

0.50

F2

Data analyst fully loaded annual salary$100,000$103,000$106,090

Ft

Performance testing, analysis, andreporting

F1*F2$50,000$51,500$53,045

Risk adjustment↑10%$55,000$56,650$58,350

Ftr

CALC.

Performance testing, analysis, andreporting (risk-adjusted)

15 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

INITIAL$0Financial Summary
CONSOLIDATED THREE-YEAR RISK-ADJUSTED METRICS

Cash Flow Chart (Risk-Adjusted)

The financial results calculated in the
Benefits and Costs sections can beused to determine the ROI, NPV, andpayback period for the composite
organization's investment. Forrester
assumes a yearly discount rate of 10%
for this analysis.

Total costs
Total benefits
Cumulative net benefits
Cash
flows

$1.2 M$1.0 M$0.8 M$0.6 M

These risk-adjusted ROI,
NPV, and payback period
values are determined byapplying risk-adjustment
factors to the unadjusted
results in each Benefit
and Cost section.

$0.4 M$0.2 M-$0.2 M
InitialYear 1

Year 2

Year 3

Cash Flow Table (Risk-Adjusted)

INITIAL

YEAR 1YEAR 2

YEAR 3TOTAL

PRESENT
VALUE

Total costs($62,194)($58,118)($59,862)($61,658)($241,833)($210,827)

Total benefits$0$349,272$431,242$441,264$1,221,778$1,005,447

Net benefits($62,194)$291,154$371,380$379,606$979,945$794,620

ROI

377%

Payback period<6 months

16 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)AMP: Overview
The following information is provided by Google. Forrester has not validated any claims and does not endorse
AMP, Google, or any of Google’s offerings.
Higher performance and engagement
Web pages and ads built with the open source AMP library load
near instantly, giving users a smooth, engaging experience acrossdevices.
A collaborative effort
AMP is built thanks to a deep collaboration with thousands ofdevelopers, publishers and websites, distribution platforms, andtech companies. More than 4 billion AMP pages have been
published to date and 100+ leading analytics, ad tech, and CMS
providers support the AMP format.
Flexibility and results

The AMP Project is an
open source initiative
aiming to make the web
better for all. The project
enables the creation of
websites and ads that areconsistently fast, beautiful,and high-performing
across devices anddistribution platforms.

AMP provides flexibility for websites across many verticals, letting
them decide how to present their content and what technology
vendors to use, all while maintaining and improving key
performance indicators.
For more information about the AMP Project and to learn how to get started with AMP,
visit ampproject.org or follow @amphtml on Twitter.

17 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)Appendix A: Total Economic Impact
Total Economic Impact is a methodology developed by Forrester
Research that enhances a company’s technology decision-making
processes and assists vendors in communicating the value propositionof their products and services to clients. The TEI methodology helps
companies demonstrate, justify, and realize the tangible value of IT
initiatives to both senior management and other key businessstakeholders.

Total Economic Impact Approach
Benefits represent the value delivered to the business by the
product. The TEI methodology places equal weight on themeasure of benefits and the measure of costs, allowing for a
full examination of the effect of the technology on the entire
organization.

Costs consider all expenses necessary to deliver the
proposed value, or benefits, of the product. The cost category
within TEI captures incremental costs over the existing
environment for ongoing costs associated with the solution.

Flexibility represents the strategic value that can beobtained for some future additional investment building on
top of the initial investment already made. Having the ability
to capture that benefit has a PV that can be estimated.

PRESENTVALUE (PV)The present or current value of(discounted) cost and benefit
estimates given at an interest rate(the discount rate). The PV of costs
and benefits feed into the total NPVof cash flows.

NET PRESENTVALUE (NPV)The present or current value of(discounted) future net cash flows
given an interest rate (the discountrate). A positive project NPV
normally indicates that theinvestment should be made, unlessother projects have higher NPVs.

RETURN ON
INVESTMENT (ROI)
A project’s expected return inpercentage terms. ROI is
calculated by dividing net benefits(benefits less costs) by costs.

DISCOUNT
RATE

Risks measure the uncertainty of benefit and cost estimates
given: 1) the likelihood that estimates will meet original
projections and 2) the likelihood that estimates will be
tracked over time. TEI risk factors are based on “triangular
distribution.”

The initial investment column contains costs incurred at “time 0” or at the
beginning of Year 1 that are not discounted. All other cash flows are discounted
using the discount rate at the end of the year. PV calculations are calculated foreach total cost and benefit estimate. NPV calculations in the summary tables are
the sum of the initial investment and the discounted cash flows in each year.
Sums and present value calculations of the Total Benefits, Total Costs, andCash Flow tables may not exactly add up, as some rounding may occur.

18 | The Total Economic Impact Of Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP)

The interest rate used in cash flow
analysis to take into account thetime value of money. Organizations
typically use discount rates
between 8% and 16%.

PAYBACKPERIODThe breakeven point for aninvestment. This is the point in timeat which net benefits (benefits
minus costs) equal initialinvestment or cost.